Sunday, July 05, 2009

My Story

Sunday, July 5 seems like an appropriate time to tell my story in a new congregation.

You see it is my birthday, and somehow the introduction to a new congregation would seem to dictate that I open myself up to this new crowd of folks, especially as I ask them to open themselves up to me, so that together we can be transformed by the living God, through the power of Jesus Christ, and the action of the Holy Spirit.

The text this morning comes from Mark 6:1-13, and tells the story of how it was when Jesus went home to be in ministry. I realize that the backlash came because the people knew his origins, but I can also see how it added to the message that he brought, because it was so different from what they knew of his origin.

Therein lies the power of transformation - knowing how it was, and what God is doing now - lends itself to the greater truth of what God can do if we allow God to do some work along the way. I have been transformed by Jesus Christ, but I can say with certainty that God has not finished working the Holy Spirit within me such that I will be transformed again, and I am in the midst of transformation even now.

So here's to being transformed, and telling our stories, or where we have been, and what God is doing now.

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2 Comments:

At July 05, 2009, Anonymous Gale Hartman said...

Happy Birthday, sorry that I won't be able to meet you this morning @SAUMC, I will try to catch up will you later in the week.

 
At July 06, 2009, Anonymous David Youngdale said...

One of my favorite quotes from E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist missionary to India from the last century- "The very best of us are only Christians in the making." I don't know but that Jones may have gotten that quote from someone else. The point here is we are all undergoing the transformation process. None of us were ever born as full grown adults; similiarly none of us were ever "born again" as full grown Christians.

 

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