“We give to God and his Church - Prayerfully” FUNDING OUR FUTURE - Sermon 2 Sunday 17th October 2010 - All Saints

Readings:   Nehemiah 1:1-11

                    Matthew 14:22-26

 

This is the second in our series of sermons ‘Jesus is God’s gift to us.  In response, we give to God and his Church . . . . .’

 

Last week I preached on the subject ‘. . . . we give to God and his Church Generously’, and if you weren’t here last week, I do ask you please to take a look at that sermon which is on the Parish Website.  Also, if you weren’t here, please take home a copy of the Funding our Future booklet which everyone was given.

 

Today, the sermon subject is ‘. . . . we give to God and his Church Prayerfully’.

 

When we launched the Parish Prayer Programme four years ago, I used these words in a sermon: “Prayer will lift our dull and uninformed lives, into the living presence of the God of all life.  It’s not easy, but we must persevere, and I do fervently believe that our Prayer life, provides us with the means to set our churches ablaze with God’s power and Glory”.

 

I then went on to turn those words into a challenge: “That is a hope, and it’s a destination on a journey - are you going to join me, so that it’s a journey we make together?”

 

Now, we’ve gone a long way on that journey in four years, but there is a sense in which all of that still applies - you see, it’s about prayer - and I re-iterate it here as we consider ‘Giving Prayerfully’.

 

There are, for me, three things which emerge from all of this, and from the two readings which we have heard this morning, which are important in relation to our consideration of what financial contribution we give to our local Church!

 

The first thing, is that when we decide what we are going to give to the Church through the planned giving scheme, it should be after serious thought - a considered response! 

 

Throughout our lives we all have to make difficult decisions about all sorts of things - decisions which are going to affect the rest of our lives, as well as the lives of other people. 

 

For the Christian, there is a one big difference about the way we make these decisions - and that is taht we can ask God what he thinks - we can pray!  Now you may say that I’m being simplistic here, but my personal experience, and the experience of many others, is that when we pray about something difficult, the answer so often just seems to come!

 

So before we say something like, “I couldn’t possibly give that much money to the Parish of Fleet each month” we really do need to talk to God about it!

 

Then the second thing that emerges is the link that exists between prayer and faith.  Let’s take a look at that reading from Nehemiah:  As the helpful introduction on the reading sheet reminds us, this is set in the year  BC 446.  Nehemiah is a Jew in the court of Darius, King of the Persians, and he receives news of the returning exiles who have found that their Jerusalem has been destroyed: “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”     

 

Nehemiah realises that the people are to blame for their unfaithfulness, and so the rest of the passage is his prayer of contrition bewailing his personal shortcomings, and bewailing the punishment which has been laid on the people for having earlier disobeyed God.

 

So, if we have prayed, and have not listened to the answer, or not acted on it, we must beware, or there remains the possibility that our walls, may also be broken down, and our gates be set ablaze - at least in a metaphorical sense, if not a literal one!

And then in Matthew’s Gospel we have this familiar passage of Jesus walking on the water, and of Peter’s response to it: we are reminded that we need to persevere, and not lose faith at the last minute: “Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

So we really can have the faith to step out onto the water, because we also have this wonderful assurance that if we do get it all wrong, Jesus will be there to catch us. 

Which brings me to the third thing to emerge from all of this, which is, that giving, and the decision about how much we give, is done in relationship - relationship with each other as the Christian Community in this place, and relationship with God who helps us to decide and to have faith!

I am sure the huge decision which we made as a Parish, to invest so much of our resources in our new buildings was itself something we prayed hard about.  And I am sure, too, that it was all of that prayer, which helped us to take that brave step - stepping out in the belief that we were doing what God wanted us to do, and that it was right for our church community and the wider community around us in Fleet.

Now, the need is to turn our prayers towards making all this sustainable in the long term.

Which neatly brings us back to the reason why we need to be having this ‘Funding our Future’ Programme at all - which is to properly resource the Ministry of this Parish, so that together we can build Community, and as a Church, together serve that Community!

But what is ‘Community’?  Wikipedia tells us that ‘In biological terms a Community is a group of species living together’  It goes on to say that, ‘In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.  Traditionally a “community” has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location.  But the word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion’

So the hall-mark of a community is that things are done together.  Sadly, I venture to say, that places like Fleet have not even begun to learn what ‘being community’ means, and I will further venture to say that even its churches are only just beginning to learn.

 

But I fervently believe that ‘building and being community’ in a distinctively Christian way, is actually what ‘being church’ is all about, and so we need to learn the model, build it, and then show the world what it means!  And ‘boy’ is that going to need a lot of prayer!

 

My experience, is certainly that Churches who really work at getting their prayer life right, are churches whose members are Christ-centred, are churches where there are enough volunteers to do all the things that the church needs to do, are churches where there is sufficient financial support to do all of those things, and are churches where great things do happen!

 

Prayer is the key which will unlock all the potential which we have as a church.

 

Prayer will provide us with all the resources to do all of the things that God longs for us to do in our community.

 

But prayer is worth nothing, unless we have the faith to go with it!  Simply, we have to believe that what we are asking for, can really happen!

 

“Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus”.  Are we ready as individuals, as a Church and as a Community to get out of the boat and walk on the water?

 

This entry was posted on 17/10/2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Funding our Future. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print