Ask the Pastor | Parma Lutheran Church

ASK the PASTOR

Pastor Jay dives into thoughtful topics pertaining to our church life and offers insight, reflection and encouragement.

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+ What do pastors do during the week?

In the service of ordination, “[I was] entrusted with the office of word and sacrament in the one holy catholic church.” In addition to that I promised I would diligently study the holy scriptures and be faithful in my use of the means of grace, and to pray for the people I serve, nourish them with the word and sacraments, and lead
them by example in faithful service and holy living. After making those promises the church prayed asking God that I might be a faithful pastor, patient teacher, and wise counselor.

The old joke says pastors work one hour a week on Sunday. My first pastoral mentor, an old, experienced pastor,
taught me to work 50 hours a week. Twenty-nine years later, my weekly average is still fifty hours. That’s
combining my time in the building and working at home. I study and reflect upon the scriptures both in the
church building and at home. One priority for me during the week is to prepare the sermon, which includes study,
prayer, reflection, and then putting pen to paper. I start reflecting and praying on the next Sunday’s readings after
worship on the preceding Sunday. I reflect and pray on the readings and then ponder and pray throughout the
week as to how we might apply the lessons the readings, psalm, and the gospel teach us and then ask how we
might apply those lessons to our daily lives.

Pastors are trained to be available to their church members 24/7. Pastors visit homebound members either in their
homes, or in the hospital, or at assisted living facilities. I try to visit and bring Communion to our homebound members once a month. If you’re ever admitted to the hospital, please let me know so I can visit you. As a pastor
I’m obligated to visit members in the hospital, or sick at home. It’s your obligation to tell me if you’re sick or hospitalized, so I can live up to my obligation to visit you. Maybe you won’t want a visit. But if you are a member or associate member of this congregation you have a pastor, and pastors visit and pray with their hospitalized and sick congregants. So, call me to let me know if you’re sick or hospitalized.

My “weekend” is Friday & Saturday. Sunday is a full workday for me, as with all the other days of my work
week. But I tend to work a lot of Fridays and Saturdays. After worship on Sunday, I lead Bible study, or confirmation, or attend a meeting, and then on Sunday afternoons I go to the pastor’s office to start prepping for the next Sunday and Wednesday worship services. I work on the bulletins by putting in the readings, picking the
hymns for Sunday’s worship, (Barbara Tibbitts as the Wednesday accompanist picks the hymns for Wednesday
worship), and I make any adjustments to the liturgy I see fit according to the liturgical calendar for Sunday or
Wednesday worship services. And as I already noted above, I begin working on sermon preparation for the next
Sunday on that preceding Sunday afternoon.

Throughout the week I work closely with the church administrator, who serves as my executive assistant.
Together we facilitate the business of the congregation. According to the model of leadership most Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) congregations use is the pastor serves as the chief executive officer (CEO)
of the congregation. The pastor directly supervises employees and volunteers and leads the congregation
according to the will of the people and the elected and appointed leaders. The executive committee provides
oversight of the pastor and the employees to hold us accountable. If anyone has a complaint concerning me, they
may go to the executive committee to voice their concern. If anyone has a complaint about any of the employees
other than me they ought to come to me first as the employee’s immediate supervisor to allow me an opportunity
to correct the issue. If a complainant doesn’t get satisfaction from my response or corrective action their next stop
should then be to go to the president of the congregation or any of the other members of the executive committee to voice their concern. The president and pastor ought to meet reasonably often to discuss congregation and employee matters. As pastor, I attend all committee meetings within the congregation, as does the church administrator and president. And I attend monthly meetings with the dean, pastors, and deacons of our synod conference.

Pastors provide spiritual counseling and guidance. One of the things a pastor does is to help people figure out
their spiritual gifts and then guide them to faithfully practice those gifts to God’s glory. I had extensive
experience as a pastoral counselor during my twenty-two years as a military chaplain. I had a minimum of
twenty-thousand hours of counseling experience. I find it odd that people here don’t come to me much for
pastoral counseling. I don’t know why, because I got the sense from the call committee when you were looking
for a pastor that you were looking for a pastor with pastoral counseling experience.

As your pastor, an important part of my prayer life is praying for you and your family daily. I spend time daily in
the church building and home reading, reflecting and studying God’s Word. And, I pray and mediate. I’ve been
practicing meditation since I was a small child. So, you might walk by the pastor’s office and see me quietly
sitting seemingly staring off into space. I’m meditating or praying. Remember, praying is talking to God.
Meditating is listening to God. Like any conversation, we can’t do the one without the other.

There are a lot of words on above, but it seems like what I wrote barely scratches the surface of what I
do throughout any given week as your pastor.

+ I would like to see an explanation of who all the various civil and religious authorities were at the time of Jesus. Who/what were the Sadducees, Pharisees, and any other religious authorities? Who were the local [Jewish] civil authorities? Who were the authorities appointed by Rome?

There is a lot we can learn about each of these individual questions. But sometimes less is more. I’ll tell you the main points of each. First, the Pharisees. They were religious professionals and teachers who studied Jewish [Old Testament] laws and sought to teach people how to live those laws in their then contemporary lives. In my opinion, they got so caught up in practicing the law that they, like the old saying goes, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. In other words, they got so caught in the details of the laws themselves they lost sight of the Lawgiver, God! Jesus, the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah, stood before them, and they were so blinded by their focus on the law and their own preconceived notions that they didn’t recognize God’s Son. I was taught to think of them not bad people, but rather as people who had good intentions. They just got too wrapped up in their focus on the law. After the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans, Pharisees would go on to become our present-day rabbis, and perhaps even pastors. We associate Pharisees with the local town and village synagogue.

The Sadducees were religious leaders afflated with the Temple, whereas the Pharisees were leaders and the teachers of local synagogues. The New Testament seems to group the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes together. The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife or resurrection.

The Scribes were a part of the learned class in Jesus’ time. They often teamed up the Pharisees in the gospels to challenge Jesus with questions. They were like religious lawyers, and like the Sadducees, they were affiliated with the Temple, and in addition they served at various levels of government much like a lawyer might.

Judea, the Holy Land, was under the control of Rome. The governor was Pilate. He was appointed by Rome to govern, but mostly to keep the peace. That was why when Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate was considered that the people might riot, and that would reflect very badly upon Pilate.

The Sanhedrin was the Jewish ruling body made up of 71 religious leaders, including the high priest, who served as its president. The members of this ruling council were made up of the chief priests, scribes, and elders. They were allowed to function under the Roman occupation, as long as peace was kept. It was the Sanhedrin that hired Judas to betray Jesus, and it was them who planned Jesus’ death and brought Jesus before Pilate.

When we read the New Testament keep in mind that Rome had control. It was Rome who collected taxes, and they used Jewish tax collectors to do it. Tax collectors were seen by the Jews as traitors because they worked for the Roman government, plus tax collectors were known to collect more tax than they needed to and kept the extra for themselves. They were truly hated by the Jews during Jesus’ time.

+ Where are we in the discussion to either get a loan to remodel and upgrade our current church building, or sell the building and either build a new church home suited to our current and future needs, or purchase another building best suited to our current and future needs?

First, a little context, in the fall of 2021, the then members of Parma Lutheran Church called me to shepherd this church family in “facing the challenges of a changing community.” You called me to be your, “Shepherd, Pastor, Leader, and Innovator… to help [the Parma Lutheran Church family] remain faithful to [Christ’s Church] and community, and [to be Pastor] who will bring Joy and excitement to their ministry” (From the Ministry Site Profile: Summary Description – July 2019). In the early summer of 2021, the bishop recommended that I might be a good match for the sort of pastor the people of Parma Lutheran were searching for. So, upon the bishop’s recommendation I read the words in quotation marks above, which were printed in the Parma Lutheran site profile describing the sort of pastor you wanted to call. The pastor you described was the sort of congregation I hoped to serve during my post-retirement years. These words drew me to you. In fact, these same words are printed and framed and sit on my desk to serve as a constant reminder of my mandate to serve Christ as your shepherd, pastor, leader, and innovator, which to say “innovator” means someone who thinks outside the box and who is willing to boldly lead people in the name, love, and Spirit of Jesus Christ. I share these words with you now to remind us of the sort of people and pastor the Holy Spirit has joined together in ministry. You and the Holy Spirit called me to be your leader and that is what I am prayerfully seeking to do by calling us to action.

After I was installed as your pastor, the executive committee and I worked with the council and majority of the congregation to begin charting our course to our 100th Anniversary, which will be January 22, 2033. Our goal then and now are to have our church home and all our administrative processes up to date and ready to begin our second century as a thriving church family. By 2033, if we decide to stay in our current building we will need a new HVAC system for the main worship spaces, we’ll need new flooring throughout the building to go over the now decaying asbestos tiles, all the restrooms will need a down-to-the-studs remodel, and if want to use or rent the second floor we’ll need to install an elevator, the bell tower needs tuck-pointing, and we all would very much like to get the bells working again, and the parking lot will need to be down to the ground repaved, and we might need roof repairs again by 2033. Plus, our main worship spaces, the nave, narthex, and chancel, should be refurbished.

At last year’s November semi-annual congregation meeting I called for five to seven volunteers to form an ad-hac committee to research, discuss, and prepare proposals to address the questions of whether we stay in our current church home, or sell and build a new building better suited to our current and future needs, or do we buy an existing property that better meets our current and future needs.

Barbara Tibbitts & Barbara Schneider volunteered. Barbara Tibbitts is a real estate agent. She reported that church properties in our area are not currently selling. Barbara Schneider brought in one of the most successful and sought-after construction professionals in our area to advise us.

One of the bits of advice we received to help us keep this property was to supplement our operating costs by renting as much of our building as possible. We’re doing that now. Kim Cummings, Church Administrator, has been doing a great job promoting and managing our rental program. Every week throughout the summer, and almost every week throughout the rest of the year the fellowship hall is rented for parties and gatherings. Kim also manages our long-term contract rental program, such as Weight Watchers who rent the fellowship hall multiple times per week, which still allows us to use the space when they are not using it. Kim has arranged it so their schedule does not interfere with our church schedule. We have two other congregations who worship on our property. Plus, we have two AA groups meet here weekly. We offer the space to AA free of charge. But they provide us a generous offering each month. The glass collector club rents space with us on a regular basis. And there is a Girl Scout Troop that meets here too. There is a senior day care director who very much wants to rent the large classroom in the education wing. Due to current government funding cutbacks that is now on hold. But we’re optimist that once government funding resumes the senior day center will proceed.

This is a very exciting time for us. Our focus is firmly fixed upon Jesus. Our church family is growing, rooted in the good soil of Jesus Christ, in whom many of us are growing. As your shepherd, pastor, leader, and innovator, I am calling upon you as members of this church family to prayerfully consider the options that will be presented to us to vote on at our next semi-annual meeting in November. Our current church home has served us well over the course of these past 60 years. We raised a wonderful family here. But many within our church family have moved away, and our house is now much more than we need and more than we can adequately, frankly, maintain.

About two-weeks before our semi-annual meeting in November voting members will receive information about what we’ll be proposing for discussion and vote, such as, we’ll discuss and vote on next year’s 2027 budget. We’ll discuss and vote on our updated constitution. We’ll discuss and vote on whether we stay in our current building and repair, update, and remodel it, or we as a church family might decide to sell and move.

As your shepherd, pastor, leader, and innovator, I am calling us to take action. Do we stay or do we go? And if the majority of us vote to stay, we must be good stewards and find a way to keep this building and bring it back to its former beauty, and make it fit our current and future needs. Remember, this building was designed to house the largest Lutheran church family in northeastern Ohio. If we keep it, I will lead us to make it reflect our current and future needs. Church is NOT its building any more than your house is your family or the person or persons who reside in it. We are not a building. We are a people. We are Parma Lutheran Church. We are church family! Our building, past, present, and future was, is and will always be a tool for ministry and mission. Our building is only as good as it serves Christ in mission and ministry! It’s true we may have an emotional attachment to our house, like we may have to the house we grew up in. But we are called to be good stewards of what God has given us. May God’s will be done, and may our focus always be upon Jesus Christ and upon the ministry our Lord and Savior calls us to! Amen.

+ Even when it's printed in the bulletin, why do you sometimes skip the Apostles' Creed?

The basic pattern of the Holy Communion worship service is gathering, word, meal, and sending. It’s a pattern that allows “for freedom and flexibility in the ways worship may be shaped locally, while focusing on what the church holds in common” (Sundays and Seasons website “Holy Communion: Pattern for Worship.”) One of the worship planning books I use (The Sunday Assembly: using Evangelical Lutheran Worship Volume One by Lorraine S. Brugh and Gordon W. Lathrop published by Augsburg Fortress) that has explanations and instructions says: When the hymn of the day concludes, the assembly, still standing, may sometimes confess the creed. In current Lutheran practice, the Apostles’ Creed, the creed associated with baptism, is usually chosen for Lent, as the season of baptismal renewal and preparation, and for all the Sundays in the Time after Epiphany and the Time after Pentecost. The Nicene Creed is usually chosen for festival days and during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Easter. On the other hand, the creed might be omitted altogether, the service moving on to the prayers of intercession immediately after the hymn of the day (p. 165).

Even if the Creed is printed in the bulletin, if we’re going long due to, say, a temple talk, or a longer than usual sermon, or children’s message, or special music, or anything that adds time that might take us beyond our goal to be done by 11:45 a.m., as the primary worship leader I have the option of skipping the Creed. Remember, we rent the sanctuary to another worship community. Their worship leaders come in at 12:00 p.m. to setup the worship space and to spiritually prepare for their start time of 12:30 p.m. That’s why we want to be done by 11:45 a.m. That gives us 15 minutes to fellowship a little bit, and depart the worship space as Dan, our organist, plays a postlude to send us out with a delightful song.

The Creed is an important part of our worship together. It binds us together in our mutual faith. As I ponder the various aspects of the worship service, my favorite moment of special devotion is when the bread and cup are raised and the Verba (Latin: “words”), the words of institution, are proclaimed. The words of institution are that part of the Eucharistic prayer which recall and proclaim the actions and words of Jesus when he instituted Holy Communion in the Upper Room. Those glorious and blessed words are:

“In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and eat; this is my body, given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me. Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying: This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Do this for the remembrance of me.”

We all have our favorite part of the worship service. For me, the words of institution have become the high-water mark of the worship service, and of my week. It is like the hub of a wheel from which spring the spokes of all ministries and everything I do in faith from that moment on throughout the rest of the week. When those words are spoken, whether I’m presiding at the table, assisting, or anywhere present in the worship space, it is as if the world stops turning, and everything else fades away, and past, present, and future blend together into a holy moment that culminates in receiving the bread and wine. Holy Communion becomes a moment looking into the past when Jesus instituted Holy Communion in the Upper Room, and by faith we are there! Holy Communion becomes a heightened moment of present reality, and Jesus is really present among us! And Holy Communion provides a glimpse into the future when we gather at that great and promised feast with Jesus face-to-face and with all those who preceded us in death. All those moments blend together, past, present, and future, and Jesus is really present among us in and through the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In that moment, I put my bulletin down and firmly fix my eyes in faith upon the bread and cup, believing Jesus Christ is here! As we gather together as church, we form the body of Christ in the world! And we as individual Christians are each and every one of us filled with the Holy Spirit who bring God’s holy presence to the table within us.

Coming to the table is a mystery in which we take part. Coming to the Lord’s table is truly a holy event! And we get to do it every week!

+ How does the Parma Lutheran Church prayer list work?

As prayer partners we should all know and agree how we maintain, distribute, and use our congregation’s prayer list at worship and in our homes. How do we put people on the prayer list? How long does someone stay on the prayer list? Who receives the prayer list? What do we do with the prayer list when we receive it?

We are brothers & sisters in Christ! We are a church family! As fellow members of the same family, we love each other. We care about each other. We share our concerns with one another as we would with any beloved member of our family. As family, what’s important to you, now becomes important to us all! So, we ask one another, for whom do you pray? A dear friend and colleague I served with in Iraq was recently treated for mouth cancer. So, I added him to our prayer list. We prayed for him before and after his surgery. He recently texted me to tell me his last cancer screening revealed he tested clear of cancer. So we put in a praise for answered prayer and then took him off the prayer list. Maybe you have family members, friends, or neighbors you’re praying for. If you have the person’s permission to print his or her name on the prayer list, let us know. Keep us updated on the person’s condition, and we’ll update the prayer accordingly. If you don’t update us, we’ll keep the person on the list for one month. When you receive the prayer list either in the weekly worship bulletin or via email in a prayer list update, plan to pray through the prayer list daily. Put it on your refrigerator, or on your desk, or bedside table. You may also submit a prayer request via our website here.

+ What’s the difference between a fellowship dinner, like a Lenten Soup Supper meal, and a community dinner?

We don’t want to confuse ministries by doing one ministry, such as a fellowship dinner, thinking we’re also doing another ministry, such as a community dinner. The primary categories of ministries we have listed at Parma Lutheran are Education & Youth, Evangelism, Property, Worship, Fellowship, and Community. Each of these ministry categories has a representative serving on our congregation council.

Evangelism is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and getting out information about this particular congregation to the people of Parma and beyond.
Property is the ministry that takes care of maintaining our building and grounds;
Education ministry seeks to fulfill Jesus’ command to teach others as he taught us (see Matthew 28). Youth ministry is vital to passing the faith onto our children by providing them good adult examples of how to live the Christian faith, and by providing them a Christian context to gather, talk, and play with one another. The word worship comes from an old English word meaning “worthy.” God is worthy of our worship & praise! We offer unto God our praise, adoration, and thanksgiving for all the good things God does for us, and we worship in recognition of God’s perfect holiness!
Fellowship ministry is our gathering together as brothers and sisters united in our mutual Christian faith. In fellowship we support one another in our mutual faith, hold each other accountable, and console one another when we face hard times.
Community ministry is outreach to the world around us as Jesus provided us the model. Jesus showed us that we are to feed the hungry, help the poor, and welcome the stranger. We as church are the body of Christ in the world today. We look to the community that surrounds us to see what needs we can supply in the name of Jesus. If we are going to do Christian ministry according to the example of Christ, then we must do community ministry in addition to fellowship ministry.

In short, Fellowship Ministry is a much-needed ministry in which we gather in support of our mutual faith. Community ministry is our outreach to the world in the name of Jesus seeking to fulfill whatever their needs might be. The Hunger Center falls within the category of Community Ministry, as does our new community meals to support the needs of the community around us. Community Ministry seeks to reach out to the community at large, to people beyond our stained-glass windows. Our job as church is to find out the needs of the community around us and fulfill those needs in the name of Jesus.

+ What is the “Christmas Cycle” in the church liturgical year, and the meaning of each of its seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany?

First, let’s look briefly at the church liturgical calendar. The Christmas Cycle begins the church year. Then after the Christmas Cycle comes the Easter Cycle, which focuses on our preparation to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. The Easter Cycle begins on Ash Wednesday and goes through the Day of Pentecost, which includes Lent, Holy Week, and the season of Easter. Then after the Day of Pentecost comes the Season after Pentecost, which goes until the end of the church year. Of note, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ call the weeks after the Day of Epiphany and the weeks after the Day of Pentecost as Ordinary Time. We also count those weeks and give them a “lectionary” number. For example, our Lectionary 2, which we would also call the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, would then correspond to the Roman Catholic’s Second Sunday of Ordinary Time.

The overall theme of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany focuses our attention on the Incarnation of Jesus. Advent is a time of spiritual preparation to celebrate Jesus’ coming into the world, and to prepare ourselves for his ultimate return. The word Advent is Latin, meaning “to come.”

During the season of Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’ birth as our Savior. The Christmas season is 12 days, like the song. My wife and I mark each of the 12 days of Christmas with a devotional and prayer, and then we exchange a small gift to each other. What got us into commemorating the 12 days of Christmas was to counter the fact that our modern culture has entirely done away with the 12 days. Go to any store on the day after Christmas and the only Christmas items you’ll find are piled up with half-price tags on everything, and displays that once had Christmas stuff will now be displays promoting Valentine’s Day.

The Eve of the Epiphany of Our Lord (January 5th) marks the end of the Christmas season. When I was a kid, we would haul our dried-out Christmas tree to our local city park on January 5th. We threw our tree on the huge pile of Christmas trees and then after sundown we’d light them on fire. (Back in the late 90s, when I served a congregation in rural Virgina, the burning of Christmas trees on the Eve of Epiphany was a big church fellowship event. Before we lit the pile of trees, we’d offer a prayer asking God that the light of Christ would shine in our hearts throughout the New Year. January 6th is the date we commemorate as the Epiphany of Our Lord, which recalls the visit of the magi (Matthew 2:1-12). The Sundays after the Epiphany, during the Epiphany season, we continue to focus upon Jesus’ incarnational ministry among us. By the way, the Epiphany season (also called Ordinary Time) celebrates the manifestation of Christ in the world. By the way, the word Epiphany means, “manifestation,” and “appearance.”

+ Why don't we sing Christmas hymns during Advent?

Well, compare the church season of Advent versus the secular Christmas season. Our culture begins the secular Christmas season the day after Thanksgiving, which is when we traditionally begin the church season of Advent. Liturgically speaking, Advent is a time of preparation, and a time of hope! During the season of Advent, we prepare ourselves in a spirit of hope to celebrate the birth of Jesus and prepare ourselves for our Lord's second coming. The church Christmas season is twelve days long. But the thing is that when the church is just getting started to celebrate the Christmas season, secular society has already started to take down their Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. On December 25th Christmas Day, the radio plays Christmas carols all day. On December 26th, it's back to regular programming! The problem we church people face is that while we're commemorating Advent the rest of the world is celebrating their own Christmas season. Then by the time we church people get into the church liturgical Christmas season, the world has already moved on to getting ready to celebrate Valentine's Day.

A lot of well-meaning church people over the years have stood against us playing and singing Christmas music during Advent. While the world around us was singing similar heartwarming Christmas carols, we were singing churchy Advent hymns. Most of our Advent hymns are unfamiliar to many of us, and for people like me they tend to be hard to sing. If you are a liturgical purist who wants to stick to only the hymns of a particular church season, you won't like what I'm about to say. I get it. When we liturgically paint ourselves into a corner and don't allow ourselves a joyful peek into the Christmas season with a Christmas carol during Advent, to me it's like how I felt when I was a little boy. My mother used to put me to bed at 7:00PM while my friends were still outside playing. I'd lie in bed listening to my friends having fun. I wished I was out there playing with them. That's how I feel when we don't allow ourselves to liturgically color outside the lines by singing Christmas hymns with the other kids! Why can't we take seriously the preparatory nature of Advent, but do it in a spirit of joyful expectation to celebrate the birth of Jesus and prepare ourselves for his second coming? That's the sort of Advent I'd like for us to embrace this year.

This year during Advent, I want us to sing both Advent and Christmas hymns. Just as there will be plenty of opportunities for us to sing Advent hymns during the season of Advent, we will find times in the worship service that seem to call for the singing of a Christmas hymn. Let's allow the season of Advent to help us in our preparations to celebrate the birth of our Lord and look forward to his return, and at the same time add the singing and playing of Christmas hymns to help us liturgically look to and prepare for the future with joy, the joy of celebrating our Lord's birth, and looking forward to his return!

+ What is a Christian congregation’s focus and mission?

A longtime friend and dear brother in Christ told me a story of a congregation conflict that his church family experienced a few years ago. It wasn’t the issue that they were arguing about, that was the problem. The issue they were arguing was merely a symptom of a much, much bigger problem. The real problem their congregation faced was that they lost their focus on Christ. So, the question we or any Christian congregation can always ask ourselves and reflect upon is: what is a Christian congregation’s focus and mission?

Answer: The focus of any Christian congregation is upon Christ Jesus, and the mission and work to which Christ Jesus calls us. We must remain laser focused on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and upon the missions and ministries to which he calls us.

Over the past few months, I’ve begun to talk about our church building’s need of deep cleaning, repair, and remodel. It’s easy to think of a church building as something separate from our focus upon Christ and our call to Christian mission. We can become emotionally attached to a thing, as we may be emotionally attached to the house we grew up in, and we can forget and lose sight of a church building’s singular purpose, to house the church family and be a tool for worship and outreach ministries.

I told you this story before, forgive me for telling it again. Shortly after Melanie and I got married, I became emotionally attached to my in-laws’ house. A few years after we got married, my in-laws bought a new house and moved. I expressed my sorrow and disappointment to my mother-in-law about them selling the house and moving away. I told her how much I was going to miss the old house and all the good times we shared there! She used that opportunity to help me understand that it’s not the house that makes a home and the good times we share there. It’s the family who makes a house a home, and the love shared among us as family makes fond memories. I would learn she was correct. A short time after they moved my wife and I, along with my in-laws’ entire family, made the new house our home, and since they moved, we’ve shared countless good times together in that new house. Their old house was merely a house that we as family made into a loving home. My in-law’s new house was just a house at first; the love we shared and the memories we formed there made it a home. So too, a church building is just a house that we make into a home by the love we share there as a church family. Family makes a house a home, and the love we share makes memories we will never forget.

This house, this church building, was designed and beautifully built for a very, very large family. It was at the time the largest church family in Northeast Ohio. In the early 60s, and on into the 70s, we had multiple worship services when nearly 400 people attended each worship service; and our south wing was designed and constructed for a Sunday school program that had 500 students per Sunday. With our focus firmly fixed upon Jesus we must discern God’s call and purpose for us now as to how will use this property to the glory of God in Christian ministry and mission.

Next month during our semiannual congregation meeting after worship on Sunday, November 16th, one of the topics we’ll discuss is this large house and how to use it to God’s glory and ministries, and we need to talk about the possibility of downsizing to fit our family’s size and call to ministry.

Like many families who must have this conversation with their parents, it’s not easy. Not everything is easy in life with family, at home or at church. Not everyone will agree. But we are family united in Christ. That’s our focus. We can’t lose sight of our call to be a church family, the body of Christ in the world and our call to Christian mission.

+ Why do we need more worship leaders, like assisting ministers, readers, ushers, greeters, choir members, musicians, etc., as well as people to volunteer to help around the church building and office? If I volunteer, won’t I step on someone’s toes, and am I or any of us holy enough to serve as worship leaders and volunteers?

By our own efforts and self-proclaimed righteousness, the answer to the question, am I or any of us holy enough to serve as a worship leader or volunteer? The answer is NO!! It is only by God’s grace through our faith in Christ that we are made righteous! Now we may answer the question, are we holy enough to serve, with a resounding YES, by God’s grace, not by our own efforts!

Each of us as baptized believers in Christ have been given spiritual gifts that benefit the whole community with the purpose of growing the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are not all given the same gifts. The apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome says, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them…” (Romans 12:6 emphasis mine) Some have the gift and call to work in the Hunger Center, or clean inside the church building, or do chores and repairs on or in the building. The Holy Spirit has bestowed gifts among us as worship leaders. For some the Holy Spirit calls and bestows the gift and talent to serve as elected, and appointed church leaders. Some are called to read God’s Word during worship. Others may be called to serve as assisting minister, or as a communion assistant, usher, greeter, or as a Christian education teacher and Bible study facilitator. The list of ways God calls us is as varied as the number of people among us.

Now that the Holy Spirit has given each of us the call and talent to serve, we must encourage each other to exercise their God-given talents among us. To be faithful to God’s call to serve among us does NOT step on anyone’s toes. For us not to provide an opportunity for someone to use the gifts the Holy Spirit has given someone among us would be to step on the toes of the Holy Spirit. At least in part that may be what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “to not quench the Holy Spirit”! (1 Thessalonians 4:19-21). The word Paul is using that we translate quench means to put out a fire or flame! As fellow Christians we must encourage and provide everyone an opportunity to let their flame or fire burn bright among us as the Holy Spirit has called and equipped each of us!

Consider too that we are each on a spiritual journey. As our faith grows from what may have felt like a small seed that grew to flower into a sense that guided us to gather with other Christians in worship. As the writer to the Hebrews writes, “And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25, NLT). We may have started coming to worship irregularly. As we grew in faith, we may have felt a sense of desire to worship more regularly. As time passed, we continued to grow in faith, and we discovered worship became a priority in our lives. As we grow in faith, we find we want to learn more about the Bible and apply its truths to our lives. As we grow in faith and worship, fellowship with fellow believers becomes more and more important as we live our lives of faith. Through all that growth, as time passes, we discover God calls us to some sort of leadership or volunteer work in Christ’s church. By serving we faithfully respond to God’s call to serve and put to work the gifts, and the talents God has so graciously given and cultivated within us.

One more reason why we ought to allow more people to exercise their gifts among us is because to respond faithfully to our sense of call brings us joy and fulfillment in the Lord. We as a community then become the recipients of blessings as we each exercise our God-given call among us! (By the way, the assisting minister does NOT have to sing. Readers do not have to come up to the lectern. We can move a lectern and mic down to floor level for easier access or bring the mic to your seat.) Parma Lutheran is a place where you can serve. Let us each exercise our God-given gifts among us. In doing so we will receive great blessings from one another through the power of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit may be calling and equipping you for leadership and some volunteer work within the church! Here is a place where we can all faithfully serve.