J2G @ Zion Continues! 2014 Highlights Part 2

During the fall of 2013, the J2G small groups discussed Unbinding Your Heart by Martha Grace Reese, shared faith stories, and dedicated 40 days to group and individual prayer and spiritual growth practices. Testimonies given during worship services and the celebration event in November proved that participants experienced deeper relationships with Christ and with one another.  The whole process has been  under girded with prayer by a Prayer Team that met weekly in 2013 and continues to meet monthly.

The enthusiasm for J2G@Zion continues as new small groups are being formed in February 2014.  The J2G Leadership Team has announced a variety of opportunities for small group learning and spiritual growth.  A couple of these "Growth Groups" began meeting the week of February 9 and the rest will begin the week of February 16.  Growth Group topics include:  Unbinding Your Soul, the next book in the Unbinding Series by Martha Grace Reese; "Journey with Matthew", a bible study; "Journey to 'Luke'", a conversation on passages from the Gospel; and "Tempted", a group for young adults.  Please see the Zion website for a schedule of and to sign up for these 6-week Growth Groups.  It's not too late to join in the Journey to Growth at Zion!

J2G @ Zion Continues! 2014 Highlights Part 1

If something is not growing, it's dying.  At Zion, we're in the process of growing- spiritually and physically.  Some thought that J2G @ Zion was over last November.  No, my friends!  That was merely the first leg of many in our journey together.

So what's going on now?  Ministries and leadership of Zion have made the commitment to GROW!  This and the following posts provide some highlights.  Come and grow with us!

Zion Nursery School:  Due to low enrollment in 2013, our little school was forced to cut back on staff and number of classes each week.  For 2013-14, one small class of 4-year-olds has been meeting on Monday-Wednesday-Friday each week, taught by Alice Carr and Dianne Moore.

 Just before registration opened for the 2014-15 school year in January, the Nursery School Board and Congregation Council agreed to a two-year commitment with emphasis on the marketing and redevelopment of the school.  The board is looking into getting help from a local university marketing department to develop a plan.

 Already, we are trying new things to get the word out about our wonderful school.  For the first time, special ads can be heard on a local radio station.   Listen for spots on WROZ Radio "The Rose" 101.3 during the next week announcing the ZNS Open House on Feb. 19, 12-3 pm.  Check out the new Zion Nursery School Facebook Page and the updated information on our website.

 Our goals are to have a minimum of 12 students enrolled for the 2-day class for 3's and 4's by  summer and to have both classes reinstated by the fall of 2015.  Annual fundraisers through Giant+ Rewards (ongoing),  Cloister car wash coupons (February) and S. Clyde Weaver sub coupons (March) are some ways that you can help our school continue to provide excellent, Christ-centered, academically grounded preschool education for children of our community. Call the church office (898-2911) for more information.   Please spread the word about Zion Nursery School.

Journey to Growth at Zion (J2G@Zion)

The Spirit is moving at Zion!  Since the beginning of October, our congregational life and worship have focused on prayer and faith sharing.  We’re on a “Journey to Growth” at Zion, and many have already noticed changes that God is making in our faith lives as individuals and in our ministries as a congregation. 

Eight small groups, including ZYM (Zion Youth Ministry) and the ministry staff, have been meeting weekly to discuss the book, Unbinding Your Heart by Martha Grace Reese.  With the small group “guides” included, between 60 and 70 youth and adults are gathering to share faith stories and prayer for six weeks.   In addition to their time together, these individuals are participating in a 40-Day Prayer Journey involving daily prayer exercises for spiritual growth. 

Each Sunday, worshippers are included in the journey through a sermon series and children’s chats that highlight themes of prayer and evangelism.  In Sunday School, children are involved in special activities that teach ways to talk to God in prayer.  They have been given special tools to help them pray such as:  mealtime or bedtime prayer cubes, pray beads, and printed resources with simple prayer examples and practices to use at home.  A resource booklet for families was distributed at the beginning of October, and more copies of this resource and others are available on the “J2G@Zion” Table in the narthex by the mailboxes.

Prayer surrounds and undergirds everything at Zion during our journey. Each week, children, youth and adults are welcome to write prayers on “sticky notes” and place them on the Prayer Walls in the church education wing.  Also, individual prayer requests are welcomed by our J2G@Zion Prayer Team which meets weekly.  Forms for these requests are available on the table outside the Nave (worship area) near the “Prayer Request Box”, where they may be deposited.  Even our homebound members are involved!  Several of our “elders” are including special prayers for J2G@ Zion, our members and our congregation each day. 

A few highlights of the past weeks of J2G@Zion:

Pastor JMe used a garden hose as an analogy for how our relationships with God and our sisters and brothers at Zion through prayer and faith-sharing connects us to the flowing, living waters  of the Holy Spirit given through Baptism and fill us to overflowing with the desire to share our lives and faith with others.  Thankfully, she didn’t have the hose connected to a water source, or we would have really been “walking wet.”

Every pew was emptied for the Prayers of the Church during the 10:30 service on Oct. 20 when all went “down to the river to pray” by gathering around the altar rail.

Before beginning the October meeting of the Congregation Planning Council, the group of leaders spent 20 minutes in prayer for one another and the church.  It was powerful!  Shall we try 30 minutes the next time?

Prayer Walls in the education wing hallways are filling up with sticky note prayers written by members of all ages.

Shy Lutheran Christians are actually sharing faith stories with and praying out loud for one another!  Many had never done this before. Now they are doing this every week!

Stay tuned for more highlights and stories of the power of prayer and growing together in Christ during the next portion of this leg of our Journey to Growth at Zion.  Better yet, come and grow with us!

 

Lower Susquehanna Synod Assembly

Here we are at the LSS Assembly at Messiah College. The first (and nominating) ballot  for election of a bishop was announced this morning.  Guess what?  Former Zion pastor, LaDonna Thomas, received a nomination!  We've completed the first ballot for elections of synod leadership (Synod Council, synod committees, boards of related institutions) including the election of Synod Treasurer.  Synod Vice President, Lucinda Bringman,  brought the report of the  Year of Re-Formation of the synod.  Now, to the budget.  Passed with no discussion!  Of course there have been cuts to budget lines and to the staff of the synod during this year.  As a congregation of the LSS and, therefore, of the ELCA, Zion has been dedicated to providing support to the greater church ministries through our benevolence.  

BISHOP’S EASTER MESSAGE, 2013

Dear Co-laborers with Christ,
As I write this message on Monday in Holy Week, snow is falling outside my study window. This year, the turn of the season seems characterized primarily by winter’s refusal to let go. Although the lower Susquehanna Valley has repeatedly dodged the most severe snowstorms this year, there is still the longing on the part of many for spring to come. Punxsutawney Phil’s empty promise of an early spring seems a betrayal now, and for all the ambiguous predictions of the wooly bears and the Farmer’s Almanac, we are reminded that the weather will do what it will do, and there’s no doing anything about it.

The need to control, or at least predict, the future seems to be a part of human nature. Exponential expansion of technology contributes to this view of human power, increasingly making us lords over our environment. And indeed, we have accomplished much for the sake of the common good. As the future broke over the last generation, our quality of life became better and better, in ways previously unimaginable. But for all our ingenuity, there are areas of life that seem beyond our control: the weather, to be sure, but also human cruelty and death. We kill one another at an alarming rate, with firearms, to be sure, but finally any way we can. And, if we survive one another, the curtain of mortality finally closes on our little lives. It is a reality we cannot control. We are all terminal cases.

We were reminded of this at the beginning of Lent when oily ashes were smeared on our foreheads and we heard the jarring words, remember you are dust; to dust you will return. And if that stark declaration was somehow lost over the forty days, the cruelty of crucifixion hammers it home. Good Friday closed with a darkness more impenetrable than Tenebrae. We not only kill one another, we will kill God, if we can. As Saturday dawned with the bleakness of a winter that will not let go, it seemed as though we had.
Hopelessness, helplessness brought women to a tomb then, to complete an unfinished ritual. In that futile helplessness, hope was born. The distant triumph song sung by the prophets now became a symphony of promises fulfilled. The paths of glory lead beyond the grave.

This too is entirely beyond our control. This is a future that we can predict, if we trust in God’s promises, but we cannot bring about. God acts to bring new and eternal life into our future by conquering death in a way beyond our ability to act in our own behalf. Because of God’s powerful act, we can imagine and the world in a different way, not a theatre for the drama of cruel sin, but the playing field of God’s grace. Our struggle for human justice can become the in-breaking light of the resurrection promise, for it is finally God’s will that oppressors be overthrown and tyrants cast down; that the poor be given hope and the hungry fed. Our gifts, prayers, concerns, politics, all become windows to the resurrection light. Because the future does belong to God, we can live lives more open to new possibilities of forgiveness and reconciliation. The wounds of a broken heart can be healed, estranged families reconciled. Bitterness and betrayal, guilt and self-loathing are laid at the door of the empty tomb.

When we lay aside our need for control, we can see our lives in the context of God’s grace and suddenly the world is filled with hope. Each new day is an opportunity for God’s will to be done. In the light of Easter, God repairs God’s creation and gives us a second chance. And the winter of our discontent is made glorious summer by the Son of God.

May God’s blessings of lustrous hope rest with you this Easter and always.
Faithfully, your bishop,
+B. Penrose Hoover

No More Worship Wars!

"O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!  For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!"  Psalm 95:6-7 (NRSV)

When I opened my email inbox one day this week, I found two messages relating to the ongoing concerns and dissatisfaction about worship styles (Traditional VS Contemporary) and contents (hymns, liturgical choices, etc.).  The following is a portion of a carefully composed response to one of these messages. 

An overarching goal for my ministry is to lead Zion towards becoming and remaining a healthy congregation.  The "worship war" that seems to have embroiled this congregation for many years is truly unhealthy and not conducive to future growth and mission.  Isn't it time we pursue peace by acknowledging our unity in the midst of our diversity as a congregation?  Our Lutheran understanding of the Gospel is clear:  We are justified (saved) by grace through faith in Jesus Christ- apart from works of the law. (See Romans 3)   This Word of grace is what unities us.  Our worship- whatever form it takes--is a faith-full response to this word and the call to be witnesses to the Gospel.

 As both Dennis and I have said in our team meetings, we take a lot of time and care in choosing appropriate hymns/songs for worship at Zion.  Both of us strive  to enhance and support the scriptural focus of the day through the words of the music and other portions of the worship services.  To be sure, there are some hymns/songs we like better than others, but our personal preferences are secondary to the Word for the day. We are, also, both committed to providing meaningful, "relevant", and spiritually-empoweriing worship experiences for Zion- whether they be in traditional or contemporary format.  We have been willing to add time to our schedules for additional meetings  in order to listen and respond to the concerns, desires, and suggestions of those who attend each of the Sunday worship services.

For Lutherans, God's living word, found in the Holy Scriptures and made known through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is central to everything we do in worship, whether the style is "traditional" or "contemporary".  The scriptural foundation or bible passages to be focused upon (appointed lectionary, narrative lectionary or special theme) should form the basis of whatever we do in our worship- the music, the message, the prayers, etc.  We draw our understanding of God and what God desires of us from God's Word made known to us in Jesus Christ, and one aspect of our response is our worship.  Thus, the choice of praise songs, hymns, responsive prayers are in response to the scriptural message.  Not the other way around. 

It's true that in many contemporary worship settings (i.e., evangelical or nondenominational churches), the music IS the message for the day.  Like in Lutheran worship, the words of the songs and responses are chosen to fit the stated theme for the worship experience.  What is different in these settings is that usually this theme is decided first and then the scriptural underpinnings are chosen to fit the theme.   The positive side of this way of building a worship service is that the designers have the freedom to choose whatever theme or message they think is relevant to the needs of community and then find the scriptures to support this message/theme.  The negative side of this is that the foundation of worship is based first on what the leadership wants to say or thinks is important to get across to the listeners and not on interpretation of what God has to say through the scriptures.  

As you know, there are many scripture passages that can be taken out of context to support  viewpoints that are considered un-Christian today, (i.e., slavery, genocide) or that support the various sides of political and social debates. This process of biblical interpretation is known as  eisegesis, or: "an interpretation, especially of Scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like,rather than the meaning of the text." (Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013. )

As a Lutheran pastor, I find it much more difficult and challenging to start with the scripture appointed or chosen for the day and prayerfully determine through exegesis ("critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text, especially of the Bible" Dictionary.com Unabridged  Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013. ) what message God has for us today.  Do my personal opinions and biases influence what I say?  Of course they do because I am merely a sinful, selfish human being.  However, I try very hard to set aside my own "stuff" and focus on what I hear God saying trusting in the Lord's forgiveness when I fail. 

I do appreciate the concern that we are clear about our purpose and goal for worship.  I do hear and understand the desire for us to be honest about our commitment to how we reach out through the styles of worship or liturgy we choose to use.  I am thrilled with what both the Traditional and  the Contemporary task forces are doing to enhance our worship life at Zion.  I'm excited about the plans that are being made for the 10:30 service on Easter Sunday.

I am saddened, however, that we continue to spend so much of our ministry time and energy arguing and complaining about "styles" of worship and music and so little focus on the One whom we worship, the attitudes that we bring to our worship  and the witness that we are called to bring about this One, Jesus Christ, to those who are more interested in hearing a message to help them to get through the next day than they are about the type of songs we sing on Sunday mornings.  

Please, let's be less adversarial and strive to lift up the unity we share in the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.  As Paul wrote, we are all one in the body of Christ.  As we move into the season of Lent, let us all pray for forgiveness for our lack of tolerance and understanding for each other.  Let us ask that God help us to focus on the purpose of our worship and not on our personal preferences for music and styles. Let us pray that our worship services, although different in style, can become a unified expression of our gratitude for what God has given us as individuals and as a community of faith instead of a means of dividing us. 

To Christ alone be the glory!

Pastor JMe

Jesus' Birthday Wish List

I really appreciated Kevin Alton's article on "Ministry Matters."  Perhaps it will be a thought-provoker for you.  Click on the link to read it.

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | Jesus' Birthday Wish List