Introduction
As is our tradition each year at this time of the year, I want to review highlights and achievements of our church over the past year and also look forward to what I think should be our priorities for the coming year. But, this is also a sermon. It is a chance for me to share the Word of God in Holy Scripture and encourage you in your personal faith. So I want to begin with the Scripture God placed on my heart today, something I believe should always guide Christians, and something I believe we should pay particular attention to this 2,024th year of our Lord.
John 1:1-5
1 “I tell you the truth,
anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the
gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! 2 But
the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper
opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 After he has
gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because
they know his voice. 5 They
won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his
voice.”
I have been listening to God’s voice extra careful over the last month. I always do this time of year as I consider what God want me to do and what God wants our church to do in the coming year. And especially, since we have just completely the hard work to disaffiliate from the UMC and begin a new chapter in our the life of our church, I have been especially attentive to God’s voice asking: “Lord, what do you want for Your church at Pleasant Grove this year?” And I have taken time to be alone, to be quiet, and to pray. And I have been listening for God’s voice to answer and lead us.
But how do I know if the voice that answers is God’s? How can any of us know?
Jesus uses an illustration to remind people how to listen to
God’s voice and ignore all the others.
The people who lived in Jesus’ day had one of the same problems we have today:
there were so many voices claiming to speak for God. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealot religious
radicals, the hippy Essenes who wanted to abandon society all together. Then there were the politicians, the Greek philosophers,
and the Romans occupiers. Everyone had
an opinion to share. And all these voices
swirling around were so confusing. Do
you ever feel like that? Do you ever
wonder how you can really know what God wants you to do? How do you cut through all the clutter to get
to the Truth?
Jesus says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them
out. 4 After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they
follow him because they know his voice.”
This should be our main priority this year: to know and listen to our Shephard’s voice.
And I want to suggest some ways you can tune in to hear God’s
voice among all the distractions.
Prayer
You have to get near God to hear God.
And prayer is one of the chief ways you know you spend time with God. Prayer is talking to God—and you don’t have
to be all fancy. Just talk. Sometimes, prayer isn’t saying anything at
all, but maybe just intentionally sitting quietly with God. Prayer is essential for Christians. It is our simplest way to connect with God.
I’m going down today after church to visit my Mom. I try to call my mom every week. By talking to her regularly, I stay in touch and
know what’s going on with her. But, my mom
lives with my sister. She’s there with
her every day. Katie knows what’s
really going on with Mom way better than I do, because I only talk to her once
a week.
If you want to know God voice, you’ve got to spend time with
Him in prayer. If you only pray when you have a problem, you will not be very accustomed to God's presence. But if you talked to Him all the time in prayer, you will be much more in tune with His voice. You will know all about what He is up to and will more easily be able to tune in to His guidance.
Scripture
Scripture is another way we get near God to hear God. Scripture is the primary way God speaks to
His people. Whereas prayer can often
feel fuzzy and intangible, Scripture is solid and unchangeable. Scripture is the foundation of all true Christian
belied and practice. The Bible tells you
who God is and what He expects from you—how you are live and what you are to
do.
Scripture and prayer go together. We speak to God through prayer. God speaks to us through the Bible. The more you read Scripture, the easier it is
to know the difference between random thoughts and insights and the true voice
of God trying to lead you.
Another essential way we get near God to hear God is by plugging in with God’s people. Being a Christian who follows Jesus is never something we do all by ourselves. Jesus called 12 disciples to follow Him. They did it in a group setting. And that’s how we follow Jesus too. Trying to follow Jesus all by yourself without a being part of a church community can be downright dangerous. But when we plug in with God’s people, God speaks to us and leads us.
Hear at Pleasant Grove, there are a number of ways to plug
in. There is public worship. But you must go deeper. You need to be part of a small group. We offer ways to get plugged in: Wednesday night dinner, Thursday morning bible
study, Sunday school, youth, children, Elizabeth Circle, sack lunch…
I want to implore you to get accustomed to hearing God’s
voice this year through Prayer, Scripture, and by plugging in with God’s people
at church.
2023 was a hard year, but God was good. The whole year, it felt to me like we were the Israelites trying to escape from slavery Egypt. The United Methodist denominational leadership didn’t want to let us go, even though we heard God’s voice clearly telling us it was time to leave that denomination. And when the Bishop “paused” disaffiliation. It seemed it would be impossible to get out of Egypt. But God was our deliverer. He “parted the Red Sea” so we could leave. And God was with us as we “walked through the wilderness” of raising money to pay the disaffiliation fees and doing all the legal work required to change. In may ways it was weary and tiresome work—but all done with great hopes for a new Promised future.
We started out the year with a positive--with the infant baptism of Robin Starling. It was a sign of things to come. Through the year we had seven people publicly profess their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And we added ten new people to our membership rolls--the largest increase since 2019 (pre-COVID).
Our sack lunch program continued to flourish—sharing blessings with the children of our community through PGE and White’s Pediatrics. We also helped with other needs like school supplies and improvements to the playground at PGE. We also packed over 100 boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Thanks to Susan Cooksey, Tom and Sherry, And Becky Haley, and all our faithful, dedicated volunteers! (We could use a few more!)
Our children’s ministry has flourished under the capable leadership of Melissa Starling. One year ago, before Melissa took over leadership of the program, our children's ministry was floundering. We needed volunteers. We needed new leadership. We needed excitement. Melissa has helped bring all of that since she started at the end of January last year. Last Sunday we had 9 children at the altar for the children’s moment. And the kids have been active and growing all year long. Consistent
weekly classes, Sunday school, children’s church, nursery, Easter Egg hunt, VBS, Trunk or Treat. And they even did a Christmas program and went Christmas caroling to shit-ins in December. And I don’t want to pass up the opportunity to thank Melissa, and also Sydney Harris who we hired to teach kids on Wednesday nights. This frees up Melissa to focus on teaching on Sunday mornings and to coordinating all the children's activities. And the kids love Sydney on Wednesday night.
We are blessed to have Amy Harris leading our youth ministry. We are all blessed to hear her brief, inspirational messages “to the youth” each Sunday morning, but she loves, leads, and inspires the youth each week on Wednesday nights and also helps teach youth Sunday school classes with Debra Sloan, and McKenzie Marlow.
Some of the special events Amy coordinaed for out youth were volunteering with special needs kids at the Miracle League, handing out free hot chocolate at the Dalton Christmas parade, and taking our youth to Fields of Faith. She took the youth on a beach trip this summer, coordinated 2 yard sales, one of which was use to fund a o Christmas outreach t help families in need. What were you doing Christmas Eve and Christmas day? Amy was delivering assistance to families on both days. And Amy is always the biggest helper with anything that needs to be done--even with things not associated with the youth. And I would also be remiss if I didn't talk about some people who have been volunteering on Wednesday nights to help shepherd the youth as Amy teaches--Ricky Stack, Mike Wilson, Scott Denson, and DJ Seifert
Another thing that I am particularly proud of is our music program at Pleasant Grove. David is humble and he doesn’t like to be pointed out, but I would be remiss if I didn’t share what a great job David does to help us have a great music program. He makes sure we have great music throughout the year – including original music, horn and instruments, solos, and special guests musicians.
And one thing David really focused on in 2024 was getting people involved, even people who don't sing. David found was to include non-musicians in our Easter and Christmas cantatas. Plus, we had a Contemporary Christmas Program, choir music at the Christmas Eve service, and contemporary music from the praise band throughout the year. David has helped Pleasant Grove do something that many churches in our area are moving away from--having a great choir and choral music. So many people stereotypically say, "The younger generation only wants contemporary music." But that's not true. If you ask many in the younger generations (like my own daughter), they will tell you they prefer hymns and choral music in worship. So, David has helped us have both great contemporary music and great choral music and hymns.
As I said in the beginning, we need to focus on following God’s voice. And we will know God’s voice through prayer, Scripture, and by plugging in with God’s people at church. As I’ve heard God’s voice, He’s shared that we can be excited about what’s coming this year. The hard work of the past year is paying off and we will see more blessings in 2024.
I also want to share some specific things we are working on or
that I want to see this year.
The old United Methodist Hymnals were given back to the UMC as part of our disaffilation agreement. However, that hymnal was over 40 years old and out of date. We are getting a new hymnal in 2024. We've already ordered 20 for the choir, and we will give our members a chance to order one in memory or in honor of someone soon. Our sanctuary will be filled with hymnals. And the one we've chosen, "Our Great Redeemers Praise", is a great hymnal. It may be one of the most comprehensive hymnals published in decades and it will be an upgrade from the hymnal we were using before. While many churches are moving away from hymnals, Pleasant Grove is going to upgrade and show our commitment to this ancient but still greatly relevant form of worship. How exciting!
We will publish a new church pictorial directory in 2024. Our current directory is way out of date. In fact, we were preparing to update the directory in 2020 when the pandemic hit. This year, we are committed to finally publishing and new one so all the members of our church are properly listed so we can keep in touch and know all our church family.
We are going to clean up our church membership roll in 2024. We have already done a great amount of work to convert our old handwritten membership books into an electronic database This was invaluable as we went through the disaffiliation process with the UMC. Volunteers were essential in this work. Walker England and Matthew Head helped enter some of the names. But the chief worker in this process was Donna Phillips, who entered 95% of the names. Thank you Donna Phillips!
Now that the membership roll is in electronic format, it will be much easier to audit the rolls and remove persons who have moved away, joined other churches, or who have passed away and are no longer living members of congregation. We will do this work in 2024.
I want to encourage you to be excited about what’s happening. We are part of a new Global Methodism Movement. God is moving in Methodism—not just in our church, but all around the world! That’s exciting! We get to be part of something great! Let’s get motivated! Let’s get involved and be part of what God is doing!
Get excited about our
church! Invite people to come and be part of the great things we are doing!
Get excited about our music! (We do praise
music and choir and we’re getting a new hymnal!)
Get excited about our children’s ministry!
Our youth ministry!
Get excited about our ministry with adults!
Our fellowship!
Get Our incredible outreach to help our community! (And even the world –
Pakistan!)
Get excited about how we stand upon the Truth of God’s Word
and yet also love
and accept everyone!
In 2024, we are following the voice of the Great Shepherd
and we can be a place for
others to follow Him too.
