Introduction
It is our
tradition at Pleasant Grove at the beginning of each new year, to have a State
of the Communion Address where we look
back at the accomplishments of the previous year and look forward
to some goals and initiatives for the coming year. My hope is this will
give us a chance to pause and remember and celebrate what Christ has
accomplished through us (for it is too easy to forget). A further hope is
to give some direction for our ministry in the coming year.
But before we get
into those details, I want us to hear God’s Word, for all that we
believe and do is founded upon God’s Word and I believe God’s
Word will give us much needed perspective in our task today.
1 Corinthians 5:17-21
17 …anyone who
belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has
begun!
18 And all of this
is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has
given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in
Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins
against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak
for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made
Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be
made right with God through Christ.
Ambassadors of Christ
Paul’s words in
this Scripture remind us who we are. When a person
becomes a Christian, they become a totally new person. In fact, the
transformation is so significant, it can be described as the old person dying and a new person
coming to life. Jesus described it in John 3:3 as being born again.
This dramatic
distinction between the old self and the new self may be easier to realize when a person
becomes a Christian as a teenager or adult, because they are more self-aware. Many people in
the church, thankfully, grow up always knowing and following Christ. For them, they
cannot ever remember a time before they were Christian. This is nothing
to worry about. In fact, it is my hope for all children raised in our
church that they will never walk down the wrong road in life and have need for a dramatic conversion experience where they get back on the right road (as the Apostle Paul needed to do). I pray that my kids, your kids, the kids of my church will always walk the right road. Of course, we all need little corrections along the way, but it is not necessary for us to start out as scoundrels and convert to become Christians.
The point is, anyone
who is a Christian has a drastically
different purpose in life than a non-Christian. A non-Christian
believes they are free to choose their own path and do whatever they
want in life. Ironically, they
are actually slaves and not free. Their sinful
nature, selfish pursuits, and the corrupt world work together to trap them in a
downward spiral to death and eternal damnation. Though they seek
pleasure and fulfillment, it is always fleeting and elusive, because all
people were created for a relationship with God and we cannot be at peace
without it.
Christians
realize the great gift God gave the world through Jesus. Humanity was lost
in sin, completely separated from God, utterly hopeless. But Jesus died on
the cross to atone for our sin and make it
possible for people to reconcile with God. And the Christian
has chosen to “die to self”—to abandon
selfishness and instead live for God by following
Christ’s way of life to take up a cross every day and follow Jesus. Ironically, by
giving up our selfish ambitions, we discover True Life, by fulfilling our
divine purpose to live in harmony with God. And so a
Christian’s purpose is the same as Christ’s purpose. We are here in
this world to serve as ambassadors for Christ. He continues to
reconcile the world to God through us. God is making his
appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
And so, at the
beginning of this New Year, I ask all of you–if you are truly a Christian–to remember your
purpose. You are not living to please yourself. You are here as
Christ’s ambassadors, reconciling people to God.
This is our
purpose at Pleasant Grove. It’s not about
our traditions or our events or how many people
we can get to come to Trunk or Treat. It’s about
reconciling a world of lost people to God through Jesus Christ. We are Christ’s
voice pleading with the world: “Come
back to God!” That was the
purpose that guided our work in 2021 and I hope will guide us in 2022 as well.
Looking Back at 2021
2021 has been a
whirlwind. It has gone by so fast. I’m truly dumbfounded. It still feels to
me as if it is January 2021! I know it is now
2022, but it truly seems like I was just sitting down to make plans for 2021 and now we’re
making plans for 2022. Where did the year go? And yet, so much
has happened over the last 12 months, I have to look back to remember it all. And if I’m being
completely honest, ministry has been really hard this year.
The first year of
the Pandemic was an adrenaline rush. 2021 began with
such great hopes that a vaccine would finally rid us of COVID. And we made good
progress, but I think we’ve all been disabused of the notion
that COVID is just going to go away. We
are going to be living with it for a while.
And so in the
midst of it, we’ve been laboring to resume important ministries like in person Sunday
school, Bible study, children’s ministry, choir rehearsal, and others while dealing
with quarantines, new variants, fewer volunteers, and inconsistent attendance.
I realize this
has been hard for everyone. It has been
especially hard for the leaders of our church. Leaders put forth
a brave face, but those closest to them know how they struggle. I myself have
talked with my wife many times about my frustrations with ministry this year. And I’ve shed tears
in the church office as in front of Angela as I’ve lamented. Leading in 2021
was frustrating. We see where
Pleasant Grove needs to go and we’re focused on leading the church there, but there are so
many obstacles to navigate along the way, and people are
scared, anxious, frustrated, and uncertain. Many people have
drifted away from their commitment to Christian habits and have lost
their focus on Christ’s call to be His ambassador with Pleasant Grove.
And in truth, I
sometimes felt as if many people either didn’t care or they were
disappointed with me for not doing enough when in fact I was doing all I could. I’ve been
expending exorbitant amounts of extra spiritual energy to reboot
ministries that were shut down for over a year, even as some were
expressing their own frustrations and concerns, comparing our
efforts to what other churches were doing and what people
thought we should do or what their pastor should do.
Despite these
frustrations, we have made great strides in 2021 to resume essential
ministries. And I want to
point these out so they aren’t overlooked. Starting back was
far more important and much harder than shutting down, but not
necessarily as exciting for people who tend to note more sensational events.
Do you remember
that at this time last year, many of our
ministries were still not meeting in person? All of our IN
PERSON Sunday school classes were on pause or were only meeting on Zoom. There was no Thursday
morning Bible study, no children’s church. Only the youth
were gathering, carefully with masks and social distanced, for Pizza with Amy. We were still not
allowed to do pastoral visits to people in the hospitals or nursing homes. Funerals were
still limited to 50 or fewer people. We were not
meeting for dinner on Wednesday nights. Almost all our
activities, besides Sunday morning worship, were still shut down. And our in-person
Sunday morning worship attendance on this Sunday, last year, was 33
people. That’s combined—including
both the early service and the regular service.
33 people. Our average in-person attendance in now regularly back up close to 100 people.
One year ago, we still didn’t
even have hymnals available in the sanctuary, because we were still cautious about transferring the virus through touched surfaces like hymnals.
So throughout the
entire 2021 year, we’ve been rebuilding, rebooting, regathering volunteers
and attendees, figuring out how
to do it all again with ongoing restrictions. And it’s been a
lot of hard work, but so rewarding to see everyone gathering together again.
We’ve resumed regular,
weekly children’s church and Wednesday night children’s ministry under the
leadership of our new children’s minister-Tiffany Tankersley. Tiffany has been
working diligently, despite falling down some steps and breaking her face in the first few
weeks after she started the job! Tiffany has
working to ramp up our in-person kids programs, almost building them from
scratch, while she’s also
endure like 3 reconstructive surgeries on her face! It’s been a
blessing to have Tiffany on board—to see her
genuine passion to teach our children about Jesus’ love.
Our Sunday school
classes have resumed meeting every Sunday, in person. We resumed our
Thursday morning Bible study with 10-15 people and have
completed studies of the books of James, Jonah, and
will soon finish the Book of Psalms. This year, I was
able to do some hospital and nursing home visits for the first time since COVID, though these are
still sometimes restricted when new COVID variants emerge. And I am sending
cards to shut-ins ever week.
The choir was
blessed to resume weekly rehearsals for fully vaccinated members in May. We began by
sitting out in the sanctuary, socially distanced, and have
eventually worked our way back up into the choir loft, where it feels so
much better to sing in a sea of beautiful choral voices. What a blessing it
was to the choir to be able to sing together in person again. And it was quite
a blessing to everyone in worship as well. Consider, that in
December 2020, the Christmas cantata was done virtually. Everything was
pre-recorded and we watched it on the screens. A few weeks ago, we were blessed
to have the choir back, sitting in the choir loft, blessing us with
a beautiful live Christmas cantata.
I want to
thank David for his leadership of our music ministries in all this. I know it was
stressful and took a lot of thought, prayer, and extra work on
top of the normal workload of leading music
ministries of our church.
In September, we
resumed our Wednesday night fellowship meals after a 17-month
break forced by the pandemic. Angela Stack and
Angel Kirk worked together to gather volunteers to setup, serve, and clean. And you don't just flip a switch and restart a ministry like that. Some people might think: "Well, you just get all your old volunteers and start back." No, after 17 months, you don't have any volunteers any more. You have to contact every one and build the volunteer list from scratch.
The resumption of
all these ministries took place in the midst of concerns about new COVID variants,
like Delta and Omicron, that made us second guess ourselves and sometimes
forced us to pause or backtrack. Throughout 2021, it
seems like it was 2 steps forward and 1 step back. Progress like that is slow and frustrating, but it is progress to be proud of. Remember, 2 steps forward and 1 step back is still forward progress and if you do it consistently for a year, you make a lot of progress. Looking back, we see have moved so far forward! Don’t you ever forget it! And be proud because 2 steps forward and 1 step back is 3 steps. So we have work 3 times as hard this past year than we normally do.
We also saw new
people joining our fellowship! Praise
God! Hallelujah! Our first new member
since the beginning of the pandemic was Connie Reed, who transferred her
membership to Pleasant Grove on May 9th, 2021.
We also received:
· Robert and Melissa Starling and their boys, Garrett and Ellis
· Chris and Ashley Ewton and their infant son Ben
· And we baptized Kelsey and Chad Ikerd’s baby, Julianne
2021 saw 5 new church
members, 2 people gave their life to Jesus, 1 rededicated
their life to Christ, and we had 6 baptisms!
Praise God! Hallelujah!
And I can’t let
it pass without saying that through out all of this terrible pandemic, the people of PGMC
have been faithful to give generously to our church. Your faithful
giving allowed us to keep doing ministry in a crazy time and surge ahead.
In July, we launched
Operation Mercy Drops to award three kinds of grants to help and honor
people in our community:
1. Merit grants to honor people who are serving,
2. Service grants to help community organizations making a difference, and
3. Hardship grants to help people in need.
So far we have
awarded five $1000 grants and one $500 grant.
A total of $5,500! This program has
been recognized nationally by the United Methodist denomination as an innovative model
for how to be the hands and feet of Christ. And we did it in
the midst of a pandemic. I want to thank
this church for stepping out in faith to do it. I want to
thank Salena Weed,
Kelly Scruggs, Rita Wagers, and Mike Wilson for directing the program.
I also want encourage
you to sponsor someone. (Details are available at www.pleasantgrove.cc/omd.) We specifically
want you to nominate people or organizations you want to reward. This is not just
to help people who have a hardship. We want you to
think of people or organizations that deserve to be recognized. The program only
works if you nominate people to receive an Operation Mercy Drops grant.
So, 2021 was a
challenging year, but it was year of great ministry by PGMC. Don’t be
discouraged. Don’t lose heart because it’s
hard. We are doing
great things in the name of Jesus and we will continue to do great things in
2022. So let’s look
ahead to this New Year.
Looking Ahead to 2022
I want you to
know I am committed to be your pastor for the foreseeable future. I know we are
United Methodists and UM pastors are only officially
appointed for one year at a time. However, we are still
in the midst of a pandemic and the UM denomination will be
navigating a denomination split some time in the next couple years (possibly even
this year). These are extraordinary
circumstances unlike anything we or the UMC have ever experienced. So far, the North Georgia conference leaders have been generous to allow pastors and church more leeway to remain together with
their congregations until things settle down. I have
requested not to be moved. Our HR
Committee has also made this request to the District Superintendent.
I want you to
know, I have no plans to move to another church until at least 2025. I have talked
with our HR Committee about this and also my District Superintendent and he was supportive. He even recommended I discuss this with our church to make a plan. I understand
that no one can predict what the future holds. It is all in God’s
hand. However, we make plans and we work to
implement them until God changes them and shows us a different way.
The point is, I want you
to know, I am committed to pastor this church as long as you will have me. I’m saying this now because I know I’ve been at Pleasant Grove a lot longer than is customary for a UM pastor. Some may be
thinking, “Well, Chris isn’t going to be here much longer.” Well, I am
planning to be here, as long as you will allow me.
I also want you to know, I don’t plan
on just coasting by either. I’m as excited and
energized by the opportunity to lead this church as I've ever been. I hope you
will be excited to let me and work with me for several more years. We have a lot to
do and I believe God wants us to do it together. So let’s get to it.
One of the things
I believe we need to focus on this year is more outreach to shut-ins. There are many people
in our church family who are not able to come to church regularly because of age or
health restrictions. They often feel
lonely and disconnected from the church and the life in general. Ministering to
them has been especially challenging through this pandemic, but we have got
to do better to reach out to them, encourage them, and include them. I am committed as
the pastor of this church to do better. Last year, I was
able to resume some visiting, and I also began
writing notes to shut-ins every week. I will do more
this year. I want to start taking
communion to shut-ins. As a pastor and United Methodist Elder, I am the only one at our church authorized to consecrate the sacrament and share it with shut-ins. I plan to.
However, our
shut-ins deserve more than just the pastor’s attention. This church is
their family. You are their
family and they have known many of you much longer than they've known me. They need you to call them, visit
them, send them notes, and show them your love. If we all help with
this, there are more than enough people at our church to serve these members of our church family. I want you to
pray about this. How could you help
share Jesus’ love to our shut-ins?
I asked all our ministry
leaders to share one thing they want to focus on in 2022. David Crawford shared
that he wants to focus on bringing in more college students who have a
passion and talent for music, but (like many college students) are not as
involved in church. David wants to bring
them in to sing with our choir to be a blessing
to the church, but also to bless these students with a church family that will love
them like Jesus. I hope you
will pray for this effort and support it wholeheartedly.
Our tech
minister, Jeremy Barfield, said his main goal for 2022 is to expand the
tech volunteer base and train more folks to serve in various ways in tech. We need more volunteers. Can you help with this? Or, can you
invite someone to our church who would like to learn about this kind of
ministry?
Tiffany’s goals
with our children’s ministry are to participate in more outreach events. She wants to plan
more outings for kids and get kids involved
in active outreach and serving. She wants to plan
ahead for church events like Valentine’s Day, Easter,
Trunk or Treat, and Lunch with Santa, and plan some summer outings and VBS.
Amy's goals with our youth are to establish more adult volunteers and chaperones to make more youth trips and supervision possible.
My goal is to
take communion to shut-ins to share this special sacrament with them so they can draw
strength from Jesus presence in the bread and wine. I also want to
use YouTube, social media, and other online tools to teach and preach the Word.
And I want to
help lead this church through the challenges of this ongoing pandemic and the coming
split of the United Methodist Church into two separate new denominations:
· one that allows same-sex marriage & the ordination of self-professing homosexuals pastors
· and a traditional denomination that teaches a biblical view of sexuality in line with orthodox Christians around the world and throughout history.
The UMC is scheduled
to hold a global general conference at the end of August this year. If they are able
to meet, they will vote to split the denomination and there will be
many important decisions for our congregation to make. However, no one
knows right now if the General Conference will be able to meet. It is a complex
gathering with a few thousand delegates from all over the world into one building and 40% of the delegates
will be coming from including places like Africa and the Phillipines who are
still facing travel restrictions due to the pandemic. If they are not able
to meet like planned, a messy denominational split may proceed anyway or it may be postponed. Either way, these
will be tricky waters for our church to navigate. I hope I have your
trust to lead you through it all. Please pray for
me and our church and our global denomination in the midst of it all this year.
Now, I can think
of no better way to begin our new year together than by celebrating the sacrament of Holy Communion. In this sacrament, we remember the sacrifice Christ has made for us to wash away our sins and reconcile us to God and each other. And we remember our purpose to be His ambassadors pleading with the world: “Come back to God!” And we also receive His nourishing grace to help us in the task.