Faces of Federated - Entries from September 2011

SunSundaySepSeptember25th2011

September 25, 2011 - Martine Scheuermann

Posted Sunday, September 25 2011 @ 12 PM byMartine Scheuermann Tagged No tags 0 comments Add comment

I love this church. I love my Federated Faith Family, our faith family. I’m fairly certain that is no surprise to those of you who know me.

When I am asked to serve as Worship Leader, I am honored and humbled. Generally speaking, I am quite comfortable speaking to groups, whether it be in a business setting or in church setting such as this morning’s worship. My profession, as many of you know, is Human Resources. When I received “The Call” from Dan DeWeese to serve this week, I enthusiastically accepted.

Then the theme Dan had mentioned to me began to sink in……Grace in the Wilderness. As I gave this whole idea of Grace more thought, I remembered a coin that Marty and I had come across many years ago, when I was a volunteer leader with J.O.Y., the Junior High Youth Group. It was a two-sided phrase (one phrase on each side of the coin) and I remember that it had to do with Grace. Yes, that coin would be the spark to get me going and would have been a great anchor to my comments this morning…..if I could have found one of the coins. And in the midst of my best efforts, my memory simply could not pull up the words that were on the coin. So, there I was, back at the proverbial “square one”.

I thought about this and wondered exactly how I would share a Faith Witness around the theme of Grace. My childhood upbringing included teachings about God’s grace, but what I recall is not that God’s Grace was freely given, but instead, something that was earned. What I have learned from my faith family here at Federated is that grace IS indeed freely given. It doesn’t get given to us if we do something good or if we earn it. I think however, that it isn’t always obvious, to me, and maybe to some of you. Sometimes we need to be open to see Grace and to receive it freely.

This past week was a very busy one for me, and I’m sure that I don’t have the market on that. I’m quite certain many of you may have experienced a jam-packed week, full of “things” that had to be done and tasks that had to be accomplished, whether in your work life or your personal life. I would like to give you a brief picture of my week.

I served as Past Chair of the Ohio Human Resource Conference Committee, and this past week was our annual Conference. There were over 750 attendees (all HR professionals in one form or another). It was a pretty packed program over 3 days.
Additionally, there were pre-conference meetings for the committee the day and a half prior to the conference opening session. I promised myself to tuck away some time to work on my comments so I wouldn’t be saving this for the last minute, thus causing stress for me and no doubt for others around me. Sure, with 750 attendees and four very busy days, that would be easy to do……..…find some quiet time alone.

Not quite.

My inspiration this week came in our preliminary committee meeting, which took place on Tuesday afternoon. Our Chair, a dear friend and HR colleague of mine from Cincinnati, Steve Browne, met with us to lay the groundwork for the 15 of us on the committee as to how we should approach the conference. We had all worked very hard over the past 11 months to plan this conference, and, quite honestly, I wasn’t quite ready for instructions. However, I sat quietly and listened. He shared a story about his company. Steve said that his company treats people with Grace, and he wanted us to do that as well. They have a “Code of Conduct” (Steve admitted that he doesn’t like those particular words). One of the items on the list is “allow for grace”.

This is something that Steve and his colleagues at LaRosa’s Pizza live by. The leaders, and others in the company as well, approach situations by sitting back and listening; they wait to see what happens. They know there will be conflicts and confusion and occasionally someone may do something to make someone else unhappy, but they approach each person and each situation with grace.

Grace in the workplace? Really? Yes, really.

I think back several years in my life, that comment may have just slipped by me without any second thought or consideration. It is this faith family that has opened my eyes and ears to the meaning of Grace, wherever we find it.

We do find Grace, God’s Grace, all around us. I found it recently in my workplace with two different employees; it came at a time when I seemed to be struggling to know exactly where I “fit”. Grace came to me in very personal interactions with each of these employees.

We find Grace in our homes and in our families. I wonder how different my day, and maybe yours too, would be if we all “allowed for grace”.

I am happy to say that I did find the coin. On one side it reads, from 2 Thessalonians, “Grace is when God gives you what you don’t deserve.” The flip side reads, from 1Peter, “Mercy is when God spares you what you do deserve.”

I’d like to close with a quote from Anne Lamott:

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Let Us Pray:

God, we humbly ask you to open our eyes, our ears, and our minds to know that your grace is indeed freely given. It is all around us if we just allow for it. Even on our worst days, we know that we are not beyond the reach of your grace. And, on our best days we are not beyond the need of your grace.

The winds of grace, your grace, are always blowing; all we need to do is raise our sails.

Amen

SunSundaySepSeptember18th2011

September 18, 2011 - Todd Smith

Posted Sunday, September 18 2011 @ 12 PM byTodd Smith Tagged No tags 0 comments Add comment

This is really more of a confession than a faith witness. I am not a good pray-er. Since the next thing on the order of worship is a prayer from me, I’m sure you are looking forward to that.

A little background. I am serving this year on Central Council as the Past Chair. This year Central Council is studying a new book on Evangelism (also known as the “E word”) called Unbinding the Gospel. The author, Martha Grace Reese, was involved with the Mainline Evangelism Project, which interviewed 1200 mainline churches across the country that are doing effective evangelism, which really means they are good at attracting new members to their churches. The book acknowledges the negative connotations that we all probably have with that E word, and talks about what they found and how to approach evangelism in a way that is effective and genuine.

For us at Federated, this subject dovetails with one of the strategic initiatives that was presented at the last Annual Meeting, which is Telling Our Story.

We are not done with the book yet, but I was surprised at how much this book focuses not on evangelism, but on prayer. Intentional and widespread prayer seems to be the bedrock on which so many of these successful churches are built. The author tells one story of a church that was starting an evangelical task force, and she was asked to advise them. She told them that for 90 days, they should only pray – make no decisions, take no actions, just pray and listen for God’s guidance. Reluctantly they did just that, and long story short, they saw results far beyond what they thought was possible. And prayer continues to play a central role in all they do.

So it made sense that at our August meeting, Helen Pointer, Chair of Central Council, asked all the members to pray for the church every day for a month. Whatever topic presented itself – general or specific.

At September’s meeting, we talked about how the prayer exercise went for each of us. I did not have very good results to report. Frankly, I did a lousy job. Prayer is not one of the spiritual disciplines I am good at or work at very hard. I’m very diligent about attending worship, contributing financially, and giving of my time, but prayer is haphazard at best. And I wasn’t the only one. But fortunately, there were some prayer warriors at the table that brought the averages back up.

A quote from the chapter of the book we read for the meeting kept coming back to me:
“Most of us are in mainline churches with a very light emphasis on relationship with God.”

I didn’t like that statement, but it certainly seemed to apply to me. What is more central to a relationship with God than prayer? And the book argued, very logically, that it is our relationship with God, and how that is expressed with the other members of the church, that is the good news we need to share.

Another strategic initiative that we presented at the Annual Meeting deals directly with this – Faith Formation – which we want to emphasize in the coming years, building on things that we are already doing, like the last all-church book study on the Lord’s Prayer. Is this all dove-tailing of what we have already decided and what we are hearing from outside sources coincidence? Probably not.

So this month, Central Council has the same assignment as last month. Pray every day for the church. Only Helen assigned each of us prayer buddies so we could remind each other. So far, I’m doing better, but I’m still a ways from being good. And I know the book ends with a 40-day prayer journal, so I have to shape up.
And I’d like you to help me. Can each of you do the same thing? Pray for the church every day for a month. Maybe you are already a prayer warrior and you can just add it to your list. Or maybe, like me, your praying muscles need some exercise. But I am convinced our prayers will make a difference, for all of us and for this place we call our spiritual home.

I wrote one for today. Let’s pray together.

God of the Universe and God of each one of us, we thank you for this community you have created where the Spirit is alive, all are welcome, lives are transformed, and all can love and serve the world in your name.
We thank you for the Community we are - for young, and middleaged, and mature – each of us an unrepeatable miracle that you have gathered together into this place.

For our weekly worship together, and for the music – the choirs, the musicians, and preaching that enlighten and inspire our lives.

We thank you for the staff of Federated Church, who work tirelessly in your service.

And we thank you for those we don’t know yet, the visitors and new members who will come to this place in the coming months, and will find something for which they have been searching.

We celebrate that lives are transformed here.

That children are brought up bathed in Your love through the work of our Christian Education staff and countless volunteers.

That lives are transformed through the work of our mission partners, many of whom are represented here today.

And through our own missions, to South Africa, to South Dakota, and to the near west side of Cleveland.

For the families of Family Promise, who have spent the last week at the Family Life Center, and for all the volunteers who made them feel welcome in their temporary home.

We ask that you be present in the challenges we face – guide our thinking and make your will known to us.

For the committee that is now searching for a new assistant minister.

For our new worship associate for the Alive360 service.

Be with the Leadership of our church in all that they do.

And guide the Governance and Leadership task force as they work to restructure our way of doing your work in this place.

And with our Stewardship committee, as they help us to focus on Grace, Gratitude, and Generosity at a time when everything else seems uncertain.

Lord, we thank you that you accept us as we are but love us too much to leave us that way. Help us in the next month, all of us, to pray. To talk to you more often than we have in the past, to listen to the small still voice, to be open to your will, to have a closer walk with you.

In the name of your son Jesus, Amen.