First United Methodist Church - Fort Collins, CO

“It’s a New Day”

Sunday, November 5th is the Sunday we have the privilege of making our promise to support the church for the coming year. We are given a chance to make a financial pledge and we are given the invitation to join with the leadership team of the church to sign up to serve on a committee. Some preachers dislike Pledge Sunday. I don’t. I find it renewing and reflective of the congregation’s hope for the future. In a way it is a vote for or against the church’s future. It’s a new day for us.

In my sermon I don’t plan to say anything about giving; how much to give; serving; where to serve. I plan to take the time to think with you about our future. I will be announced/has been announced (depending upon when you read this Build a Sermon) that Joyce Curtis is going to retire. She is moving to be with family in Arkansas and will be leaving Colorado as soon as her house sells. She will leave our staff at the end of December. Therefore, this round of pledges will very much determine our future. It will determine what kind of staff we have; what kind of program we build; and what kind of dreams we fulfill.

In the week prior to Pledge Sunday I will put together some thoughts about our future and our potential.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about First Church and the “New Day”.

If you have some ideas to share and would like others to read them leave a comment with this post. For thoughts you’d like to send privately to me write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to hearing from you.

Charles

The “Abundant Life” Jesus said he came to bring has some problems attached. In fact, I think it was “Abundant Life” that got him into trouble. It was not a Gospel of accumulation, it was a message of tenacity. It is not a Gospel of self-indulgence; it’s a Gospel of selfless giving.

Two points I will try to make as I try to define “Abundant Life” as Jesus came to bring it.

1. Abundant Life means we learn to move from good to great. It means we look at the accomplishments of other people rather than to get credit for our own. It means we discover what it means to be servant leaders rather than enjoying the power of leadership that comes from being in control. It means we strive to do something with our lives that most properly approaches the potential we have been given by God.

2. Abundant Life means we learn to move from great, past grief, through God. It means we learn how to face the worst day we’ve ever had and to know that we can face anything that might come along because we have a “personal relationship” with God. God is not a concept to be debated. God is not an idea that we have held. God is not our private saver in times of trouble. God is a real presence in times of trouble. God is the one thing that stands when all else has fallen. God is a listener when we need to talk, and God is a “good word” when we need direction. We don’t own God, but we can move and live and have our being in God. We don’t need to pray to God as if God could grant our wish, but when we pray to God many of our wishes have been granted as we begin to discover how to participate in the problems we face and move toward the solutions we need.

Perhaps the ‘Abundant Life” jesus came to give us is the most valuable gift we will ever receive. Abundant life makes life worth living and enables us to overcome life when it is overwhelming.

How is faith a resource for living?

How do you experience abundant life?

How is God personal to you?

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

“How Abundant Livers Live”

The two Biblical texts that are driving this sermon come from two very different places. The first one comes from the Book of Job 42. The text is taken from the legend of Job that formed the book in the first place. Job was written by two different authors. The original legend is represented in the first part and the very end, and it includes the wager between God and Satan and the statement from God that Job would never revolt. The response is clear. job would never rebell because God has built a hedge around him. God had protected Job. God allows Satan to do terrible things to Job and Job exercises absolute patience.

The middle section is a very differnt picture. In the dialogues in the middle of Job we find Job rebelling and revolting significantly. There is nothing of the patience of Job in the most of the middle section; only at the beginning and the end.

Job final response is a statement of faith that affirms the goodness of life no matter what happens and the conclusion the “Job lived a hundred and fouty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days.”

The other texts comes from the Gospel of John the 10th chapter. It is about the “good shepherd” who is Jesus and how Jesus has come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.

The question I will pursue with the sermon is the nature of abundant life. What is this abundant life Jesus sought to bring to us? Where do we find it? How do we live it? Does this represent the Gospel of affluence? Are we to be rich in things or is this a higher calling to abundance?

How do you define abundant life and where to you find it?

If you have thougths to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

“How Abundant Livers Live”

There comes a time in our lives when we figure out how it is we are supposed to live. It probably runs through stages.

At an early stage we seek pleasure and we strive to avoid pain and this is what motivates us. Our lives are pretty simple and pretty self-centered.

At some point we begin to realize authority in our lives and we live to please the people who have power over us. We wish to be loved by our parents and so we strive to please them. We want to do well in school and so we conform.

It comes to us that there are higher callings for us. There is the will to power and the will to prestige. Our circle widens and we come in contact with other people and learn to manipulate systems to our advantage.

Sometimes we realize that our best interest is served when we seek not to serve ourselves. We discover the joy of giving to other people and we find satisfaction in reaching out beyond ourselves.

On occasion we come to a point in our lives when we know the ultimate purpose of our lives transcends anything we can remotely understand as having anything to do with our power or our popularity or our self interest. We discover a level of living that initiates with our concern for the world around us. We learn compassion on a level we never knew before and our actions are completely selfless and completely given without even thinking it.

Abundant livers live abundantly. They discover the secret to life lies in a sphere beyond what they ever imagined.

Do you know any people who have lived like this?

Have you ever discovered the joy of living that was truly modeled after the Gospel yourself?

If you have thoughts to share publically leave a comment with this post. For personal thought write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

One of the Scripture readings comes from Mark 10: 28-31

Peter said to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

Jesus looked at him and said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”

When giving becomes a way of life, then life takes on a new way. The rewards for the grateful givers are many. They have the opportunity to explore some of the most important things this world has to offer. Their gifts are more important to the giver than to the recipient of the gifts.

I am planning to talk about some people who had given so much through the church and in so many different ways that we can see that our giving to the church is transforming.

There is Jenny who have what she had in the form of a piggy bank she had made as part of her rehabilitation. There is Irving who gave himself to worship in the church and was an usher, and there was Irving who wanted to talk to the congregation about giving, and who demonstrated the most amazing attitude of caring and reaching out after his wife, Mary, died. There was Pearl whose lived to be over 100 years old and whose gift to the church was her presence at church every Sunday morning.

According to the Biblical text these people received more than they gave. Since I knew them all I believe it is absolutely true.

What do we give?

What do we receive when he give?

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

When we think about our church and our support of the church it usually involves money. Preachers are concerned this time of year and most of us have difficulty with stewardship sermons. What if we don’t make our budget? What if we don’t finish the year with a positive account? What do we have to cut and what will the cuts mean to us?

I really enjoy this time of year. In a way it’s a vote for the future of the church, and, no matter how much comes in in pledges, it is a statement of support from the membership. I count on the fact that we will do the best we can. I believe the members of this church is confident we are moving in the right direction. There is passion for the ministry of the church and wide ownership among the members.

In the sermon Sunday I’m going to talk about some of the people I have known who have given so much of their lives to the church that they have become an inspiration. What I intend to focus is not what they give to the church, but what they receive when they give to the church.

Most of us when we look back on our lives and we think about the things that have been important to us we call up those times when we were able to do something that made a difference to some institution or cause in which we believed. Giving on this level to the church does more for us than it can do for the church. Stewardship is much less about the total of the pledges than it is about the transformation of those who have pledged.

I would like to hear from you. When did you give something of your life that turned out to mean more to you than that to which you gave? What is the biggest gift you ever gave yourself when you supported something bigger than yourself?

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net  I look forward to hearing from you.

Charles

The sermon for Sunday, October 22 will look at the ways in which we are generous givers. It is a Sunday in which we are celebrating the Outreach Ministry of our church. We will take some time sharing all the programs our church is involved in making a difference in the lives of people in our area, and around the world.

 The reach of our church is wide. We are a congregation that realized we cannot be satisfied with our own comfort when there are people suffer.

 What have you done for someone else that made a big difference to you as well as to them?

When did reaching out beyond yourself become transformative?

 Some people believe that our thinking leads to our action. What we believe and what we hold as a value directs our behavior.

Another way to look at this is that sometimes our actions lead to new thinking. We learn more about Christian compassion than when we reach out than when we read about it in a book.

Sunday, we will consider the ways in which our faith and our action come together in outreach ministry.

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts (intended only for me) write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas

The sermon is taking a direction I had not anticipated. In looking at Bach’s life and the way in which he was discredited and poorly treated, we see a man who was so inspired by the music he was writing he didn’t get put down by the things that happened to him.

He wrote “the the Glory of God”, and “In the Name of Jesus”, and what other people thought of his work or how he was appreciated for his work was of no concern to him. He continued to work on his music in spite of the treatment he received and his music was written for the ages.

One of the texts for the service comes from Hebrews 4:14-16:

“Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Life has a way of putting us down. We have a possitility to reach out to something grasp something bigger than ourselves.

If you have thoughts to share publicly, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

 In looking at some of the biographical information about J.S. Bach I have come to appreciate some of the struggles that defined his life. His mother died when he was 9. He never acquired much of a salary and was barely able to pay his rent. He had to work with the fact that there were many mouths to feed. his wife Anna Magdalena went through no less than twelve nine-month pregnancies. Eight of the twelve children died at ages varying from an hour to five years. Of the remaining four children, one was seriously mentally-handicapped. Their last child was born when Anna was 41 and Sebastian was 57.

In one of his job assignments they required that he teach Latin in the school as well as perform in the church and lead several choirs. He disliked teaching Latin so much that he paid someone else to teach it and paid out of his own pocket.

He died in relative obscurity at age 65 and his body was placed in an unmarked grave.

Here is a man who work hard all his life and rarely received the recognition he deserved. The sermon Sunday addresses the issue of what it means to expect abundant living only to realize much less. What do we do when our expectations are not matched with life’s realities?

Have you ever felt that you were cheated by life? Have you ever found yourself thinking you should have been treated more respectfully than you were? If so, then you can identify with Moses, Hosea, Sarah, Isaiah, and Jesus. This sermon deals with what it means to be overlooked, neglected, and dismissed.

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net  I look forward to your ideas.

Charles

Monday’s thoughts

For some time I have wanted to look at the importance of music in worship. What kind of music works for us and what kind does not. We have struggled here at this church with the contemporary service. That has been something some people have really enjoyed, and yet other people haven’t appreciated it so much.

Several years ago our contemporary service was growing, but the numbers fell to the point we couldn’t continue with it. The praise band did a good job. They were talented and dedicated, but it just became more work for them and for our staff than we could justify.

I am wanting to look at the music of Bach. Some people can relate to classical music and Bach is noted as a church musician.

1. What are your thoughts about music in worship?
2. What seems to be meaningful for you and what is not?

If you have thoughts to share publically, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net

I look forward to your ideas.
Charles