Mid-Week Message

 

 

    “Paul's Mid-Week Message”          

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” – 2 Timothy 1:5

 

            I remember some things of that Sunday 6 June 1982.  I sweat in that polyester suit from Sears not only because of the heat, but nervousness before all those people, taking vows, making profession of faith and to remain faithful to, “Christ’s holy Church.”  I came up to kneel before the altar.  My right ankle clicked the whole way.  It’d never done that, tension.  I knelt; hands were laid on my head, “The Lord defend you with his heavenly grace…,” said the pastor.  The faith was now mine, wasn’t it?

            Some years later, in another context, another class, we were all taught about the need for conversion.  We had heard testimony after testimony in, “chapel,” from former reprobate, notorious sinners, about their radical conversion and new life in Jesus Christ.  It was all very exciting, soul stirring.  Later, in class we were taught the need to repudiate our old form of life; we had to have testimony about the time, the date, and the radical change in us, and how we have laid aside all our old way of life.  In my life, I had been brought up in the church.  Apparently, in this new (to me) context that didn’t matter; radical conversion with time and date was the only, “true,” faith.

            Later, before a Board of Ordained Ministry, my essay answers to the questions in the discipline were not good enough for one of the examiners, because they agreed with the church’s teaching.  He said, “We want to know what you really believe.”  I found out later this examiner gave everyone a hard time, because he was given a hard time.

            From The Apostle Paul’s, Second Letter to Timothy, we find that Timothy was raised in the church.  Paul knew the family, knew their faith, and saw Timothy following through in leadership.  There are many ways people come to know Jesus as Lord.  Perhaps from early on in the church, the usual way in Early Church families, was for the children to be raised in the faith from early childhood.

            This Sunday we celebrate the Confirmation of several of our students in ministry.  Their faith is their own, but it has been handed to them through millennia through the Church.  They may come from a long line of Christian believers.  Maybe their parents had a radical conversion experience, or maybe they themselves have had a radical change.  Regardless, they are choosing to follow Jesus, choosing the Church, and are now taking responsibility for themselves to be faithful through their prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.  May God be glorified in them and in our life together as citizens of his kingdom.

Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ,

 

 

Paul B. Longmire, Associate Pastor.

 

 

 

           

“Partnering with God to transform the world by offering help, hope, and healing through Jesus Christ”

(Mission Statement of Hixson UMC)