Throughout Epiphany Pastor Kelly and I have been focusing on \u201cInvitation.\u201d We began in early January reflecting on how Jesus began to grab the people\u2019s attention by extending first a simple invitation to \u201ccome along and see\u201d what he was all about. From there he began to gather together a core group of followers. These became \u201cthe twelve,\u201d individuals who came from many different backgrounds to journey with Jesus throughout his ministry.<\/p>\n
The last Sunday in January our Gospel reading was from Matthew and is known as The Beatitudes. The Message paraphrase begins this story by noting that Jesus, after experiencing huge crowds of people coming out to hear him, looked for places where he could be seen and heard by many. Matthew tells us \u201che climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I read those words I thought about how \u201ccommitted\u201d went along with \u201cinvitation.\u201d Often we will receive in the mail an invitation along with an RSVP card. If we send that card back with the box checked off that indicates we have accepted the invitation. We are, in essence, committed to going. Now something can always come up that might keep us away but once we\u2019ve said \u201cyes,\u201d the person issuing the invitation is expecting to see us.<\/p>\n
We make many commitments in our lives; the most important ones being our commitment to God as well as our commitments to our spouse and to our children. Another commitment we make is to our local church. Most of us solidify that commitment by becoming members. That action brings with it some expectations. First, just like sending in that RSVP card, we are expected to show up – to make Sunday morning worship a regular part of our faith experience. We are also expected to support our church in whatever financial manner we are able.<\/p>\n
So why join a church? Why is this an important step? I believe it is one way we say to those who are already in the church that we appreciate what they are doing and that we want to be a part of it. Can you do this without joining? Certainly! But when we say \u201cYes, I want to be a part of what is happening here\u201d we are making a deeper commitment, both to the church, to God and to ourselves.<\/p>\n
We have a number of people who we believe are ready to make that commitment. If you\u2019ve been thinking about this yourself I invite you to spend Sunday afternoon, February 26th<\/sup> with Pastor Kelly and I. We\u2019ll gather right after worship to talk about our church and whether or not committing to membership is right for you. If you think it might be, please see either Pastor Kelly or myself and let us know you\u2019d like to be part of that conversation.<\/p>\n Blessings, Pastor Andy<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Throughout Epiphany Pastor Kelly and I have been focusing on \u201cInvitation.\u201d We began in early January reflecting on how Jesus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[259],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastorandy","tag-pastor-andy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}