Worship on June 1
RHS had graduated on Saturday. The air was filled with excited students and tired adults as we gathered together for worship.
Rodney Lawrence called the people together. After a variety of announcements and praise reports, only Jennifer L had a prayer request for the church to remember.
The worship service was brought into focus. Mary Gray was the liturgist of the morning. She talked about how the church is called to function together as a body. She said that the other day she was doing some work and she smashed her third finger. She had not thought about her third finger much before that point. She is pretty sure that she doesn’t know a name for the third finger. It is just there doing its work, without much notice. So should we work for God’s glory. People don’t need to know our name nor what kind of work we do. The church would know if we were not out doing our part.
Ned Metzger was called forward. He gave a report from the North Indiana Annual Conference meeting which concluded the day prior. He said that worship was one of the highlights of the meetings. There were 1064 registered members of conference attending plus a few guests. Worship with that large of a group was good.
Ned talked about the Nothing But Nets project where we are asked to purchase mosquito resistant nets for villages in Africa. Over the past year this project has collected over 2 million dollars.
Ned reported that Indiana is quickly becoming the #2 state in the country for gambling opportunities. They are spread about the state so it is not as visible. It is still very damaging to our state. The annual Conference passed a resolution demanding that the legislature ask the people to vote on whether new gambling is allowed.
He talked about the debate about the new Indiana Conference. There is much change in store for the United Methodist Church in Indiana as we look at a new conference.
Pastor Rick added to this report saying that he has officially been assigned to our church for another year. He has completed 5 years and is excited about year #6.
Jennifer Lawrence was our song leader. We sang “Bind Us Together” and “This is My Commandment.”
Following the time of prayer, Betsy Remaly taught the children. She talked with them about their favorite foods, their favorite color, their favorite ice cream flavor and the like. She concluded by saying that we are God’s favorite people. He made each one of us the way he wanted us. He is pleased when follow him.
Following the offering we sang “Blest Be the tie that Binds.”
The scripture lesson was from Hebrews 3:1-19.
Pastor Rick talked about the difference between Moses serving God’s house and Jesus owning the house. God owns our life. He wants our lives clean and holy as he is clean and holy. We act like we are in control and we try to keep God away from some of our closets of sin. God wants to be Lord of these pleases too. We must deal with the sin in our house.
Verse 13 talks about how we should encourage one another each day. We must help each other deal with sin too.
Our closing song was “They’ll Know we are Christians by our Love.”
Missions Committee was hosting a potato bar following the service.
About 123 folk enjoyed worship together.
