Pastor Robert J. Freysinger
Dear Friends,
As we enter the month of July, we enter into a time to ask some important questions about the life of the Millville United Methodist Church. July 1, 2010 begins the seventh year of my appointment to this congregation. In some ways, it seems like I just got here and that we are still trying to get to know each other. In other ways, it seems like we have been together for a long time. In either way, as we begin this year together, there are some who will be rejoicing and some who will not. There is a need to admit to that reality in order for us to move the church to where we are living faithfully the call to ministry that a congregation needs to live.
The call of a congregation is to be a filling station to equip the members and constituents for the ministry of the church. The job of ministry is not that of the pastor, it is the job of the membership. The role of the pastor is to help prepare the members of the congregation to step out into ministry in the world and community. The members of the congregation should not be the focus of the ministry in a vital and growing congregation. The members of the congregation are called to be in ministry. The ministry of the congregation is to feed, nurture, and train the members for their ministries. What is your ministry?
How are you reaching out to the world that is hurting and hungry? How are you seeking to touch the lives of those who are the least and the lost, the disenfranchised and the lonely, the people who need to hear the gospel the most? A church that sees the work of ministry falling fully on the shoulders of the pastor is a church that is asking for a chaplain who will help them move toward the dying process. I know many congregations that Hospice needs to be called in because they have decided that the ones who should be ministered to are themselves.
I invite us during this next year to begin a journey that will challenge each and everyone of us, young and old, men and women, boys and girls to find a ministry that they can claim as their own or with someone else. In this ministry, the key is asking a few questions.
1. What is God calling me to do?
2. What has God gifted me to do?
3. Where, outside the boundaries of this congregation do my skills and gifts need to be used?
4. Who are the people that God wants me to reach out to this year?
5. What resources and materials do I need to make this happen?
As you begin to answer these questions, more questions will come to life. The focus will be come clearer, and a team of people to work with will come to mind. Be on the look out for the places that God is trying to show you. Ask God for direction in what you should do for your ministry. Then step out in faith. If you don’t step out in faith, and face the possibility of failure, you will never find the ministry that God has for you.
Let the new year begin, and may we find those places where God is calling us to serve.
See you in Church
Pastor Bob