Planting Seeds of Faith
A visitor dropped by the church one afternoon in mid-November. Rusty Freeman (pictured) grew up at FUMCWF. His grandfather, Rev. Dr. Alfred Freeman, was the Senior Minister at FUMCWF from 1949-1957. Rusty and I were in the youth group together in the mid-1980s.
After his high school graduation, Rusty enrolled at Baylor University. While there, he started exploring a call to ministry that ultimately led him to seminary and ordination in the Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. Rusty has since joined the Global Methodist Church and currently serves as the Director of the Wesley House of Studies at Truett Seminary at Baylor.
Rusty and I spent a few minutes walking around the building. He marveled at the changes, especially in the office area, atrium, and gathering space outside the sanctuary. He also grinned at how much was still as he remembered. Of course, the most moving moment was when we walked into our church’s sanctuary. We talked about our experiences of worship in that special place and how meaningful it is to worship in such a magnificent room.
We also talked about the formative experiences we had as young people in this church and how those experiences were like seeds planted in us that eventually took root, were nurtured in other places, and ultimately grew to bear good fruit. Our lives and careers have taken different tacts, but it is the same God who we worship and serve. And we have this church in common as a place where we could explore and practice what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.
A New Chapter
In a similar way, this church is now serving as the next chapter for many whose faith journey had previously been in other churches. This reminds me that we are constantly being shaped and reshaped in God’s image as we grow in our faith. Jesus never promised that it would be easy or painless to follow him. We often find ourselves having to adapt and adjust to new and different and sometimes difficult circumstances. But God is with us in all of it.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
This Advent season is a time to celebrate an incarnational faith, one in which God entered the world in Jesus the Christ and changed everything. In Christ, God would make everything new. This would be accomplished by building on what was passed, not tossing it away. It would be something new, but rooted in something ancient.
I hope you will think about your own faith and how your different experiences of the church have helped shape you. And I hope you will consider how God is shaping you now through the ministry of this church. And as you do this, I hope you will think about the seeds you might plant that will help others develop and deploy their own gifts in order for God’s work in us to carry on. I look forward to our work and worship together.
With love, and joy, serving as your pastor,
John McLarty