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2330 South Jefferson Street
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2330 South Jefferson Street
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FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER MAY 9, 2004
As Christ cares, we care…
We care about all people.
ORDER OF SERVICE-11:00
A.M. + Indicates the people standing ENTRANCE
Words of Welcome, Registration of
Attendance and Announcements +Indicates the people standing
THOSE SERVING TODAY:
The Altar Flowers Are
Given *CHILDREN (AGES 3 through 1st GRADE), may meet the acolyte to recess to Children’s Church. Please ask your child to line up behind the acolyte who will lead all children out together. After the worship service, parents must pick up their child in the Children’s Department; children will not be allowed to leave the room until their parents arrive. WELCOME! We're glad to have all who have joined us for this time of worship. Especially to our guests and visitors, we welcome you to South Roanoke and to our fellowship. We invite those who have no church home to make South Roanoke your church and add your witness to ours. NEXT WEEK’S SERMON, will be delivered by The Reverend Robert H. Garner. THE ROSE ON THE ALTAR is in honor of the birth of Jaimie Thornton Cox, born Friday, April 30, 2004 to Steve and Cindy Cox. The proud grandparents are Rudy and Mooney Cox. THE PASTOR’S INQUIRY CLASS, originally scheduled for May 2-June 6 during the Sunday school hour has been postponed to this fall. NEXT OPPORTUNITY FOR WORSHIP: WEDNESDAY, May 12, 7:00 P.M. CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP SERVICE. The Peanut M & M’s will lead the service. THE FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE WILL meet on Tuesday, May 11 at 10:30 a.m. in the Wimmer Classroom. The book study is finished, therefore, after devotions the group will discuss what to do with the remainder of this year. Please plan to attend this very important meeting. THE AFTERCARE SOCIAL CLUB will meet on Tuesday, May 11 at 6:00 p.m. at the home of Steve and Terry Wilkinson. If you would like more information regarding our Social Club, please call bonnie dayton, 981-0237. THE DEADLINE FOR ARTICLES for the June issue of the Tower Times is May 15. Send articles to Joe Kennedy, or email to joesrumc@aol.com. IF YOU HAVE A college or high school graduate this year, please call the church office as soon as possible so we can recognize them in an upcoming bulletin. BOY SCOUT VENTURER CREW #15 chartered by Trinity United Methodist Church is selling Hardee Bucks. Purchase $5, $10 of Hardee Bucks and receive the same amount of bucks to purchase food at Hardees. For all you low carb Hardee eaters you get great food AND help the Boy Scouts. Contact Barbara Duerk, 343-1616. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A GREAT FELLOWSHIP on Sunday morning, please come to the Wesley Class at 9:45 a.m. The Reverend Bob Garner will continue to lead a study of the historical view of the Old Testament until the end of May. Bob’s knowledge and insight of the Bible plus his humor, make an interesting study. Everyone is welcome! THE ADLERSGATE SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS is starting a series of critical studies to examine the significance and strength of our faith in Christ in the context of a modern world full of competing and sometimes conflicting views of spirituality. During the next six months we will be looking at other religions and an atheist’s view of Christianity. They started on April 18 with Joel Green’s book, Beginning With Jesus: Christ in Scripture, the Church, and Discipleship. Green uses images of journey to look at the historical Jesus, Jesus’ effect on church history and theology, and His means to transform lives through more than knowledge when we live as His disciples. Join us for lively discussion that can lead to a deeper understanding. RESULTS OF THE MINISTRY AND WORSHIP SURVEY are available in the church office. Your leaders thank you for your thoughtful responses. THE ADULT FELLOWSHIP GROUP will leave the church at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 10 for a trip to Wytheville and the Wolfhart Haus Theater. Lunch will be served at the tables at 12:00 and the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, is at 2:00 p.m. The cost of $33.00 includes the meal (with gratuity and tax) and the play and transportation. Sign up on the sheet on the board by the church office. THE SRUMC ANNUAL MIRACLE OF MISSIONS rummage sale is coming up June 4-5. The proceeds will go to support ministries in our Sister City of Kisumu, Kenya. The Ministries include the Agape Children’s Home, the Salem Orphanage, TEMAK (Teenage Mothers Assoc. of Kenya), the New Life Baby’s Home and Kisumu Hospice. We also hope to provide support to missionary Dr. Jerome Freund who will serve for a year at Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya. Please help us help our friends in Kenya by cleaning out your closets and donating to our sale. You can bring items to the church Fellowship Hall as early as Saturday, May 29th. If you need help with larger items or boxes, please call Diane D’Orazio (775-9886). We also need your help in sorting and pricing items the week before the sale and we need volunteers to help man shifts one or both days of the sale. This sale has become a tradition at our church that we hope you will support. It’s a labor of love that touches many lives. CAMP ALTA MONS will be conducting a district approved capital campaign to raise funds to improve, expand and develop existing facilities and property. A public kick-off event to be held Sunday, September 12, 1:00-5:00 p.m. at Camp Alta Mons’ large picnic shelter. Retired Bishop Kern Eutsler will be the key-note speaker. Praise bands, choir, tours, wagon rides and a BBQ meal will be provided for the event. There is no cost for the special event activities or BBQ meal. YOUTH: Regular UMY on Sunday nights has ended until September. Peanut M & M’s has ended for the year also. ___________________________________
MAY SERMON SERIES CONTINUES ___________________ May 9, 2004
5th Sunday of Easter
Mother’s Day/Festival of the Christian Home What is life like at your house? That’s the continuing question before us as we explore together life in the household of God. The household of God is a community of love where people know and support one another and where every idea is respected and everyone is committed to the common goal for which the whole community strives. The household of God—you know, the place where God lives, where the peace of Christ reigns. Is that what life is like at your house? The household of God finds its origin in the intention of God in creation. The household of God was created in the beginning as the very basic framework of human relationship. It began with the creation of Eve. When she entered the scene the fabric of life began to take shape. With the creation of Eve life was transformed from the solitary existence of a lone being into a community of human relationship. With this possibility of human interaction, relationship and community brought both the promise of fulfillment and the threat destruction of the household of God. The creation of Eve introduced differences and differences, diversity, are the two-edged sword that shapes life. Differences are what make relationships and, therefore, life possible. Differences also produce conflict; conflict brings the potential to destroy the very relationships differences make possible. It can be said that in the very beginning by the creation of differences God planted the seeds for both the growth and the destruction of life. Cheryl and I attended our first play at the Mill Mountain Theater recently when we saw the production of Mark Twain’s The Diary of Adam and Eve. Mark Twain describes the promise and the threat of differences so well in his own inimitable way. We would share just a bit of his original work upon which the play was based by way of illustration. Listen to Mark Twain’s interpretation of the differences introduced into the world by the creation of Eve and the subsequent relationship that make life possible….. Excerpts from
The Diary of Adam and Eve
by Mark Twain
Eve’s Diary
Adam’s Diary
Eve’s Diary
Adam’s Diary What a struggle and what a joy it is. Differences! Life! And we have not even considered the differences that children introduce into the human mix! That reality was perhaps no better expressed than by my father-in-law, rest his soul who was known to respond when asked, “How are you?” he would say, “I haven’t been well since the baby came!” And I heard him say that for the first time about 23 years after the birth of his first baby, my wife, Cheryl. He indeed had not been well for a long time! Differences: the very promise of the fulfillment of life and the very real threat to life as we know it. Life really is all about negotiating differences. That’s why the first key to a healthy life is: accept differences. Now there are several ways to deal with differences. Most of us are uneasy and anxious about differences. When you are uneasy and anxious about differences you tend to deal with differences by insisting that everybody be the same. That, of course is impossible, but more often than not we find two ways to try to accomplish this impossibility. One way is to totally adapt yourself to the seeming consensus of the moment and completely absorb your identity with that of the other. Another way is to so clearly define your own identity that you insist others be just like you and cut yourself off from any who disagree with you. Obviously the more mature among us find the way to relate that is inbetween these two extremes. Mature persons somehow find a way to clearly define who they are without being threatened by the difference in another while at the same time remaining relationally connected to those with whom they do not agree. The emotionally mature are so comfortable within themselves that they can easily relate to others without either imposing themselves upon them or totally abandoning themselves to them. Maggie Scarf studied the difference between unhappy and happy families. Unhappy families tend to “rigidity into certain recognizable, limited stances.” They become trapped in “fixed patterns of responding; they get into ‘nonnegotiable positions.’” Unhappy families “get stuck..” Happy families are known for their “variability,” their “ability to be flexible.” Happy families “cherish” the individuality of its members. There is a certain resiliency to happy families while unhappy families are strikingly intolerant of differences. It was certainly an
unhappy time in the Christian family when Peter was so upset about the
differences between the original Jewish Christians and the newly-converted
non-Jewish Gentile Christians. For a long time the young Christian Church
insisted that any new Christian must follow all the rituals, traditions,
and practices of the Jewish faith. But in our text from the Acts this
morning, Peter saw in a dream the gift of the diversity of the Christian
family and, having seen the spirit of God come upon an uncircumcised
heathen who experienced the reconciling love of Christ quite apart from
any accommodation to Jewish culture, he declared Differences bring conflict. In the midst of conflict, anxiety rises. When anxiety rises, the perception of differences is magnified. What ordinarily would be a thoughtful, straightforward discussion of a difference of opinion so easily deteriorates into the angry exchange of adversaries. Sometimes in life everyone is invested in clearly expressing themselves and finding a mutually satisfying consensus where each one gives up a little bit and everyone wins. But too often, however, a stressful battle of wills develops where everybody is only understood in “black and white” “win or lose” terms and the entire situation deteriorates into a struggle of life and death. The potential for both was planted in the very beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve. From the very beginning, differences provide the opportunity for the vitality and lay the foundation for the fall of human life. What is life like at your house? Or at your school? or at your work? Or at your church? Or in your world? Do we accept differences? Or do differences become our downfall every time? No family, no school, no workplace, no church is perfect. Nowhere in the created universe will you find a human community anywhere where there is a perfect balance between the separateness and closeness that is the key to accepting differences and making for a healthy life. Every family, every school, every workplace, every church has the potential to experience the growth and vitality that happens when differences are accepted. There is a kind of magic to this creation, there is a grace in creation that brings health to relationships and makes life grow. That magic, that grace is available to any who accept differences. Whenever we can successfully negotiate the differences between us such that we keep our own integrity and enhance the integrity of another we tap into the very power of creation itself that creates life. Every Mother here
this morning has at one time or another in her life, recited in her heart
of hearts the sentiment expressed in the poem of Rudyard Kipling entitled
If: Every mother here this morning can remember a time in your family when tension was high, the conflict intense, and everyone seemed to be looking to you for support or love or affirmation or whatever. Do you remember the moment in your family, in your life? Every mother can remember that one moment when somehow you managed to keep your head, when you were able to clearly define yourself without cutting everybody else off and clearly hearing and understanding everyone else? Do you remember such a moment? The resolution that came was perhaps not immediate; you had to wait patiently for it. It was not a solution you managed or perhaps even imagined. It felt like a gift. Well, it is a gift granted to all relationships where somebody just keeps her head, thinks clearly, speaks for herself and stays connected to everybody else. Every mother here can remember a moment just like that. In that moment, you gave a real gift to your family, not only in that moment, but for the rest of their lives. Because in that moment everybody grew up just a little bit in emotional maturity and experienced what life is really like in the household of God. Jesus gave to his
disciples back then and continually gives to us today a new commandment What’s life like at your house? In conclusion let us offer the prayer that places us before God in the best way I know for God to work in us this magic of creation: The Serenity Prayer
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