020915 Bulletin

As we live and work together in community, issues of diversity make us aware of our judgments and assumptions. Diversity also provides the energy the community needs to minister to a variety of needs in a variety of ways.

If you would like to stay seated for any or all of the “standing” parts of the service, please feel free to do so.

A Time of Greeting

One: From the beginning of creation to a future yet unborn, from the depths of the earth, to the far reaches of the universe, the truth of God is revealed to us.

All: God’s love surrounds us; the faith of God’s people inspires us. Let us worship with joy and thanksgiving.

Prayer of Approach (Responsive)

All: as our voices sing your praise, as our minds are challenged by your Word, and as our hearts respond to your great love in Jesus. Amen.

We Remain in God’s Presence Through Confession

God we dream of a world at peace, a world of sharing and caring, of people responding to each others needs, relying on each other’s gifts. Forgive us when prejudice clouds the dream. Forgive us when small irritations become the focus. Forgive us when we push Christ from the centre. Enable us to dream the dream again, to celebrate the diversity within each of us and within our church and community and to recognize your face in every face we meet… (Silent Confession)

“You are forgiven. Forgiven to live again and celebrate all that you are together.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

Exodus 14:19-31 From the Hebrew Scriptures Pg. 73

Anthem “God’s Work” by Besig & Price

Matthew 18:21-35 From the Christian Scriptures Pg. 26

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Read from the New Revised Standard Version)

All: Thanks be to God

Sermon “Ancient Walls”

Mission Moment Weta Rachinsky

We Respond In Giving And Gratitude

Our Church Tithes and Offerings

Dedication #544 “In Gratitude & Humble Trust”

In gratitude and humble trust we bring our best today

to serve your cause and share your love with all along life’s way.

O God, who gave yourself to us in Jesus Christ, your Son,

teach us to give ourselves each day until life’s work is done.

Prayer of Dedication

Compassionate God, you have called us to participate in your saving action in the world, to tell and to show forth your wondrous love to the lost and lonely, the hungry and homeless. May the gifts we offer now be a pledge of our willingness to share in the work of Christ, we pray. Amen.

Prayer of Thanksgiving, Intercession & Lord’s Prayer

Go to welcome all those whom God welcomes, to honour God in all that you do, to forgive others as God forgives you, to embrace your brothers and sisters, not to judge them, to be patient and understanding with others, and to worship God in all you say and do. The blessings of God be with you this day and always.

The Life And Work Of The Congregation

Nursery – Our church family is in need of volunteers to look after the Nursery on Sunday mornings. This is a good outreach ministry for Westminster to allow our young mothers to have one hour to sit in church and worship. If you feel you don’t want to do this alone, please find a “buddy” to work with you. Contact Lana Blatz @ 548-6145 or the church office 526-5247.

Junior Choir practise – immediately following worship in the Lounge. All children aged between 5 & 12 years old welcome. Junior choir will sing during worship on Sept. 29^th.

Adult Confirmation begins this Wednesday Sept. 18. Interested parties please contact James or the office.

A study of Bruce Chilton’s book Rabbi Jesus will begin Monday, Sept 16^th @ 7:00 p.m. in the Memorial Salem room of Fifth Avenue Memorial. Those planning to attend are asked to contact Maureen at 526-2237, in order that copies of the book may be ordered. These will be available at the Book Nook, at a cost of approx. $26.00.

Camp Okonoki regular board meeting – Sunday Sept 22^nd @ 2:30 at Gordon Memorial in Redcliff. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Camp Okonoki – Caretaker needed. If you are interested, please mail a résumé to Camp Okonoki, Caretaker Position, Box 201, Medicine Hat, AB before Sept 16^th. If you require information about the position, please call Mel Spence at 548-7395.

Commune-I-Care - callers needed. If you are interested in giving some of your time, contact the office @ 527-5246 or Bev Empey @527-6403.

Sunday School - more teachers are still needed. Please contact Jane or leave a message at the office (526-5247).

AIDS Walk – Sat. Sept 21^st @ Riverside Park at 6:00 p.m. (registration 5:00 p.m.). Free BBQ to follow. Registration forms available from the AIDS office @ 550 C Allowance Ave. S.E.

Greeters, Ushers and Coffee Hosts - if you are interested in participating, please call Grace Lemon 528-3662, or contact the office.

Membership Sunday will tentatively be on Nov. 17^th. Anyone wishing transfer of membership, Baptism, or to share in a service of reaffirmation of faith, please call James.

If you would like to place flowers in the Sanctuary to remember or celebrate a loved one or a special occasion, please sign beside the appropriate Sunday on the flower poster in the Narthex, or phone Sharon Clay at 527-5681. The flowers will be ordered for you, and payment may be made to the UCW (via the office, Sharon, or Alice Felesky), before the end of the month. The cost is $27.00. Following the service in which your flowers are used, you may choose to either take them home, or let Sharon know what you would like to have done with them. Often the flowers have been delivered by Sharon to a shut-in or to a hospital patient from our congregation.

Friendship Rosters: Please sign the Friendship Roster this morning. It is a helpful record of your worship presence and a way to share special concerns (i.e. prayer requests and Westminster name tag requests).

Are you on PAR? If you are interested in the Pre-Authorized Remittance (PAR) system for your offerings, please obtain an authorization card from Donna Scharf or the office. Once completed please return your card to Donna or place it in an envelope along with a void cheque & put it in the offering plate.

Phoenix Safe House (Women’s Shelter) - Volunteers needed. Are you a person who cares, who gives with your heart and shares? Share your talents and your time. For more information, contact Heather 527-8223.

Tanglefoot – in concert at the Grandstand Banquet Hall on Oct 18^th. We have their permission to use the song “Vimy” on our website. James used this song in the Remembrance Day service on November 11, 2001.

Food Bank Sunday is held on the first Sunday of the month – items suggested for donation are: canned tomatoes, tuna, crackers, cereal, macaroni & cheese and personal hygiene items. (If you bring items on another Sunday, they too will be forwarded to the Food Bank).

Senior Choir welcomes all who enjoy singing. Please feel free to join us on Thursday evenings @ 7:00 p.m. for choir practice and see how much fun we have! To love to sing is the only requirement.

The ministry of Westminster United Church was extended into the community as James conducted a funeral service for Gilles Duhaime. Our condolences and prayers go out to his family.

Our Order of Ministry This Morning

Greeters............................................. Irene Fekete, Rose Hubbard

........................................................... Adair Prouty, Yvonne Hole

Scripture Reader........................................................ Marg Taylor

Elder-in-Charge......................................................... Jean Riggins

Next Week’s Readings from: Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

Thought For Today

How old would you be

if you didn’t know how old you are?

by Satchell Paige

The meeting of the Board took place September 10th, 2002 at Westminster United Church with 14 Elders and James and Jane in attendance.

The Board unanimously voted to have one of the Columbian families, Carlos and Elana Esteban, and their four children, Rosemberg, Elizabeth, Fabian and Heberney, reside in our rental property. Long range plans, with the help of Antonio of Saamis Immigration, include application for subsidized housing for the Esteban family. Saamis Immigration anticipates this process will take from six months to a year.

The Discernment Committee (represented by Sharon Clay and Jim Cummings) recommended formal acceptance of the candidate, Jane Clarke, as a Lay Pastoral Minister in Training with the ‘ministry in training’ to take place at Westminster United Church. Board members were given a concluding report to study prior to our October 8th meeting.

James shared a computer presentation of our website. June Reid has done an amazing job of posting the life and work of Westminster on the web. You will want to visit our site. It can be found at www.anwc.net/westminster. Peruse regularly for information, photos, upcoming events, etc.

There has been and will be some upgrading to the church and the rental property (including windows, painting, cement work, etc.). Our property committee continues to be very busy.

On the weekend of October 26-27, 2002 the Congregational Life Centre representatives, Clair Woodbury and his partner, Joyce Madsen, will attend our church to lead us through a Mission Statement Development workshop on Saturday and will also share in our worship on Sunday morning. This event is free and open to all who would like to attend.

The Annual Fall Supper has been slated for November 2^nd. If you wish to help with this endeavour, please contact Jean Riggins, Alice Brehmer, Marg Taylor or Linda Nikoleychuk. (Many hands make light work.)

The Proofing has been done for the Pictorial Directory and the finished publication should be returned to our folks later this fall.

“Ancient Walls”

(Some source material shared today is with modifications from dialogues of clergy & worship leaders in community on the net…special thanks to Joinhands.com & this Midrash community)

Once upon a time there was a boy with a very difficult character. His father gives him a bag full of nails and tells him to drive one nail in the garden fence every time he loses his patience and/or has an argument with someone.

In the following weeks, the boy learns to control himself and the number of nails driven in the fence gets lower every day:

The boy discovers that it is easier to learn to control himself than to hammer nails in the fence.

At last, the day comes when the boy does not drive one nail in the garden fence.

Then he goes to his father and tells him that today he did not need to hammer even one nail.

His father then tells the boy to take out one nail from the fence for every day he succeeds in controlling his temper and not loosing his patience. Many days pass and finally the boy can tell his father that he took out all the nails from the fence.

The father brings his son in front of the fence and carefully says to him: “My child, you behaved very well, but look how many holes you left in the fence; it will never be the same. When you have an argument with someone and tell them bad words, you leave them with wounds like these ones.

It does not matter how many times you say sorry, the wound will stay. A wound caused by words hurts just as bad as a physical wound. Via the internet

A key ingredient in living within a spirit of forgiveness, a spirit that can be shared with others is humility.

I believe I was just as appalled by the events of September 11, 2001 as anyone in my circumstance. I didn’t lose family but I lost a sense of innocence for sure…and I mourned for that loss and many other losses…I still do. However, I experienced this past week two distinctly different approaches to those events in the media coverage and I don’t believe that either of the two approaches were fabrications of the media but were, instead, reflections of reality.

One approach was reflected in the stories shared of persons being kind to one another in the wake of the terror…folks from Gander and Texas, folks from New Zealand and Russia and Japan and places in between. Responses from people who just embraced the human tragedy, the loss of innocence and stood with each other.

I experienced another side too…a side without humility, a side that upholds “might makes right”…a side that remains unwilling or unable to recognize any need for humility.

I was encouraged by the human stories of people being vulnerable with one another… opening their homes and hearts to strangers in need and I was disheartened by words of rhetoric that simply look for someone to blame and bomb.

I’m not surprised by that response…our ancient texts speak as readily of ancient walls that are set up to push back the identifiable enemy as they speak about walls that crumble from care and humility and the vulnerability that is prepared to open heart and hands to others.

The text from Exodus is one of those texts that uphold the claim to rightness and the claim that “God is on our side”.

I’m not sure to what extent one needs to go down the road of forgiveness and rebuilding at the expense of security… I think I know what Jesus was saying in the parables about forgiveness but I also know that histories are written from the perspective of the winner and that stories are shared by those with a voice.

The Exodus piece clearly shares the story from the historical perspective of those who won this particular battle.

With all the rhetoric in the media this past week from our American cousins, it is easy to see how the telling of a story becomes in some ways bigger than the story itself.

Scripture writers understood this every bit as well as politicians and governments understand it today.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Iraq on Thursday to stop defying the United Nations and allow the return of weapons inspectors "for the sake of its own people and for the sake of world order."(CNN)

He spoke with diplomacy and articulation and compassion that was impressive…in fact he spoke as someone who truly had the interests of the whole world at heart.

Some histories are much more individualistic than that. Some story tellers have only their own interest at heart.

The mythical proportions of some of our faith stories have far less to do with factual accounts of history than they do with motivating a people to never forget that God is always a walking source of love and forgiveness forever at our side no matter what happens in our lives.

It’s tough to separate the two. Our stories of God’s might on behalf of God’s chosen (of which we consider, of course, our selves to be a part) are the stories that make us hold on in the face of challenges that would threaten to uproot us. Certainly that has been true for 3000 years for our Jewish neighbours who can look back through stories like the Exodus story to find legitimacy and hope.

But if we look at those stories too closely, if we make them our marching song without tempering them with the wisdom we discover elsewhere in our ancient story telling—like the wisdom stories of Jesus' conversations with Peter—then we begin to lose any sense of humility …then we begin to believe just a little too vehemently that Jesus is on our side that God moves to the tune of our piping.

I fear George Bush and others are too ready to be motivated by the stories of conquest and might than of the stories of vulnerability and humility.

I’m not so naive as to think that inaction and forgiveness are the only approaches in all things, but I’m also aware that the nails that we pound into any fence or wall can not be removed without making and leaving holes.

Ours is a fragile and delicate world…our ecology shows us just how fragile it is…I believe our relationships are fragile too and the wounds that we inflict upon one another don’t go away.

Even, and perhaps especially Children’s wisdom offers us hope. Arrogance only sets us up for destruction.

I listened to a newsbyte about a film maker who was motivated by his hate of the American foreign policies that have caused such pain for many people throughout the world…his film, still in development, is being created in large measure out of his sense that Bush and Arafat, Sharon and others speak more from a place of arrogance than from a place of humility.

He made wonderful sense; he is also the target of great criticism for his willingness to call to accountability the power brokers of our time.

I know we in this room may feel that we are small potatoes, that what we have to say or think or feel doesn’t really do much to affect the thinking and feeling of the powerful in this world. But I think we are greater than we give ourselves credit for being.

I know that local hurts perpetrated are deeper than one might expect and I know that kindnesses shared are more powerful than we may expect also.

The church has an ongoing call to be brokers of all that destroys ancient walls of hostility…Jesus showed us what that meant.

As folks in our community have been saying in the paper over the last little while, the church has also needs to uphold some kind of unity within its diversity to maintain identity. The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Rome wrote from a place that believed

“that there is a limit to the amount of diversity a group can tolerate on issues and still have unity. Paul would never have sanctioned an extreme individualism that says that anything is okay. The integrity of the congregation under God was very important to him. The important question is how much latitude can be tolerated on what kind of issues, and who decides?

We usually tend to believe that the limits we set are the same ones God would set. But the criterion for God’s decisions seems to be the good of all God’s children.

In using children’s wisdom, I would like to conclude today with some thoughts on love and places of hope.

When 4 to 8 year olds were asked, “What does love mean?” Some answered saying:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen." Bobby - age 5

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."
Nikka - age 6 (these came from the internet among a large group of similar phrases sent to me by a friend)

I believe we are at a very important juncture in the life of our congregation and our world, I believe we need to be open to the presence of God’s love and while there, be prepared to listen… I believe we need to be trusted with each other’s names and to trust our names to others…and I believe if we are going to learn to love better, we have to start with a friend we might even hate.

We Gather To Worship God

A Time of Greeting

Prayer of Approach (Responsive)

We Listen For God’s Word

Prayer of Illumination

Exodus 14:19-31 From the Hebrew Scriptures Pg. 73

Anthem “God’s Work” by Besig & Price

Matthew 18:21-35 From the Christian Scriptures Pg. 26

All: Thanks be to God

Sermon “Ancient Walls”

Mission Moment Weta Rachinsky

Our Church Tithes and Offerings

Dedication #544 “In Gratitude & Humble Trust”

In gratitude and humble trust we bring our best today

to serve your cause and share your love with all along life’s way.

O God, who gave yourself to us in Jesus Christ, your Son,

teach us to give ourselves each day until life’s work is done.

Prayer of Dedication

Prayer of Thanksgiving, Intercession & Lord’s Prayer

Our Order of Ministry This Morning

“Ancient Walls”