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Sunday’s Sermon – Creation’s Cries – Romans 8:18-25

July 21, 2019 Leave a Comment

This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is Horton Hears a Who!

Have you heard the expression “mom brain”? It’s usually a joking-but-true phrase we use to ascribe the phenomenon of how after having children, a woman sometimes loses the ability to keep things straight and are forgetful, to say the least. This is particularly true in those early, sleep-deprived months, but its effects are surprisingly long-lasting. The parenting load is no joke, and the struggle is real. But, truth-be-told, the idea that having children changes things is a scientifically proven fact.

Research shows that pregnancy changes the architecture of the brain for at least two years in areas that govern the understanding of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and intentions of others[i].

One of the ways this is seen is in a woman’s response to her crying baby.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health watched the behavior of 684 mothers who had infants approximately 5 months old in North and South America, three countries in Western Europe, two in sub-Saharan Africa, one in the Middle East and two in East Asia. Mothers in all of those places were more likely than not to do the same thing when their infant cried in distress: they picked them up, held them and talked to themi.

And while this might seem like a common response, the neurological responses showed a much different reaction between mothers and other women without children. In mothers,

these responses were deeply wired into the nervous system at a level that is typically associated with instincts. . . the crying of babies triggered the moms’ brains to move and prepare to talk, even before the mothers had necessarily processed what was happening and what they needed to doi.

In summary, those who were parents had an innate instinctual connection with those crying out, and a response of care almost before they could even think about it.

If such a connection is hard-wired into us as humans, how much more must it be hard-wired into God’s relationship with us as Creator? The entire witness of Scripture reveals a God who longs to be in relationship with God’s creation. Over and over again, God seeks out covenant with God’s people, offering grace and love in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures alike. And here, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded of God’s care and presence for what God has created even in the midst of creation’s cries.

N.T. Wright describes this Spirit-inspired prayer as “the beating heart of [Paul’s] whole sequence of thought[ii].”

No matter what, Paul says, God is listening and preparing to free God’s people from bondage and usher in a new age of redemption, where cries will be no more. Through Christ, God responds to the cries of creation for wholeness.

Just as God led God’s people through the wilderness to freedom, so the Spirit leads all of God’s children to a life of freedom.
. . .
Paul’s claims are expansive: everything will be redeemed – all of creation, our bodies, the substance of this earth[iii].

The knowledge of all of this leads Paul into a description of hope; a hope for what is not yet seen. Blair Alison Pogue notes that we don’t really live in a world of hope, saying:

Most Americans are optimistic, but not hopeful[iv].

In the midst of struggle, we want things to work out for the best, but aren’t necessarily convinced that it’s really possible. Vaclav Havel, 20th century Czech writer, statesmen and former president, talked about hope as prophetic and more as:

an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons[v].

Put this way, then, hope is about anchoring our hearts beyond ourselves. This is what Paul was writing about to the Romans. For Paul,

Christian hope is not pie in the sky; it is hope rooted in what Paul calls “the first fruits of the Spirit” (v. 23). This metaphor of the first fruits means that in Christ we already have come to know the power of life over death. We already know freedom. We already know love. We have tasted the first fruits, and they have whetted our appetite for the final banquet. We do have out-of-hand expectations. Because we know the first fruits, we rejoice at the loving, the living, and the freedom. We hunger for more, and we cry out wherever love is absent, life is shortened, and freedom is taken away. The church of Jesus Christ is the community of sisters and brothers who live in anticipation of a new birth of freedom, a new day of loving, and an inheritance of life abundant[vi].

What does it look like to live in this kind of community? Horton the elephant gives us a clue in the Dr. Seuss classic, Horton Hears a Who!. In the midst of his everyday life, this elephant pauses to listen for a call to help. And rather than ignore it, or pass it on as someone else’s problem, Horton makes it his mission to protect and care for that little voice on the speck of dust, because “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” He goes to great lengths, extraordinary lengths, to attend to what we learn is not just one little voice, but a whole people down in Whoville who are at risk. He embodies what it means to be a caretaker of God’s creation, even at the risk of his reputation and at times his safety. He is mocked and ridiculed by others who cannot, or perhaps choose not, to hear the cries of those small voices. He goes out of his way, quite literally, to seek out the speck in a whole field of clover, determined to not let it get lost now that he is aware of its presence. And he endures harsh treatment and even imprisonment for daring to advocate for the smallest of the small, all while trying to encourage their voices.

Where are the “specks” in our world? The list is likely larger than the three million clovers Horton sorted through in that field to find his friends. I wonder if that scene might remind us that there are countless issues and concerns, the majority quite worthwhile, but that some will quite literally call to us more than others, and be the ones the Spirit is nudging us to be passionate about. Throughout Scripture, we hear such calls, to care for and attend to the lost and the lonely, the widow and the orphan, the stranger living among us. Those, along with others on the margins of society, were the ones Jesus himself spent the most time with, and are the ones that are crying out, waiting and longing to be heard. And creation needs, God needs, Hortons in the world to hear and respond: to the older adult who feels forgotten, to the prisoner whose family can no longer visit because he’s been moved even farther away, to the child at the border who does not know if or when she will see her mother again, to the young adult who is struggling with addiction, to the child terrified to go back to school because of bullies. For these, and all of those instances where creation is crying out, who will listen? Who will respond?

This morning, I have a present for each of you. I have a basket full of “specks” and invite you, following worship, to take one home with you. Carry it around for a while, kind of like Horton did, as a prompt to engage in active listening for who God might be calling you to hear. Living in this kind of anticipation puts us into an active relationship with the world, not just as we know it, but in the fullness of all who is. And we might just be able to hope for things we do not even see as a result.

Vaclav Havel reminds us that:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere.’ It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now[vii].

So may we listen, and act, and live into being the good caretakers and stewards of creation that God intended us to be – for all of God’s children and all of God’s world. Even when it seems impossible or futile, even when it means we’re putting ourselves out there. May this be our call: not just being satisfied with the present, but living into the future promised by God. For this, all of creation cries out. Amen.

~Sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, July 21, 2019

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

[i] Belinda Luscombe, “Here’s How Mothers Around the World React When Their Babies Cry,” https://time.com/4992130/motherhood-crying-babies/, accessed 7/20/19

[ii] N.T. Wright, “Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 10:591. As quoted by Karen Chakoian in “Exegetical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[iii] Karen Chakoian,“Exegetical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[iv] Blair Alison Pogue, “Homiletical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[v] Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, as quoted by the Vaclav Havel Library Association, https://www.vhlf.org/havel-quotes/disturbing-the-peace/, accessed 7/20/19.

[vi] David M. Greenhaw, “Pastoral Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[vii] Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, as quoted by the Vaclav Havel Library Association, https://www.vhlf.org/havel-quotes/disturbing-the-peace/, accessed 7/20/19.

Filed Under: Church blog Tagged With: apersonsapersonnomatterhowsmall, caringforcreation, creation, discipleship, hortonhearsawho, listening, mission, scripturesandseuss, sermon, seuss, stewardship, summersermonseries

Sunday’s Sermon – What Are You Doing Here? – 1 Kings 19:8-15a

June 23, 2019 Leave a Comment

Have you ever gotten somewhere and forgotten how you got there? We do it all the time with daily routines, going into auto-pilot mode for our most mundane tasks or daily excursions, so much so that sometimes we stop paying attention to what is happening until something out of the ordinary happens and gets our attention. Or, better yet – have you ever gotten somewhere and forgotten why you were there? Maybe it’s the grocery store or Target, or even your living room. You know you went in there for a reason, but for the life of you, you can’t remember what it was. Some say it’s a sign of aging, which is in part true, but it can also happen when we are stressed out or tired, and lack the capacity to retain information any longer.

This is where Elijah finds himself in our text. He is stressed out to the max, and on the run from Jezebel, longing for relief. He even asks the Lord to take his life; he is at his end. He finds himself revived in the wilderness, thanks to the attentiveness of angels sent from the Lord with bread and water. And while that sustains him physically, his spirit is still depleted. We hear earlier in the story of how Elijah is down and out, convinced that he is a failure as a prophet. Choon-Leong Seow describes his state this way:

This chapter is blatantly honest about the humanity of God’s servants . . . He appears to be totally worn out, fatigued . . . He complains. . . He needs to be told to eat. His view of reality is distorted. He is quick to blame others for the situation in which he has found himself. He feels all alone. Given his attitude, one should expect a divine rebuke. There is not one, however. Instead, there is a series of epiphanies . . . God does not let him go simply because he is burned out and depressed[i].

God responds in the opposite way, providing him the very basic things he needs to survive: bread and water, and calls him instead on a journey through the wilderness. Now, this is not the first time God has called a prophet into the wilderness. The Israelites hearing this story would have immediately connected the journey to that of Moses in Exodus, spending 40 days and nights with God on Mount Sinai. Here, God leads Elijah to Mount Horeb, which is the name used for Sinai in Deuteronomy. Such leading reminds us that:

when forces in the world threaten us, when our bodies or spirits turn against us, there is One who seeks us, One who meets us, One who heals us, whose love washes over us and sets us free for joy. This One is the Lord[ii].

God calls to Elijah with a question, “what are you doing here, Elijah?” (verse 9). It’s that moment of awakening, when you blink and come to your senses and try to orient yourself. ?” It’s as if God is displeased by Elijah’s flight, and wants Elijah to reset the course. We all need to hear this kind of call-out questions in life now and again. Sometimes we can offer them to ourselves; other times we need to hear them from others, and we hope they come from those who love us and have the best intentions in mind, rather than call-outs that are intended to shame us into correction.  When done well, they become our re-orientation points, invitations to gain perspective and reevaluate our purpose so that we can pick back up the difficult everyday tasks of life and make it through. Sometimes our reflections on them are short-lived, but other times, as in the case of Elijah, they represent major turning points in our lives. Elijah is not only having a work crisis, but a spiritual one as well. In theological terms, we call this experience in the cave one of discernment – the process through which we seek to understand God’s will and then try to figure out how we can take a part in it.

But it’s not just limited to Elijah, or those on a hike in the wilderness. Such an experience is open to us, too. Our text this morning can be seen as an invitation to experience God’s unexpected encouragement for perseverance in the daily mazes of our lives, whether we are facing abundance, adversity, or dulling routine[iii].

When our souls are “disquieted within us” as the Psalmist says, we are invited to take refuge in God and hope in God, trusting that even in the midst of confusion about who we are, and who we are called to be, God is with us still.

In the Hebrew scriptures, the God of Israel often appeared in fantastic and dramatic ways. When we seek to encounter God with our questions, we yearn for those clear signs. Have you ever begged God for a burning bush, or some other direct divine revelation about what you are to do? I have. In seminary I would somewhat jokingly say that God would have to send a great fish, a la the Jonah story, to get me to figure things out. And yet, none of those tremendous things has happened to me, not yet anyway. Sometimes, it seems, God works in more subtle ways. This is what Elijah finds in 1 Kings. Did you catch the phrase that repeats after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire? “but God was not in” that tremendous sound. That is not to say that God never does those things. Indeed, we know God has from other Biblical narratives. But rather here, God acts in a new and perhaps more challenging way. God is heard in “the sound of sheer silence.”

A quick Hebrew lesson for you:

The words translated “a sound of sheer silence” (qol demamah daqqah) can have more than one meaning . . . Qol can mean either sound or voice, demamah can refer to a whisper, silence, or stillness (see Ps 107:29), and daqqah can mean thin, small, fine, or sheer. . . . In contrast to the thundering presence of the storm god Baal, Israel’s God is now present in “a sound of silence,” as in the sound of calm after a storm[iv].

It can be translated many ways, including “the sound of fine silence,” or conveying the sense of a hushed whisper.  Such a sound allows for a centering, a meaningful pause. In the literary world, it might be classified as a “pregnant pause,” one that has energy brewing behind it, just on the cusp of something to be revealed.

This morning, I want to invite you to place yourselves in this story with Elijah, to join him in sitting with this question “what are you doing here?” and reflect on your sense of God’s presence in your life and the direction in which the Spirit might be nudging you.  To help us truly engage in this moment, I will read part of our text again slowly with some help from Denise to capture the movement. Our time will include some significant moments of silence, during which I ask that you remain in that stillness and silence as best as you are able, allowing God’s presence to wash over you. Let us prepare to hear God’s Word anew to us:

11He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord,

[Denise plays – something swirling]

but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake,

[Denise plays – something with lots of rumbling]

but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire,

[Denise plays – something that resembles “crackling”]

but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

[Significant pause]

13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

[Shorter pause]

What was this like for you? Take a few moments to check in with yourself.

The silence in this story is striking, particularly because it comes from God. Sometimes, we don’t know what to do with such a pause, or perceived silence from God. Renita J. Weems reflects on this in an autobiographical memoir, saying:

No one is ever prepared to endure the long silence that follows intimacy . . . no one is prepared to face it when it follows a season of intimacy with God. It is the hardest thing to talk about, and it is the hardest thing in the spiritual journey to prepare for[v].

She’s right. We don’t tend to like silence in our faith. It seemingly calls immediate attention to all the things we don’t know about God, or about ourselves – it highlights all the questions that we have about our faith and lives, and even in times of discernment, can bring about more questions than answers. And yet, embracing these moments are a crucial part of the faith journey, alongside a fervent trust that God is with us in these moments of silence, just as God was with Elijah. Weems continues by saying

Perhaps God is not silent but rather is waiting – waiting for human beings to gather their thoughts, compose themselves, regain their speech, and find their way back into the give-and-take of intimacy with God[vi].

Maybe that’s truly what discernment is all about; not so much discovering a specific set of actions we are supposed to do, but discovering how to reconnect with God when we are jolted out of a faith lived in auto-pilot, and forced to renew our understanding of purpose.

In the Superman movie, Man of Steel, a young Clark Kent becomes overwhelmed by all of the chaos in a school classroom. To escape his sensory overload, he literally bolts from the room, and is found hiding in the quiet comforts of the janitor closet. With teachers and students gathered outside, urging him to come out, his mother bursts into the hallway. Calmly, she kneels down by the door, and softly speaks to her son. She asks if he hears her voice. He responds yes. She tells him to focus on that, just her voice, to make it his island and swim toward it. After some time and lots of determination, Clark emerges and is immediately embraced by the loving arms of his mother.

After the sound of silence, Elijah emerges from the cave, humble and ready to hear what God would reveal. Here he experiences a bit of de ja vu, with God asking again “What are you doing here?” and Elijah offering the same response. Such repetition reminds us that even in times of discernment, we can come out in a similar place. And yet, God doesn’t leave Elijah there. God provides direction, specific directions about whom to anoint as the next king, and to whom Elijah is to pass on his mantle of leadership.

In other words, God tells Elijah to go back to work. Elijah does not have to give up his frustration, but God will not let him give in to it[vii].

The same is true for us today. In the midst of difficult decisions and discernment, and when confronted with challenging situations in our lives and our world, God does not just let us throw up our hands, declare it all doomed, and go hide in a cave. Instead, through the Holy Spirit, God nudges us into contemplation and reflection with the question “what are you doing here?” Such a question prompts us into active response to the world, and reminds us that we have been created for a purpose. There is work for us to do. Sometimes discovering what that is involves pausing, and listening that hushed whisper. Because it in we know that we are not alone. The God who is alongside us in our chaos, who accompanies us into the wilderness, and who sits with us in the cave, is also the God who leads us out and remains with us, in whirlwinds, in earthquakes, in fires, and yes, even in the sounds of sheer silence. May we find God, and ourselves, there. Amen.

 

Sermon Preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford

Heritage Presbyterian Church, June 23, 2019

________________________________________________________________________________________________

[i] Choon-Leong Seow, “1 Kings 19:8b-18” New Interpreter’s Bible, 145.

[ii] Feasting on the Word: Worship Companion, Liturgies for Year C, Volume 2, Kimberly Bracken Long, editor. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).

[iii] Carrie N. Mitchell, “Pastoral Perspective: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 146.

[iv] Kathleen A. Robertson Farmer, “Exegetical Perspective: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 151.

[v] Renita J. Weems. Listening for God: A Minister’s Journey Through Silence and Doubt. (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1999), 25.

[vi] Weems, 67.

[vii] Haywood Barringer Spangler, “Homiletical Perspective: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 151.

Filed Under: Church blog Tagged With: direction, discernment, elijah, listening, sermon, sheersilence, spirituality

Sunday’s Sermon – Key Changes – Acts 9:1-20

May 5, 2019 Leave a Comment

This sermon was preached as a part of “Visioning Sunday,” sharing and celebrating God’s call to a new chapter together at Heritage. For more about the context of our new mission/vision statement as well as core values, please go to  https://www.heritagepres.com/visioning/

If there’s one thing we post-Resurrection people know about God, it’s that our God is a God of tremendous change. Change is at the heart of our theological identity. Throughout the biblical narrative we see how God is changing the world, and perhaps more importantly, changing the people who are in it. Our text from Acts 9 delivers on this in dramatic fashion. Clearly Saul undergoes a tremendous change on the road to Damascus. He makes an about face, quite literally turning his life around. We hear songs of praise about “seeing the light.” We marvel in his apparent conversion and his dramatic experience of Christ along the way. We say to each other, “yes, this is the kind of change God brings about.”

This text paired with our visioning might bring about some anxiety to you this morning as we think about what the future holds for our congregation. As we consider the proposed mission and vision statement and core values, we become keenly aware that change is on the horizon. Our next step, strategic planning, will include analyzing ministries and sharing ideas for new initiatives. It seems that change is inevitable.

David LaMotte, a singer/songwriter, peacemaker and speaker, writes about change in a book titled Worldchanging 101: Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness. He challenges the ways we often view change and our role in it in the world in relation to a “Hero Narrative.” That is, we asasume that “things change when someone extraordinary encounters a moment of crisis and does something dramatic[1].” Sound familiar? We are quick to assume that all of our experiences of great change, in life or in faith, have to happen like they did with Saul on the road to Damascus.  But nestled within this text is another story of change that I think might be more compelling and applicable as we engage in visioning together in the character of Ananias.

Have you ever been singing along to your favorite song on the radio, grooving with your windows down, drumming on the steering wheel, when all of a sudden the music shifts? A bridge comes in, throwing you off the predictable verse and chorus pattern and changing the feel of the song? Often, this shift brings along something else with it – a key change. Key changes present a similar melody heard in a different way. They indicate growth. They challenge us – that note that was just at the top of our range now threatens to be out of reach. They can change the whole feel of the song. Although they are less dramatic than say, changing the radio station entirely to get to a new song, I think these more subtle changes, key changes, add incredible dimension to our favorite songs, and are worth our attention and appreciation. They remind us that change isn’t always about learning a totally different song; it’s about modulation, which simply adds interest and dimension to the rich melody and pattern that already is there.

This is the story of Ananias. Not much is said about him, but we assume he’s your status-quo new Christian. He’s a faithful disciple living to Damascus, and like any good disciple, has volunteered when called upon by God. That is, until he hears what God wants him to do. You can imagine him saying, “Hold on just a minute, God, you want me to do WHAT? Don’t you know WHO this guy is? He’s out to get all of us, by any means necessary. You’ve got to be kidding me.” God, of course, doesn’t miss a beat, assuring Ananias that God does know what God is doing. God is in charge, and will take care of what needs to be taken care of in regards to Saul. But God has bigger plans for Saul that involve sharing the most incredible story of all to not only God’s people Israel, but to the Gentiles, too. Although it shouldn’t be too surprising to Ananias or us that God uses an imperfect person with a troubled past to share the good news, the reality of it being Saul, an active, avid, rabid persecutor of Christians, makes it almost impossible to imagine, much less support.  Some doubt is understandable and expected. After all, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” And we are all familiar with the idea of “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” We approach things cautiously, particularly when it involves personal risk of harm. This, in the most critical of ways, is the experience of Ananias.

To be clear, God isn’t asking Ananias to have the kind of reversal or conversion that it appears Saul is undergoing. But God is asking Ananias to change his tune, to elevate his discipleship to a new level that may very well be a reach for him. God is asking Ananias to experience a tremendous life-view change that widens his understanding of who is included in God’s kingdom, who God is calling to lead, and what it literally looks like to follow Christ.

David LaMotte reminds us that,

It is not naïve to think that you can change the world. In fact, it is naïve to think that you could possibly be in the world and not change it. Everything you do changes the world whether you like it or not. So the questions we must ask ourselves are, ‘Which changes will we make?’, and ‘How will we go about making them?’[2]

Cue the bridge and key change, because Ananias follows God’s instructions. He enters the house and completes the task at hand, laying his hands on one who by all accounts would be his enemy, and trusting the Holy Spirit to cover the rest. It is an incredible moment of reconciliation, as Ananias names Saul as a brother in faith. His faithfulness allows Saul to complete his conversion and go on to proclaim Jesus as Lord. And, of course, we know that Paul’s story doesn’t end here. He has a lot more to say about Christ, and the church is richer because of his wisdom and writings even today.

For Ananias, change came because of God’s vision, and his willingness to listen. Even when it seemed counterintuitive, he was willing to shift, just a little bit, and open himself to the possibility that God had a bigger perspective than he did. He trusted in God’s guidance and was willing to follow and see where it led.

I love that this is the text for us today, because it reminds us that we don’t have to rewrite the songs or invent a totally new melody in order to be a part of what God is doing. Perhaps we are simply called to take the good news that we know and put it through a key change. That’s what our Visioning process is all about. It’s less about those grand hero moments and sweeping changes, and instead about finding out the work that is ours to do next. To be willing, as Ananias was, to discover God’s vision and have the courage to say we will try to be disciples in ways that are familiar AND in ways that are surprising. So that the song God has given us, as individuals and as a community of faith, might take on new life to carry us into the future. May it be so. Amen.

~sermon  by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford,  Heritage Presbyterian Church, May 5, 2019

___________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] David LaMotte, Worldchanging 101: Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness. (Black Mountain, NC: Dryad Publishing, 2014).

[2] LaMotte.

Filed Under: Church blog Tagged With: ananias, bethoumyvision, change, corevalues, discernment, future, hope, listening, mission, paul, sau, sermon, vision, visioning

Food Pantry

Food distribution is scheduled the 1st Saturday of the month at 10:00 am and the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 12:30 pm.

The next Drive-Up Food Pantry is scheduled for Wednesday, May 21 at 12:30 pm.  Accurate pre-registration is strongly encouraged to ensure volunteers pack accordingly.
Please sign- up here!

For other pantry locations, go here
or text “FINDFOOD” 
to 888-976-2232

Church News

Volunteers are needed to help pack family boxes Monday, May 19th at 10 am in the Fellowship Hall. We welcome all volunteers.  

Food Pantry distribution volunteer opportunity Wednesday, May 21 registration here!


Worship Live Streaming and archives can be found by clicking the appropriate link under the worship tab.


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Jun 1 @ 11:45 am
Choir Rehearsal
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Worship

Sunday Schedule

9:00 AM
Responding in Faith Sunday School Class
     via Zoom with Barbara Jessee

9:15 AM
Bible University Sunday School Class
    with Dr. Tom Scott
Hybrid format (in-person & via Zoom)

Connections Sunday School Class
with Mark Bixler
Hybrid format (in-person & via Zoom)

Youth Bible Study (Room 8) 6- 12th grade

Kids Club – (Room 7)
Biblically-based Faith Formation Activities for Preschool – 5th Grade
Praise Kids Music on the 3rd Sunday of the month.

10:30 AM
In-Person Worship and Livestreamed via   YouTube.


Youth Group – the first and third Sunday of the month from 5-7 pm during the school year.

Copyright © 2025 Heritage Presbyterian Church, 5323 Bells Ferry Rd. Acworth, GA 30102 · phone 770-926-3558