My first sermon

My dad suggested that I share the sermon that I preached at Faith United Methodist Church about two weeks ago. The pastor asked that I fill in for her and I have to admit that the task seemed so daunting, but I did it. It seemed to go okay... I'm not sure that preaching weekly is my calling, but some of the other pastors have "promised" to provide me with more times to practice.

Here it is...

Note to my US-2 classmates: Look for how I incorporated our Book Club.

Note to Bible Study Girls: Keep reading you're in there too.

Several years ago I spent a summer working at a United Methodist Church camp in the North Georgia Mountains. It was there that I was introduced to a song called “The Summons.” In a format that reminds me of a searching heart, this song describes the call or summons that God compels every individual to answer when he or she chooses to become Christians or like Christ. Each verse I think has some important ideas and questions to consider and I would direct you to find the song online to study it in more depth. However today I would like to call your attention to the first verse of this hymn. It reads:

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Like our scripture today, this song questions our dedication to following Christ as we are called to as Christians. The young man at the beginning of the passage in Mark is disappointed by Jesus’ response to his question. What he must do to enter the kingdom is to leave his old life behind and follow Christ into a new one and for the rich, young man this seems like an impossible task. Likewise the voice of Christ in the song asks “Will you go where you don’t know and commit to never being the same?” This question is one that we find repeated throughout the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Each time a disciple is recruited, Jesus presents the eternal question; will you follow me and be changed?

I have recently finished reading a novel by Christopher Moore entitled Lamb. It is an account of the teen and young adult years of Jesus Christ recorded by a character reputed to be Jesus’ best friend. Moore’s work is fully fictionalized, but I found his description of the choice the disciples made to follow Christ insightful. He writes that “what set the disciples apart from the multitudes who would follow Jesus was that they had stepped off the path of their own lives to spread the Word.” I believe that Christ’s summons for us is to adopt a similar purpose. As Christians we are asked, I might even say commanded, to step from our comfortable, routine life into a journey radically dedicated to loving God and loving others. This journey is different from our human idea of what life is to be like and sometime may seem as impossible a task for us as it was for the rich, young man to obtain in the biblical passage.

My first realization of the direction in which God was calling me came during a chapel service I attended my sophomore year in college. I vaguely remember on what our chaplain was preaching, but I do remember the great peace that I felt at the end of the service. I felt assured that God was directing me toward some type of full-time mission work. Now I understand that a call to faithfully follow Christ was a persistent theme in my life and this incident was only the beginning of my comprehension of that which God had been summoning me to for a longer period of time. Still it was several years after I had this confirming moment that God lead me to the US-2 program. The US-2 program is one of the opportunities to pursue mission work offered to young adults by the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministry. Entrance into the program is regulated by an interview process for the potential missionaries and the potential placement sites. US-2s are then appointed to the placement sites that the program directors feel they will be most suited. When I applied to be a US-2 I had no idea that North Dakota or a job as a director of campus ministry was even a possibility. But it was in May that I learned this was where I would be placed, thus in August I moved from Georgia to North Dakota to direct United Campus Ministry.

Although for me choosing to follow God meant moving across the country, accepting God’s invitation to follow him does not necessarily mean that everyone will leave the community in which they live. During college I was blessed to be a part of a Bible Study. Several of us began it our freshmen year and ten of the “girls,” now young women, stuck with the Bible Study through graduation. I thank God daily for sending me friends like these women. Each is an amazing example of faith and of how God’s mission for each person is different. Each are doing the work God has called her to at this time. Several are teachers, one is a case worker at a battered women’s shelter, a couple are pursuing graduate degrees, and one of them even has a job with a campus ministry like me. Through them I have learned that individual responses to Christ’s call vary depending on the talents and passions God has given him or her, but included in every summon or call to follow is the commandment to love inclusively and radically.

The choice to follow Christ in whatever manner it may be is inevitably accompanied by change. Having left my family, friends, and the comforts of a place that I know well behind, I’m learning that moving away was just the first step in an often uncomfortable journey of change. Perhaps more important than the change of physical location is the changes god is creating in my heart. Accepting God’s summons is not easy for anyone. Among the promises Jesus lists in the passage as rewards for service to the Word is struggle and persecution. But if accepting a call from God was easy then it would not be worth as much as it is. And though we are not promised an easy task, we are promised God’s help in accomplishing it. God will lead us in this journey of change if we let him. Essentially God’s summons for all people is this to choose to follow the Word and be changed by it.

The last verse of the song I mentioned earlier is written as our response to the summons of God in the previous verses. It reads:

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

Choose to move, live, and grow in the mission Christ has called you, for to be different is great. And the rewards of following God into a new place or into a new frame of mind are infinite. Later in the passage in Mark, Peter says, look we have left everything and followed you and in response Jesus promises no less than to eternally live in the body of Christ. My prayer for you this week is that you choose to answer the summons of God this week in you life. Amen.

A step into historic Fargo

This weekend I had a chance to attend an event at the historic Fargo Theatre--a true landmark of the city. This restored theatre was originally built in the 1920s and those of you who know me well are able to understand how I couldn't help, but fall in love with it. The excitement I felt stepping in to the theatre for the first time must have been a little like its first patrons. The restoration of the theatre were artfully done to retain the original vitality of the space.

The theatre is still equipped with its original organ and I got chills when it started to play old classics, like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." On of the coolest things about the theatre is that they still have a screen and show films. They even have an annual Hollywood Classics festival. I can't wait.

Kitty-corner?!?!

Question: Is the term "kitty-corner" native to North Dakota or just a mid-western colloquialism?

If you need a definition, "kitty-corner" means nothing more, as far as I can tell, than adjacent to or across from. I must admit that I'm used to the phrase "catty-corner" so its not so much the definition that throws me off as much as the replacement of kitty for catty.

Why kitty?

I'm cold...

Dear Friends, who do not live in what I like to affectionately call "the Frozen North."

So I've had people from North Dakota warn me that winter can begin as early as September, but I think in the back of my mind there was always a little doubt. Let me tell you with great certainty this morning that... they were NOT wrong.

Allow me to paint a picture for you. I'm sitting in my office, where it is currently around 64 degrees, patiently (okay maybe not patiently) waiting for the heater to begin to work its magic. I glance outside and feel a shiver go through my body because I can't believe people are actually strolling through this weather to class. Granted I would have never skipped class no matter what the weather, but I would definitely made it a priority to carry an umbrella and walk as fast as I possibly could up the hill to the History Department.

Before I left my apartment this morning, I flipped on the weather channel to see what the forecast was for the day. A "toasty" 48 degrees with scattered showers reads the scrolling local forecast at the bottom of the screen. My mind immediately calculates that the equivalent to this type of weather in Georgia and what I'm left with is a day in mid December or January. BURR... I also can not help, but think of the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode in which the young boy haunts the place where he froze to death. "I'm cold," his blue lips repeated incessantly. And I sing silently to myself a line from a youth choir Christmas musical that I had a part in when I was in middle school.

It's cccc-cold outside and the temperature's diving.

And it looks a lot like winter is arriving.

I've got the shshsh-shivers and

I ccc-couldn't stop them if I tried.

I'm gonna shsh-shake, rattle, and roll.

It's ccc-cold outside.

Needless to say, this Georgia girl is excited and a little frightened to see where this weather may take her. Please send warm thoughts and pray for a more comfortable day tomorrow when I have to be outside all day for a student activity fair. Much love to all.

Longing for a Georgia breeze, Margaret

Weather Update

Just thought I would give you all a weather update...
yesterday: showers, high 59
today: showers again, highs in the 60s
Pray for warmth.

I need to buy some sunscreen...

I never thought that I would come to Fargo and get a really bad sunburn, but I have. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating with the "really bad." I've had worse, but it does hurt. I take total blame for the mishap. It's just hard to remember to reapply sunscreen when it's so nice outside. The weather during this time of year is definitely a plus. In Fargo, we seem to have "porch weather" everyday.

Yesterday, the organization I work for participated in the NDSU Student Activity Fair, held by the brook, a really beautiful spot on their main campus. At first I was afraid no one would stop at our booth, but by the end of the afternoon we had collected about a page and a half of names of college students interested in learning more about our ministry. I'm very hopeful that some of them will consider becoming a part of UCM.

That evening we had our first meeting of one of UCM's weekly activities at a local coffee house downtown. Although I hope to eventually work some discussions of societal justice issues into the mix, for our first meeting I decided to go for more of a fellowship approach. Tracy, Cody, and I thought of several different get-to-know-you questions in my Jar/Fishbowl-o-Fun (props to Alicia at US-2 Training for such a great idea). So we went around in a circle and got to know the four college students that attended the event better. It was lots of fun and a success in a different way than I had imagined it might be. God works in so many mysterious ways. I just really hope that all of the students will come back next week and that they will bring a friend.

I guess the moral of my full day yesterday is to always remember to use sunscreen, even in North Dakota, and never underestimate the ability of God to bring people together in ministry. Thanks for letting me share. Much love to all of you who I haven't spoken to recently. Hope to have more progress to share soon!

A tourist existence

So Monday marked my first full week in Fargo. WOW! I feel like I haven't stopped since I got here and I haven't even begun to meet with students yet.

This weekend I had a chance to explore some of what Fargo has to offer. It is actually a really neat city. Fargo is big enough to provide its citizens with a pretty nice mall, a Target (always important), and tons of restaurants, but at the same time its small enough to have a cozy community feeling. I especially like the look of my neighborhood and the downtown areas. The landscape here is completely different from Georgia. Fargo is in the middle of prairie. By prairie I mean completely flat land with few trees. There are wheat, corn, and soy bean fields everywhere. It is really beautiful and as soon as I figure out how to attach pictures to blogs I'll share the pictures I've taken with you. Plus, I absolutely love how so many people bike in the area. I really wish that I could have my bike with me here so I could join them.

On Saturday morning, I met a new friend, Tracy, at a local coffee shop downtown. It had amazing character and great coffee. I wish all of my coffee drinking friends could have joined me. On Sunday, I attended a Moravian church service at Bonanzaville. Bonanzaville is a village created by the historical society of Fargo from historic homes from the area. It is really neat to see what village life might have been like so many years ago.

Sunday evening I had the chance to try several of the dishes native to the area. I had potato lefsa. It is a tortilla or crepe like bread made originally in Germany, I think. I also had my very first piece of "be-bop-a-rebarb rhubarb pie." Rhubarb is a fruit or vegetable that looks a lot like celery and that has a sour taste. It is usually paired with strawberries, but this particular pie was made with apples. It was really quite tasty. And speaking of food, for those of you who knew I was worried... Fargo does have a DQ.

More to come as I continue to explore the area and begin my job...