PC(USA) - Ideas! For Church Leaders

ideas! for Church Leaders: Vol.5 issue Four Summer 2006: Teach the righteous and they will gain in learning. (Proverbs 9:9b)


	Service with a Smile

	The summer adult We Believe quarterly continues its focus on Christian vocation. Last summer we looked at some gifts of call and some of the challenges encountered by the early Christian community. The power of the Holy Spirit guided them through their difficulties and challenging times as it continues to do today.

	This summer, our focus remains on our response to Christ’s call in the power of the Holy Spirit. The scope and sequence for this season includes the quarter’s goal: “. . . to discover the meaning of God’s relation to the world by viewing it through the lens of call. God has never ceased to call believers to faithful service; Christ called disciples to follow him as he went about his ministry. The Christian community continued to hear their calling as members of Christ’s risen body, the new church community. Our call does not contradict the covenantal law; therefore, our response is not an obligation or something that we do to ensure our salvation. Rather, our response is one of gratitude for God’s continuing steadfast presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit.”

	God is indeed related to the world! This relationship is one of grace—grace revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since God’s relationship is this relationship of freely given love, our appropriate response to it is service with a smile—service with willing hearts. God calls us to response because God is love, and without love in our hearts we are not living the good news of the gospel.

	The gospel underscores the covenant relationship of God with God’s people (and we might also add God’s creation as we will see in the curriculum for fall 2006), that God has brought us into a new relationship of abundant living. In this situation, grace abounds, and we are free to see ourselves as forever forgiven. We are held in God’s hands. We are free to offer this grace to the world at large.

			In recent months the world has been shaken and torn by the natural violence of hurricanes and earthquakes, and their aftermath of floods and fires and vandalism. The integrity of high-level government officials is being questioned, and some have faced indictment. On the surface the world seems shaky.

	It is encouraging and empowering, as well as challenging, to remember that we are indeed held in God’s loving hands, and called to use our own hands and hearts and minds on behalf of God’s kingdom. The sessions for summer 2006 offer words quite relevant to our times. (Scripture so often is this way!) The Bible studies are based on Scriptures from both testaments and show the constancy of God’s will to claim us as covenant partners. Check out “God’s Call, Our Acts of Gratitude” and respond to God with a willing heart—serving with a smile.

	Martha Schull Gilliss, PhD, is associate for adult curriculum development. She can be reached at (888) 728-7228, ext. 5124.



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