CHRIST CHURCH QUAKER FARMS – Rector’s Report
for the 2016 ANNUAL MEETING SUNDAY
January 31, 2016
By
the Rev. John Donnelly, DD
Just like no
two fingerprints or snowflakes are the same, likewise no two churches are the
same. Some people long for the church in the past. When the people, the worship
and the music were exactly the way they loved it. But of course everything
changes. People come and go, new music is discovered and worship doesn’t follow
the same order as it did in the 1928 Episcopal Prayer Book.
Some people
want their church to be mini of great cathedral churches, with lots of pretty
vestments and a professional choir of 50-60. But to be honest, times change and
cathedrals have fallen on hard times.
Other people
may not have had such a good experience in church at one time or another. This
is especially true of the lapsed Roman Catholics. These people drive by
churches which all look the same and they have no idea that churches are all
different and some of them are actually alive.
Still other people think of the church as a building. But actually,
Biblically, the church is the people. Who knows what year CCQF was built? What year was CCQF founded?
The term
church in the original biblical Greek is ecclesia, which simply means an
assembly. Indeed for the first 300 years of the Christian church, after the
Resurrection of Jesus,—when the church grew the most—there were no buildings.
There were simply small groups of people holding service in their living rooms.
Now I, like
many of you, love this church building, it’s beautiful. But what I love most of
all about this Church is you-the people of our church family.
Today at this
Annual Meeting Sunday, we continue the work initiated 202 years ago, of
building the church-person by person, soul by soul. Now during that time the
building hasn’t changed much, thank goodness. But the process of building the
church stone upon living stone continues in earnest through the past, through
this past year and now into 2016.
Look around
the room, and look at some of the people who comprise CCQF in 2016. A good
looking bunch of creative, beautiful and unique people who are important to God
and important to us.
During the
year 2015, as has been true previously, at least from 2011, Christ Church has
gone against establishment. Too many churches operate the old way, with
factions and political gamesmanship, religion (with out groups and in groups)
with rampant gossip and back biting, and winners and losers.
·
Too
many churches act like they are exclusive clubs who literally turn people away
by their coldness.
·
Too
many churches are not making much effort to include people of all ages
in their church life.
However,
CCQF has chosen to go against that declining establishment modus operandi by
not doing things the way that most churches do, but by doing things the way
Jesus directs. So who, according to today’s first reading is Head of our
church?
·
And
if Jesus is Head, then He has a will that He wants us to fulfill.
·
And
if He has a will, then He certainly wants us to communicate it-because if you
don’t communicate it, then no one will know what to do. So how does He
communicate it? Through scripture yes, but also through working together in
consensus.
Some of the
items that Jesus has taught us through unity and consensus includes this:
·
CCQF
is dedicated to creating strong ministries to children and youth as a kid and
family friendly church.
·
We
are committed to Joyful Worship using the best of both traditional and
contemporary music.
·
We
are dedicated to providing opportunities for spiritual growth, new friendship,
fellowship, and cheerful giving and service.
Now every so
often we have to go and reinvent these ministries, as they all rise and fall
upon the lay leadership and the recruitment and mentoring of new leadership.
But by and large, am I right in saying, that we deeply appreciate the good work
in Christ that you and our volunteers are doing in this Church?
God has
given us a triple portion of His blessings. We could use some more people here
and some more money there, but to obsess about that would be to insult God. It
would be similar to a child at Christmas surrounded by new presents, but crying
because he didn’t get everything he wanted. In 2016, we do need growth in
cheerful giving and evangelism. But if you were to take a poll of 100 area
churches, you would find out that 98% of them have those same needs, just as we
do. But empowered by the Holy Spirit, we boldly go forward.
In 2016 we
want to grow because we believe that CCQF has much to offer. Yes, we have some
great ministries. But even more important to that—we want to offer our
community.
·
We
want to offer a community formed of the Holy Spirit, made up of people
interested and dedicated to carry for one another…free of judgement, free of
cliques, free of condemning doctrine.
·
A
community which focuses its teaching in Sunday School, Youth Group, small
groups and preaching in positive and upbuilding, centered in the love of God
for us and the good news of Jesus Christ for all.
·
A community living out the love of Jesus
Christ by acknowledging that all people are important to God-regardless of
their age, residence, race, ideology, sexuality, ethnic background and the
like.
·
From
numerous newcomers I am hearing that they feel that….which is why they have
joined us.
So let us go
forward into 2016 under the headship of Jesus as we shine the light of Christ’s
love through our Church and into the world.
AMEN
