Pastor’s Corner: The Work of the Church

April 3, 2019

I devote a lot of time in my week to worship.

I prepare the prayers and responses we include in the Sunday bulletin, and select the hymns (so please blame me, not any of the music staff, when I’ve chosen an unsingable tune). I write the sermon and scan the headlines for concerns to raise in prayer. I rehearse with the choir and the bell choir. On occasion, I prepare some special music myself. Oh, and I come to worship on Sunday. I devote a lot of the time in my week to worship.

While I’m doing that, the ministry of the Church is happening – through you.

As good, right, and wonderful as it is to worship God, I know very well that it is also good, right, and wonderful to live life righteously, compassionately, and joyfully. Not just me, but all of us.

When you comfort a child with a bruised knee, you are doing the ministry of the Church. When you see the chance to take a shortcut that cheats others and refuse to do it, you are doing the ministry of the Church. When you provide someone honest work to do and pay them enough to keep a home, you are doing the ministry of the Church. When you stand before people in power and insist on just laws, you are doing the ministry of the Church.

All that happens while I’m struggling to find a word you’ll speak to God on Sunday morning.

Let’s praise God together, my friends. Let’s lift our hearts and find God’s heart offered back to us. Let’s fill our souls with heavenly joy.

And then: let’s do the ministry of the Church. Let’s do justice, live honestly, offer compassion, and labor for a better world. Do those wonderful things.

Me? I’ll be working on the sermon.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

Photo of the Rev. Dr. Chris Davies and Pastor Eric celebrating communion in January 2018 by Erik Ribera.