Commissioning Service for Ministry Leaders and our new Diaconate
Sunday, 16th March 2014
Welcome and News of the Church Family – Sue
Call to Worship
Hymn 494 Glorious things of you are spoken
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Hands Together
and when James and Cephas
and John ,
who were acknowledged
pillars,
recognized the grace that
had been given to me,
they gave to Barnabas and
me the right hand of fellowship,
agreeing that we should go
to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
They asked only one thing,
that we remember the poor,
which was actually what I
was eager to do.
Very much later, Paul wrote
to Timothy …
For this reason I remind
you
to rekindle the gift of God
that is within you
through the laying on of my
hands;
for God did not give us a
spirit of cowardice,
but rather a spirit of
power
and of love
and of self-discipline.
A Hy-Spirit Song
At our Annual Church Meeting we put in place the final
pieces of the jigsaw for our new structure at Highbury. Today marks the start of our new way of
organising things as we welcome and commission our team of Ministry Leaders,
and our new Diaconate and Church Officers.
At its heart is a vision for us all to share at Highbury …
and so I ask everyone to stand …
The vision we share
is that
Highbury should be a
place to
Share Christian
friendship,
Explore Christian
faith and
Enter into Christian
Mission
With Christ at the
centre
And open to all.
It is good for us to remember that all who belong to the
Church of Jesus Christ are called to serve one another in his name.
Jesus calls us all to share in a life of discipleship: it is
for us all to respond to that call in faithful obedience.
Jesus said, “If one of you wants to be great, he must be the
servant of the rest.
Lord Jesus, we hear
your call: help us to follow
Jesus said, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your
feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example.
Lord Jesus, we hear
your call: help us to follow
Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you
also should love one another. By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.”
Lord Jesus, we hear
your call: help us to follow
Jesus said: “Go to all peoples everywhere and make them my
disciples and I will be with you always, to the end of the world.”
Lord Jesus, we hear
your call: help us to follow.
You have redeemed us
and called us to your service:
Give us grace to hear
your word and to obey your commandment
For your mercy’s
sake. Amen.
Please be seated
As people feel at home in our church family and share a
faith in God and in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour we very much hope they
will become fully part of our church as church members and be involved in one
or more areas of church life in what they do and in prayer … everyone has a
part to play including those not able to get out and be active through
prayer.
I invite all those who are Church Members to stand and say
together …
In all we do as
Church members our aim is to Love the Lord our God with all our soul, with all
our mind and with all our strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves. In all we seek to do we rejoice in the forgiving
love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit, knowing that when we fail we do not give up but go on in the
strength of God.
Church Members, meeting together at our regular Church
meeting shape Church life and set the future direction of Church life here at
Highbury.
Please be seated
As we belong to the fellowship of the Church, we all have a
part to play in the life of the Church.
Together with all who proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord we
are a royal priesthood, God’s own people.
We are all called by God to proclaim the mighty acts of him who called
us out of darkness into h is marvellous light and to live out in our lives the
love of him who first loved us.
We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to
us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in
teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver in generosity; the leader, in
diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
In our new way of doing things the Deacons serve the whole
Church as Managing Trustees and ensure all the Church does is in keeping with
its aims as a Congregational Church and its responsibilities as a Charity with
reference to finances, safeguarding, health and safety, disability, employment
and other legislation. The Deacons
interview and recommend to Church Meeting a name for Minister and Ministry Team
Leader and then review and support the Ministry team. They ensure good employment practice for paid
employees and volunteers.
At our Annual Church Meeting the following were elected to
serve as Deacons.
Peter Harrison, Ted Horsfield, Iain
MacLeod , Darryl Mills
and Ian White
I invite them to come to the front … [stand on the platform] Our thoughts and prayers are with Iain whose
father in law has just died and so he is with Laura and the family sharing with
the family in Glasgow
following the funeral yesterday. Ted is
away with family too.
Will you together reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Deacon here at Highbury
With God’s help, I do
so promise.
The Church Secretary serves the whole church, is on the
diaconate and oversees a full range of Support Services – our Annual Meeting
appointed Helen Roberts as Church
Secretary.
Helen, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Church Secretary here at Highbury?
With God’s help, I do
so promise.
The Church Treasurer serves the whole Church, is on the
diaconate and stewards the church finances.
Our Annual Meeting re-elected Roger Gregory to the post of Church
Treasurer.
Roger, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Church Treasurer here at Highbury?
With God’s help, I do
so promise.
In the name of Jesus Christ, and on behalf of the Church
Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship and welcome you to our new
Diaconate.
[Richard and Sue share the Right hand of fellowship with the
Deacons – the Deacons, and Church Officers remain on the platform]
Prayer
In our new way of doing things we have put in place a team
of Ministry Leaders who are Church Members and who are called and gifted to
serve the whole Church and to lead a particular area of Church Life. They co-ordinate and lead others in their
area of church life.
Shirley Fiddimore will focus on worship
Carolyn Tennant on children [our prayers are with Carolyn
who is unwell and unable to be with us today]
Karen Haden on discipleship
Jean Gregory on Mission
and Outreach
Today we welcome them and commission them to that work.
Helen asked the
following questions of Shirley
Shirley, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Worship Ministry Leader here at Highbury
With God’s help, I promise
to develop the worship life of the Church to the glory of God, enabling the
whole Church family to come together as one, with Christ at the centre and open
to all.
In the name of Jesus Christ and on the authority of the
Church Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship recognising that
God has called you to serve the fellowship of the Church here at Highbury as
Worship Ministry Leader.
Ian White asked the
following questions of Mary:
Mary, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Youth Ministry Leader here at Highbury?
With God’s help I
promise to help young people share Christian friendship, explore Christian
Faith and enter into Christian mission as a full part of the Church
family. I promise to help the Church to
be fully supportive of young people as a youth friendly Church with Christ at
the centre and open to all.
In the name of Jesus Christ and on the authority of the
Church Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship recognising that
God has called you to serve the fellowship of the Church here at Highbury as
Youth Ministry Leader.
Roger asked the
following questions of Karen:
Karen, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Discipleship Ministry Leader here at Highbury?
With God’s help I
promise to help everyone in the Church to grow and develop their Christian
faith, their prayer life and their discipleship as they explore the Christian
faith and seek to put Christ at the centre of their lives.
In the name of Jesus Christ and on the authority of the
Church Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship recognising that
God has called you to serve the fellowship of the Church here at Highbury as
Discipleship Ministry Leader.
Peter asked the
following questions of Diana and Lorraine
Diana and Lorraine ,
I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Pastoral Care Ministry Leaders here at Highbury?
With God’s help we
promise to build up Christian friendship through pastoral care that is open to
all and seeks to meet the needs of each.
In the name of Jesus Christ and on the authority of the
Church Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship recognising that
God has called you to serve the fellowship of the Church here at Highbury as
Pastoral Ministry Leaders.
Darryl asked the
following questions of Jean:
Jean, I ask you to reaffirm your profession of faith:
Do you believe in God and in Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?
I do
Do you promise, as you are able, to fulfil the
responsibilities of Worship Ministry Leader here at Highbury?
With God’s help I
promise to help everyone in the Church to enter into Christian mission and
share their Christian faith more effectively developing the mission and
outreach of the Church with Christ at the centre and open to all.
In the name of Jesus Christ and on the authority of the
Church Meeting I extend to you the right hand of fellowship recognising that
God has called you to serve the fellowship of the Church here at Highbury as Mission and Outreach
Ministry Leader.
[Richard invites the Congregation to stand]
[The Deacons stand around the Ministry Leaders and lay hands
on them as Richard says a prayer of blessing]
May God richly bless you in the ministry which you now share
with us all: may you sense the
strengthening of God’s Spirit in all that you do, the love of God the Father
deep in your hearts and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the service you
share with everyone. Amen.
In all you do take to heart the words of Paul in Ephesians
4:1-7 and 11-13
I urge you, then—I who am a prisoner because I serve the
Lord: live a life that measures up to the standard God set when he called
you. Be always humble, gentle, and
patient. Show your love by being tolerant with one another. 3 Do your best to
preserve the unity which the Spirit gives by means of the peace that binds you
together. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope to
which God has called you. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 there
is one God and Father of all people, who is Lord of all, works through all, and
is in all.
7 Each one of us has received a special gift in proportion
to what Christ has given.
It was he who “gave gifts to people”; he appointed some to
be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, others to be
pastors and teachers. 12 He did this to prepare all God's people for the work
of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ. 13 And so we
shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of
the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of
Christ's full stature.
Hymn: In Christ Alone
Some of the youngest children then made a presentation to
Sue Cole, thanking her for the six years she has served the church as Church
Secretary. We later thanked John , June and Sharon
for their service as Deacons too.
Offering and Dedication
Activities for all over 3
Hand in Hand with God and with Each Other
There is something very
powerful in this passage as it speaks to us all and to those who are embarking
on new forms of service and ministry within the life of the church here at
Highbury.
Then David blessed the Lord in the presence
of all the assembly;
David said:
‘Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our
ancestor Israel
for ever and ever.
Yours, O Lord, are the greatness,
the power, the glory,
the victory, and the majesty;
for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is
yours;
yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are
exalted as head above all.
Riches and honour come from you, and you rule over
all.
In your hand are power and might;
and it is in your hand to make great and to give
strength to all.
And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise
your glorious name.
‘But who am I, and what is my people,
that we should be able to make this
freewill-offering?
For all things come from you, and of your own have we
given you.
For we are aliens and transients before you, as were
all our ancestors;
our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is
no hope.
O Lord our God,
all this abundance that we have provided
for building you a house for your holy name
comes from your hand and is all your own.
I know, my God, that you search the heart,
and take pleasure in uprightness;
in the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered
all these things,
and now I have seen your people, who are present
here,
offering freely and joyously to you. 1
O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
our ancestors,
keep for ever such purposes and thoughts in the
hearts of your people,
and direct their hearts towards you.
Hand in Hand With God – the Sermon
“The Bible is not some dry and dusty set of rules. It is the story of how we are created good in
God’s eyes, how that goodness was damaged, and how wholeness is ours with God.”
I like what Archbishop Desmond Tutu has to say about the
Bible in his foreword to “Fresh from the Word” – the Bible for a change.
“Depravity,” he goes on to say, “came into the world through
individual choices, drip by drip. The
Bible is an invitation to wholeness instead of brokenness. We can choose wholeness and a life of beauty. We can choose to work for peace in the small
choices that face us each day. Each ofus
has the dignity of these choices, whether we are rich or poor, from the global
Norht or South, in prison or not. The
Bible shows us how. It is about peace
and reconciliation. It is about social
justice in your neighbourhood. It is
about joy and laughter.”
I have been part of the International Bible Reading
Association for almost as long as I can remember. Some years I haven’t subscribed. I have been a couple of years recently when I
have followed different plans for reading the Bible. But, perhaps, it’s because I was introduced
to it when I was at Junior
Church
This year they have produced a new set of notes, but they
keep the old traditions going strong.
There’s a sense of reading the Bible in copany with others … and the
passages and the thoughts that accompany them prompt thought. While written a long time before publication,
they have a wonderful way of speaking into the situation you find yourself in
at a particular time.
That’s been very much the case for me over the last couple
of weeks.
The day before our Annual Meeting was Ash Wednesday. It marked the start of a new series of Bible
readings that came to an end yesterday, Saturday, 15th March. ‘Simon Goodard, their author, is a Baptist
Minister in the village of Bottisham , near Cambridge . He leads RE:NEW which is an ecumenical
expression of church, pioneering new ways of gathering and growing
together.’ Straightaway my attention was
caught.
At our Annual Meeting the final pieces of the jigsaw for our
new way of doing things at Highbury fell into place. And today with the commissioining of Church
Secretary and Church Treasurer, our new Diaconate and our new team of Ministry
Leaders we are launching our new way of doing things at Highbury.
As we compared what we felt about Highbury today, with what
the first churches of the New Testament were like we identified three things to
focus on. The first was the need for Renewal
and Gifts and that is what we have been concentrating on over the last couple
of years and that need for renewal in the life of the church is something we
continue to seek. Then we felt we
needed to focus on personal faith and prayer … and next week Karen Haden, our
Discipleship Ministry Leader, is going
to introduce us to a focus on personal faith and prayer in our services and in
the Prodigal God course she will be introducing us to in April. And the third element we will then go on to
focus on is Mission
and Outreach.
And here’s a series of Bible readings by someone involved
with RE:NEW – something special there.
I smiled, the, as I saw the theme – God’s Hands and Ours – a
set of readings from the Old Testament.
What made me smile was the way not a few people have
observed I have of coming back to that image of ‘the hands of God’. I often come back to that sense we need to
have of putting things into God’s hands.
We can do what we can but there comes a point at which we need to put
things into God’s hands.
His readings have intrigued me … they speak very much to us
as we embark on this new stage in our journey together as a church. And so, what I have done, is to take the
headings he has used and turn them into a prayer we can all share.
Hand in hand with God
we walk into the future with our hands in
the strong hand of God.
That image produces in me that thought that we are not
alone, we are not doing things in our own strength … but it is in the strength of God, the God,
whose right hand is majestic in power that we are able to go forward.
The words of Minnie Louise Haskins come very much to my mind
with an image of a small hand in a large hand …
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of
God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly
into the night.
But what do we do with our hands?
Moving on through our readings, Simon Goddard takes us to
Leviticus (9:22-24) and a moment when “Aaron lifts his hands towards the people
and blessed them.. In that story Moses
and Aaron then go into the tent of meeting, that place where God’s presence is specially felt … and then
when they came out, they blessed the people; and the glory of the Lord appeared
to all the people.”
As we gather together in a place which for us is a place
where we seek to come to meet God let’s look to receive a blessing … but then
let’s go out from this place and be a blessing to other people. “Each one of us,” suggests Simon Goddard “can
be used by God to bless others. … Our words are powerful especially when they
are spoken in God’s name.”
We give thanks for
hands that bring a blessing and
for hands handing on the baton.
Whatever part we play in the life of our church, Deacons,
Church Officers, Minsitry Leaders … all of us – our prayer is that we can
receive the hand of God’s blessing and
then be a blessing to other people.
And then we have something to pass on.
It was good this week to have an email from Angela Robinson
– we started out in the ministry together, though she’s a bit older than
me. In Witney when I was a student, here
at Highbury helping to organise meetings back in the early 70’s, in Yorkshire, and then Angela went through
very difficult times as her husband had Motor Neurone disease and died very
young. And then she spent 14 years
teaching in mission work in Bangladesh . This week she was prompted to write
remembering Tony Benn and that spirit of dissent he got from his mother,
Margaret Stansgate who at that time was our first President in the
Congregational Federation – passionate about the need for us as followers of
Jesus to make our voice heard.
I well remember that sense Angela had in preaching at my
induction to the pastorate of the churches in Shropshire
of passing on the baton.
We move on to Numbers 27:15-23 and the point when the Lord
said to Moses, “Take Joshua … lay your hand on him … and commission him” in the presence of all the people.
There is a real sense of receiving something that we pass on
– as we share a ministry in this place.
It is not something we invent – but something we pass on. There is a very powerful symbolism in the laying on of hands.
The imagery of hands has, however a dark side to it.
As our readings this last ten days moved on we reached 1
Samuel and Job where we encountered ‘the heavy hand of God’ and dark times –
and then it was that we arrived at 1
Chronicles and a very real sense that everything comes from God and all
we give, we give only what comes from God’s hand, the big hands of God (1 Chronicles 129:12-14)
In the dark times when we sense
the heavy hand of God
we put ourselves and all we love into
the big hands of God.
We touched on Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and
the way the gracious hand of God is on
us prompting us to serve other people, on that conviction Job had in the middle
of the darkness when he said, I know that my redeemer lives’. We touched on the
words of Isaiah that speak of the way our names are engraved on the hands of
God and the assurance that comes from sensing that; we touched on the image of
ourselves as clay in the hands of God to be moulded and renewed and remoulded
in his hands.
May our hands be
hands used in the service of God always
holding on to the hands of hope.
May we know God’s hands always to be
guiding hands, engraved hands
transforming hands.
When you google pictures of hands in the way I have done you
can just copy the images – but one sculpture caught my eye and I explored
further. I can see myself getting
enthusiastic about the work of Lorenzo Quinn – son of the mid 20th
Century actor, Anthony Quinn.
His work ‘hand of God’ has been exhibited in many places,
most recently at the Royal Exchange in London –
in 2011 it was exhibited in a major exhibition at the Hermitage in St Petersburg .
It is one of those sculptures that invites you to see
yourself in the hand of God. A wonderful
thought that is powerful for us to remember as we celebrate different forms of
service and ministry within the life of our church today.
But what struck me was the way two of his sculptures were
put side by side in that exhibition. The
other one was called ‘Leap of Faith’.
He says of his inspiration behind Leap of Faith, “The past
is set in stone, the present is carving itself in wood, and the future is an
empty goblet to fill with dreams. This
is a sculpture that prompts reflection on the need to be positive, even in the
darkest moments, because there is always hope.”
“Life is a wonderful journey … if you know how to live it.”
For me that sculpture was all the more powerful for being
put together with the Hand of God. We
can take such a leap of faith into the future and sense that we are on the most
wonderful of journeys and find that even
in the darkest moments there is hope BECAUSE we start by realising that we are
in the Hand of God.
And as Desdond Tutu says in that foreword to Fresh from the
Word we are created by God to be a blessing … and we need one another to become
such a blessing.
Hand in Hand
Hand in hand with God
we walk into the future with our hands in
the strong hand of God.
We give thanks for
hands that bring a blessing and
for hands handing on the baton.
In the dark times when we sense
the heavy hand of God
we put ourselves and all we love into
the big hands of God.
May our hands be
hands used in the service of God always
holding on to the hands of hope.
May we know God’s hands always to be
guiding hands, engraved hands
transforming hands. Amen
Hymn: 504 Church of God elect and glorious
Prayers of Concern
Songs of Prayer and Worship with Hy-Spirit
The Lord’s Supper
Communion Collection for Maggie’s Centre
Hymn 505 Go forth and tell!
Words of Blessing
