Order of Worship— November
22, 2015
Cross~Wind UMC - 10:00 AM
Gathering, Fellowship,
Greeting – 9:30AM – 10:00AM
Praise/Worship (To begin at 10:00AM – NO GREETING)
·
Mighty Is Our God/Great and Mighty Is He (medley)
·
We Have Come Into His House
·
Our God
·
Celebrate Jesus
Offering/Offertory - (Ushers bring plates forward during song)
·
Holy Ground/We Are Standing on Holy Ground
Jim Austen, Chair of Building
Committee 1998
Wayne Thomas, Chair of
Finance Committee 2015
Prayer – Pastor George
Eternal God, let this building, which we
dedicate to your name, be a house of salvation and grace where Christians
gathered together may worship you in spirit and truth, may learn of you, and
may grow together in love. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Think Orange (Song and/or Prayer)
Scripture Reading by Pastor George I Corinthians
3:5-11
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul?
Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who
plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8
The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will
receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants,
working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God given to
me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is
building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For
no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that
foundation is Jesus Christ.
We are grateful for the pastors that had
formative influence upon the merger and building the new church
Letter from District Superintendent
Dear Cross Wind United Methodists,
Glory to God!
When two United Methodist congregations in Logansport, Indiana began a
journey with a vision to create a new United Methodist Church on the north side
of town, they could only imagine the fulfillment of this day…the accomplishment
of paying off the mortgage! But, through
the gifts of faithful, generous members and friends of Cross Wind UMC, you have
reached that day! You have every right
to feel proud of the work you have done together. Thank you to each of you who have given to
the “Building Program” so that this chapter might come to its fulfillment.
But today isn’t just about paying off a mortgage. It’s about ministry. This congregation has taken on new challenges
to reach out to the community in innovative ways. Because the original congregations realized
the need and value of green space, you have a beautiful area to touch the lives
of young people through your Upward Soccer Program. I have driven by here occasionally on
Saturday mornings and the parking lot is packed! Children are enjoying time with one another
learning how to play soccer and learning about Jesus. Lives are being changed from the youngest
participants to the parents or grandparents who are sitting on the sidelines
cheering for their children. You are
making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
You have also developed an amazing “Orange” ministry for children in
this beautiful facility that has allowed them to grow in faith, learn how to
pray and dance in the name of the Lord.
They have brought joy to your worship and power to the prayers of your
congregation. They will never forget the
ministries they enjoyed through Cross Wind UMC.
Thanks be to God!
So, for today…congratulations and THANK
YOU! But, this is also the beginning of
a new thing. You have opportunities to
use resources in new ways. I know that
you will continue to care for those who have faithfully participated in the
life of this church for many years. Now
you also have the privilege to find new creative ways to reach out into a
community that still needs to know the love of God in Jesus Christ. There are others waiting out there to be
loved and welcomed into a community of faith like Cross Wind. There are others who are lonely and seeking
to find a place where they can belong.
There are those who need to know that God has a greater plan for their
life and that Christ offers new and abundant life.
Continue to go out from these beautiful walls and even these beautiful
grounds to touch the lives of others so that your congregation, community, and
ultimately the world might be changed.
God has been faithful. Thank you for being faithful through your
gifts and in sharing God’s message of love in Jesus Christ.
Grace and Peace,
Chris Newman-Jacobs Northwest District
Superintendent
Mick Schoenradt said he was so excited for
the church
Note from youth pastor Andrew Suite
Hello, CrossWind! Congratulations on your
mortgage pay off! Thank you also for taking me under your wing nearly ten years
ago and allowing me to stretch my wings as a Youth Minister. In large part to
great people like you, I am now on my way as a certified candidate for
ordination as and elder in the United Methodist Church. God bless you in the
years to come! In Him, Andrew Suite
Michael Heath
He appreciated the invitation but he
will be on vacation. He said that his time here was a highlight of his
ministry.
Gary Lewis:
Praise be to God the mortgage has been
paid off! Unfortunately, we will be unable to attend. That Sunday is scheduled to be our stewardship Sunday with a meal afterward. Thanks so much for
the invite and extend to Cross~Wind our sincere congratulations.
Dan Motto
Chip Gast,
Matthew
16:21-28
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain
to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many
things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of
the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised
to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke
him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind
the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
24 Then Jesus said to his
disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save
their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses
their life for me will find it.26 What good will it be for
someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone
give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is
going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will
reward each person according to what they have done.
28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing
here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his
kingdom.”
Message: "May
All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful."
Pastor George
Isaiah 43:19: Watch for the new thing I am
going to do. It is happening already – you can see it now! I will make a road
through the beanfield and give you streams of water there. – Good News Bible
Message:
Watch for the New Thing!
Think
of it this way.
Our
entire life depends on it. People fear and work to avoid it. Most political
elections promise it. Bookstores are crammed with guides on how to create it
personally and manage it professionally. Sometimes it is the only constant in
life, and other times people desperately want it but cannot seem to muster it.
Change.
The
longer we live, the more of it we see. Consider a few childhood classics that
have left nostalgia behind while looking to change with the times.
The
board game Monopoly was built on obscure geographic locales from Atlantic City.
Without Monopoly, nobody outside of Jersey would know Marvin Gardens and
Oriental Avenue. But because 750 million people around the world have played
the game, Parker Brothers has now released a globalized World Edition. City
streets have been replaced by actual cities, which were determined by Web site
voters.
Boardwalk
is replaced by Montreal, Illinois Avenue by London, and Water Works and
Electric Co. by Solar and Wind Farms. Instead of Dollars, players spend Monos,
a fictional currency based on the Euro. And they no longer buy, sell and
collect rent with cash; they do it by registering electronic transactions on
their calculator-like personal banking units.
The
game Clue also got a face-lift. The murder-mansion game board now has a spa and
home theater. Professor Plum is Victor Plum, a billionaire video-game designer.
Colonel Mustard is now former football star Jack Mustard.
Nostalgic food favorites have changed as well. Recently,
M&M’s have gone “Premium,” with new flavors including almond, raspberry
almond, mocha, mint and triple chocolate. The Premiums, which lack their
predecessors’ hard shell, come in an upscale, trendy box instead of that tired
brown-paper wrapper.
And
most of us remember the nation-gripping taste-drama that surrounded Coca-Cola
becoming New Coke, reprising Classic Coke, then reverting back to just plain
old Coke.
Another
changing classic is the Bible. Think about the medium by which we read the
Bible.
In
the ancient world of Judaism, people memorized and passed on Scripture orally.
Hebrews took papyrus technology from the Egyptians and wrote on scrolls. Later,
they wrote on sturdier parchment — dried animal skins. These were combined into
exorbitantly expensive booklike codices. In the 15th century, the printing
press revolutionized the world by getting Bibles into the hands of nonclergy
for the first time. Today we beam texts onto PowerPoint slides, and people
bring Bibles to church on the iPhone.
Think about all the ways technology has altered age-old
interactions between people. We used to talk face to face. Then we created the
telegraph and eventually saw a phone in every home. Now we carry our phones,
ditch our land lines and drop text messages to avoid those pesky, lengthy human
interactions.
Previous
generations wrote letters and posted them through couriers. Then MIT nerds in
the ’60s created an intranet, which led to e-mail, which spawned a worldwide
Internet. One-to-one communiqués became SPAM, Facebook wall postings and Tweets
about what cereal we ate for breakfast.
Change
is the air we breathe.
People
often criticize the church and the Bible because of resistance to anything new.
However, let me suggest that the prophet in these words summarizes the ways God
with the world. “Watch for the new thing I am going to do!”
Watch
for the new thing, when God called Abraham, the head of a clan, to move from
modern Iraq to modern Israel and to start forming a people.
Watch
for the new thing, when this same called God Moses to help bring liberation for
these people from Egypt, lead them into a new land, and establish a new
covenant.
Watch
for the new thing, as the loose confederation of tribes broke covenant with
each other and with God, and therefore, God called forth a king.
Watch
for the new thing, when kings and people alike broke covenant again, God judged
the people by sending them into exile, and yet, God was not finished with them.
God called them to faithfulness to their heritage, but also challenged them.
God would do a new thing in bringing them home, yes, but God would make them a
light to the nations.
Watch
for the new thing, as these people withdrew behind fences and kept the rest of
the world out. God wanted the divine light to spread throughout the world, so
the Father sent the Son into the world, because God loved the world that much.
God had in mind a people who were on a mission. Yes, the missionary situation
would change, and therefore what churches looked like would change, how clergy
looked would change, music would change, the way the church interacted with its
culture would change.
Yes,
the missionary situation changes, and therefore, the church changes. God is
always doing a new thing, simply because one thing we know about history – it
means change.
Yet,
watch for the new thing.
First,
trust the Unchanging.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the
Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1: 8)
We
can thank God for all the works of God, but especially in the gift of Jesus,
the Son of God, for the love of God Christ reflects and for the love God sows
within us.
It
is difficult to trust anyone or anything that changes. Because God is the same
yesterday and tomorrow, God can serve as an anchor point to a chaotic life. His
words and the lifestyle he commands are a constant.
Following
God means we have a true foundation for the whole of our lives to be built on.
We can trust that God knows best. We know God will not change the rules of the
game on us later on.
Second,
trust the unchanging mission.
Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19)
We
state the mission clearly on the front of our bulletin every Sunday: To make
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
When
the disciples follow Jesus, we learn that they are to be with him, abide with
Him, and accompany Him on His ways wherever they may lead. In every case,
following means simply to be there, to be with Jesus.
If
you are with Jesus, he will sow seeds of love and kindness. In that sense, the
living Christ is more like a gardener, and you are the garden that he seeks to
make fruitful.
Third,
engage the changing missionary situation.
Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is
happening already – you can see it now!
- Isaiah 43:19
Frankly,
here is where the church often gets itself into trouble. It is the reason so
many local United Methodist congregations close their doors after many decades
of service. Things changed all around them, but somehow, they could not muster
the courage and vision to address the changes.
God
is already doing the new thing! All too often, however, the church closes its
eyes and its ears. It does not hear. It does not see. The church does not watch
for the new thing.
We
are so fortunate here. We as a people have shown that we can watch for the new
thing. We have already heard from pastors and laity who have shown readiness to
do a new thing. Cross~Wind exists today because were faithful to the vision God
had given them. Some of the people instrumental in the formation of Cross~Wind
have died. I think they are encouraging us onward to the new thing toward which
God is calling us. The best way to remember them and honor them is to keep
being open to the new thing God wants us to do. In fact, God is already
starting the new path. We have shown that we are not simply going to sit there
at the beginning of the path. Far from it! You see, in another 15-20 years,
people will be looking upon us who had the courage and vision to follow
wherever God would lead.
Burning of the Mortgage
[Copy of the mortgage needed]
Dear friends, now that we have completed
building and paid all indebtedness on it, let us dedicate this building and
rejoice in its holy use.
To the glory of God, who has called us by
grace; to the honor of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us; to
the praise of the Holy Spirit who illumines and sanctifies us;
We dedicate this house.
For the worship of God in prayer and
praise; for the preaching of the everlasting gospel; for the celebration of the
Holy Sacraments:
We dedicate this house.
For the comfort of all who mourn; for
strength to those who are tempted; for light to those who seek the way;
We dedicate this house.
For the hallowing of family life; for
teaching and guiding the young; for the perfecting of the saints;
We dedicate this house.
For the conversion of sinners; for the
promotion of righteousness; for the extension of God’s reign;
We dedicate this house.
For making disciples of Jesus Christ to
transform the world; for inviting people to believe in Jesus Christ, grow in
their faith, go forth to witness in the world;
We dedicate this house.
In the unity of the faith; in the bond of
brotherhood and sisterhood; in love and goodwill to all;
We dedicate this house.
In gratitude for the labors of all who
love and serve this church; in loving remembrance of those who have finished
their course; in the hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;
We dedicate this house.
Brief Prayer of Great Thanksgiving
Communion (Invite servers then choir
members to come. We will serve the choir first, and they will go the stage.
When they gather, they will sing, “A Thanksgiving Garden” during serving of
communion. Then, as closing song, “Find Us Faithful.”)
Closing Prayer
We now, the people of this congregation,
surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, grateful of our heritage, aware of
the sacrifices of our mothers and fathers in the faith, and confessing that
apart from us their work cannot be made perfect, dedicate ourselves anew to the
worship and service of almighty God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Prayer for the Meal
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