The year was 1910. My father's mother was 32 years old and seemed to be a healthy young woman. Then, she became ill, and in just a few days, she was dead. My father was only four, and he did not understand. Confused and sad, he sat in his grandmother's lap while she gently rocked, softly singing her favorite hymns as she struggled with her own sorrow and tried to comfort him in his bewilderment and grief. She was there with love that was more than hers; she was there, and being there, she was an instrument of the grace of God.

Before my father was six years old, his father had remarried, but the new bride did not want to be the mother of the children of his previous wife. So, it was not long until my father and his brother were sent to the home of his Aunt Sallie and Uncle Lee. There my father and his older brother were given the tough and tender love that is required to raise any child, but especially boys who felt abandoned by their mother who died, and rejected by their father who gave them up to please their stepmother. Aunt Sallie was there, singing her own favorite hymns, and Uncle Lee was there, with his laughter, tall tales and ability to play. Together, Uncle Lee and Aunt Sallie did not merely take him to church; they immersed him in the faith and fellowship of that group of imperfect but struggling to be faithful church folks in the Methodist Church in Karnes City, Texas.

My father could have been made bitter by the rejection he experienced. However, it seems to me that his experiences of rejection were transformed to teach him the importance of compassion. His childhood experiences of life being unfair and significant adults being insensitive and unjust could have influenced him to become an angry adult, full of resentment. But, because of the compassion of his grandmother, because of the tender and tough love of his aunt and uncle, and, in no small measure, because of the faith, hope and love that was shared with him by the members of that little rural church, the injustices my father had experienced made him determined to be fair and just in his dealings with all persons.

Some years later, another member of my family, when he was a young man, lived a reckless, self-indulgent life. He was one, who, as my mother would put it, "went over fool's hill going a hundred miles an hour." Eventually, when other family members stopped rescuing him from one bad situation and then another, he was sent to prison. And in prison, some people from an Assembly Of God church reached out to him. Their faith, their hope, their love began to have an impact on his life. Or, to state the case more accurately, through their faith, through their hope, through their love God's grace broke through his defenses and a man was truly reborn. I am not talking about an emotional, religious experience (although I am confident that any such transformation has its powerful component of emotion). What I am talking about is a change of perspective, a change of values, a change of priorities, a change of living. What I am talking about is not merely his confession of sin, but his repentance, his turning his life around that came as a result of facing harsh reality, and in that ordeal being bombarded by the grace of God as it came through the imperfect lives of some church folks struggling to be faithful, trying to place their hope in God, and doing their best to offer love to a man who had made a mess of his life. Prison helped him face reality, but it was those persons who were the Church, the Body Of Christ, who were the instruments God used to transform his life.

Both of these men are dead now. But my memory of the impact those Church folks had on the lives of these two men helps keep me focused on what the Church really is, and what Church work is supposed to be all about. As the introduction to the confirmation service that will be read next week states, the church exists for the purpose of the conversion of the world.

To speak of the conversion of the world is not to speak of something as trifling as changing opinions about whether "this" way of using words to say the Gospel is better than "that" way of using words to say the Gospel. The purpose of the church is greater than making sure we all have the same opinions and words to talk about God, Jesus and the Bible. The purpose of the Church is the conversion of the world-the changing of the world, usually one person at a time, from the way it is to the way God intends it to be.

Through imperfect people, the Church was being the Body of Christ in nurturing my father into maturity. And through other imperfect people, the Church was being the Body of Christ in reaching out to my relative in prison so that the grace of God converted him from destructive living to striving to be faithful and thereby living a constructive life. And it had been people who were the Church, the Body of Christ, long before my father was born, who were the instruments of God's grace in shaping my father's grandmother, his aunt and uncle and those members of the Methodist Church in Karnes City who nourished him with faith, hope and love. It was generation after generation of people striving to be the Body of Christ who led the way for those whose ministry reached out to my other relatives.

The Church is not simply a club or an organization to help us learn how to be polite, good citizens and at the same time meet nice people who can become our friends. As the beginning of the Confirmation Ritual states: "The church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time, for the conduct of worship and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments, the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline, the edification of believers, and the conversion of the world."^[1]

We are not just a religious country club. The Church is the Body Of Christ, at work in the world. The Church is the Body of Christ, doing again and again in various ways what it did for my father and the other relative in my family. Again and again, the Church is the Body of Christ, speaking out for what will bring the society in line with our best understanding of God's will. The Church is the Body of Christ, acting on behalf of those in need, especially those with the least power and the weakest voices. And the Church does all this in all sorts of ways, using a wide variety of strategies and ministries.

Today we are making three-year financial commitments so that we can expand our facilities. These facilities are not the Church. They are merely tools we use as we do the work of being the Church. We have been using tools another generation sacrificed that we might have. And the tools they gave us cost them dearly; but they have served us very well.

They have served us so well that the ministries being done here using those tools have attracted more and more people to be part of this congregation participating in ministries of sharing faith, offering hope and enabling love of God and neighbor. Now, we have outgrown the space we inherited.

The decision we are in the process of making is the most significant financial decision this congregation as a whole has made since the current facilities were completed in 1965. The financial decisions we are about to make will not only impact what we are able to do now but will also impact the quality and quantity of ministries this congregation will be able to offer in 2040 and 2050 and beyond.

The reason I began this sermon by telling two personal, family stories is because the ministries we are talking about are not simply for the sake of giving people something to do, or answering questions of the curious or teaching good manners to our children while keeping them safe from destructive influences in our society. The ministries we are talking about are life-shaping ministries, different in style but not different in substance or purpose from the ministries that nourished my father or the ministries that transformed the life of one of my relatives.

This is what we are doing today. We are making financial decisions that will impact the effectiveness of our ministry both for the present generation and for generations to come. How much shall we give? How much is the life of my father and all the people like him worth? How much is the transformed life of my relative worth?

Rita and I decided not to add a room on to our house and to invest that $40,000 in building ministries of faith, hope and love both in the present generation and in generations to come, long after we are gone. Now, the unavoidable question and decision regarding your financial commitment to expanding our ministry facilities is before you.

God, as we make our financial commitments today, make us aware of what we are really doing. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

God, this is a special day in the life of this congregation. We pray that you will guide what we do this day. May your Spirit be at work within each of us so that the decisions we make will be pleasing to you and at the same time give us a sense of peace and joy.

We are grateful for this congregation-not just those who are members today, but also for all those who have gone before us. We are grateful for the choices they made that have enabled us to reap the benefits of significant ministry. We are grateful for their ministries that set a pattern of reaching out to others. God, enable us to make decisions that will benefit those who follow us. May the ministries we do continue to expand and deepen.

As we come to receive this sacrament of Holy Communion and as we come to make our pledges, help us be sensitive to your presence, open to your grace and obedient to your will. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

^[1]The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989 edition, page 45.