"Monkey Shines"
Bits of wisdom from Pastor Bimen
Associate Pastor & Youth Pastor
@
St Mark Lutheran Church
September 1, 2004
We all are ministers.
The priesthood of all believers is our solid theology as Lutheran. We believe that everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he or she is a priest or minister. With that in mind, I would like to reassure you that you all are priests or ministers set apart by God to share God’s love according to the gifts God has given you. You are the ones who serve God’s people in this church, our neighbors and in the work places. You have shown those priesthood ministries in our church. Let me name some of them in which many of you were deeply involved. This year we hosted Synod Assembly meeting in our church. It was a great success. You probably have heard good comments from other people. They discovered that we are a hospitable congregation with great leaders. It is true; God has blessed our congregation with people of great talents and the willing hearts to share them.
The other examples of your ministerial calls are serving people here in our church and neighbors. Just in the month of August, itself we have done two great ministry events in our church. First was our Neighborhood Picnic on August 4
th and our Vacation Bible School this past week. Both events were successful and were even better than the year before. Many of you signed up and served people during the neighborhood picnic. Not only adults, even the kids also participated in that event. The second was our Vacation Bible School (VBS) this past week. I would say that VBS this year is more successful than last year. We had an average of fifty kids showed up plus about thirty counselors. We had a good number of kids return from last year even though several churches in our neighborhood offered VBS at the same time. We should thank those who were involved in that VBS, especially Marge Larson, the counselors, musicians and all other volunteers to make that VBS success. Beyond that, thank God for sending his Holy Spirit to inspire, equip and empower us to do that ministry.Now another great ministry God set before us that is to take care of God’s ministry in this church while Pastor Rick is gone. Sometimes it makes me wonder if this is a reflection of what Jesus said to the faithful servant in the gospel who gave back a double amount of talents to his master and his master said, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things…"? (Matthew 25:21-23). God opened an opportunity for Pastor Rick to serve military personnel overseas. We should see this time as an opportunity to share God’s ministry here in our church. God entrusts us to do this ministry. This is a great challenge, but at the same time this is a great ministry experience and growth for all of us. I will depend on your support in prayer and involvement by stepping up to the plate. Because you are God’s ministers, God has equipped you with talents that you can share. I pray that God will give open your hearts to share those gifts and please let me know if you would like to do a particular ministry here in this church. God bless you all.
Pastor Bimen