Today’s Gospel featured the question Jesus posed to his disciples in Matthew- “But who do you say that I am?" Peter gets it right – "the son of the living God" and in response Jesus provides Peter his mission – " you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" and will "provide him the keys to the kingdom." The last phrase in the passage is the zinger – "Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah." So how do you build your church? You had to wait.
Fortunately, we don’t have that restriction but the challenge of building a church is an ongoing struggle. The sermon used an ad from the Virginia Herald in 1833 that forecast it would take 100,000 to build this church. It takes all of those to make a church physically to provide a foundation for the building. And it is a work of art. We have a lovely building and today’s sunlight provided a dazzling display inside on the walls and pews.
It takes all of us to extend the mission of the church. (Catherine named everyone in the Church). God at the center of our lives, helping us to renew our minds, going out into the world to do such good works, keeping in mind the central commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And we are doing it – such as sponsoring the community dinner next weekend, and providing transportation to the parishioners with a need (added 3 volunteers today) as well as seasonal projects, such as Samaritan’s Purse.
Johnny Davis spoke passionately about an international challenge for St. Peter’s – helping to relieve the famine in Somalia due to drought. 1/3 children’s lives are at risk due to malnutrition. He challenged us to give either to the St. Peter’s with "ERD" (Episcopal Relief and Development) in the memo line or to the ERD directly. Hopefully we can report back with totals on this worthwhile effort. (Special report on Somalia)
Another form of outreach can be considered the website and how it is presented. Earlier at 9am, Cookie, Eunice, Ben and Jim Heimbach reviewed the web site for both understanding how it is organized and for improving the site. Thanks for the suggestions!
This was an upbeat service with 39 in attendance. Brad and the choir provided hymns supporting the tone of the service, such as "The Church’s One Foundation", "The Solid Rock" (verse "On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand"); and "All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name" (verse "We’ll join the everlasting song, and crown him Lord of All").
Several birthdays were celebrated. Crystal and Fred (born on the same day!), Nancy Wick, Anne Upshaw. Anniversaries – the Dukes and the Everetts. They have been married 53 years.
The entire sermon is published here, the readings are here and the bulletin. Next week we will join with the Episcopal churches in King George to celebrate Eucharist at historic Lamb’s Creek Church at 10am. Altnerately, we will have Morning Prayer here at the same time.