Newsletter 01.14.15

January 14, 2015

CHURCH OF THE SERVANT Bi-Weekly NEWSLETTER

Issue: 15.1

What’s on Your List?

Dr. Robert Gorrell Senior Minister

It’s the beginning of a new year and a lot of us are making lists: lists of things to change, lists of things to do, and lists of things to stop doing. One of the most important things my dad ever taught me was about lists. My dad made a ‘to do’ list every night listing the things he needed to do the next day. What was different about my dad’s list was the way he thought about it.

My dad listed things in the order of importance. He included things he thought were important in his relationship with Jesus. Those were a priority for him so he put things like ‘read a chapter of the Bible and ‘pray for my family’ at the top of the list. Things like ‘pick up the cleaning’ dropped to the bottom.

Then my dad focused on those things that appeared at the top of the list. At the end of the day if he had completed three or four of the things at the top of the list he pronounced the day a “great day.”

What things should be on your list as a Christian? What are the ‘core practices’ of the Christian faith? Bishop Robert Schnase in his book Five Practices of Fruitful Living invites individual Christians to adopt five core practices as a way of

My dad made a ‘to do’ list every night listing the things he needed to do the next day. What was different about my dad’s list was the way he thought about it. following Jesus.

The five practices have a new twist in this book as they are applied to the life of the Christ follower: Radical hospitality means making space in our hearts for God and finding new life as a result.

Passionate worship involves surrendering our will while we express our love for God.

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Intentional faith development describes growing in grace as we learn the will of God through the Bible and are nurtured in Christian community of small groups.

Risk-taking mission and service is a call to move out of our comfort zones to serve at the will of the Holy Spirit to meet the needs of the world.

Extravagant generosity is learning to align our treasures with God’s purposes rather than our wants.

In an article in Church Leadership Tom Berlin, lead pastor of Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia, offers this evaluation:

Drawing on the fundamentals of Wesleyan theology and the powerful witness of personal stories, Schnase compellingly argues that these five individual practices produce transformation. They enable us to experience God’s grace in new ways. Five Practices of Fruitful Living challenges Christians and churches whose lives so often reflect societal values rather than the grace and lordship of Christ, inviting us to engage seriously the ancient ways of faith. The book prompts us to think about the way we live, asking “Are we really experiencing the transforming power of God’s reign?”

The five practices are currently featured in the sermon series both David Wheeler and I are doing in our worship services. The book provides the meat for our series, START. The book is available in Earthglow.

So what’s on your list for this new year? How about starting 2015 off by recommitting yourself to Jesus Christ. Start today with the five practices for fruitful living!

- Robert

Ministry A Change of Heart- A Personal and Theological Memoir

By Thomas C. Oden A reflection by Robert Gorrell, Senior Minister

My first semester in seminary I struggled. The whole transition from being an undergraduate with a science degree to becoming a budding theologian was hard. The wide-open nature of theology and especially the way theologians talked about theology often left me baffled and confused.

A very wise professor handed me a book called Pastoral Theology- Essentials of Ministry by Thomas Oden and encouraged me to read it as he thought it would help me connect the world of theological thought to the practicalities of working in a church.

I don’t know if I would have made it through that first year without Tom’s book. Tom has a way of taking very complex and deeply personal faith issues and making them comprehensible and inspiring. His grounding in the early writers of the faith enables him to unlock

the very foundations of being a Christ follower and equips us to live a spiritually grounded life in a world that is constantly in flux.

His personal memoir, A Change of Heart- A Personal and Theological Memoir, continues what I like most about Tom’s way of doing Christianity but reveals even more of his personal faith journey. The book focuses on one primary question: How did one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated liberals have such a dramatic change of heart?

At Yale he earned his PhD under H. Richard Niebuhr and later met with some of the most formidable minds of the era—enjoying conversations with Gamer, Bultmann and Pannenberg as well as a lengthy discussion with Karl Barth at a makeshift office in his hospital room. While traveling with his family

through Turkey, Syria and Israel, he attended Vatican II as an observer and got his first taste of ancient Christianity. And his faith began to change.

Later a meeting with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI) planted the seeds for what became Oden’s highly influential Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Now his fascinating memoir walks us through not only his personal history but also some of the most memorable chapters in twentieth-century Christian thought.

It is a wonderful blessing to have a teacher like Tom as a part of our Church of the Servant family. Pick up a copy of his book and be inspired!

(A Change of Heart- A Personal and Theological Memoir, by Thomas Oden is available in Earthglow and most places where books are sold).

Missions

Look for the first Edition of the Mission News, which will be coming out next week for all the latest celebrations, information, trips, and opportunities in mission for Church of the Servant!

Baby it’s cold outside! This month we will be collecting new and gently used ( but clean) coats for Infant Crisis Services and Skyline. Please bring your coats to the blue bin near the Mission Kiosk.

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Adult NEW 6-week Bible Study: Breaking Free from Fear For Men and Women

Led by Nancy Harris

Begins Wednesday Mornings, Jan 28, 9:30-11:00 a.m.

NO HOMEWORK - EVERYTHING DONE IN CLASS

Life is filled with all sorts of fears that can assault your mind, trouble your soul, and bring untold stress. But you don’t have to remain captive to your fears. In this six-week study you will learn how to confront your circumstances with strength and courage as you live in the fear of the Lord—the fear that conquers every other fear and sets you free to live in faith. If you would like to enroll, please contact Susie Cobden at scobden@ churchoftheservant.com.

Children Calling All Kids!

The Servant Kids Musical Project will resume this spring. All Kindergarten – 5th graders are invited to participate as we explore and share God’s love through song, dance, and theatre. If you enjoyed the December 7th musical The Christmas Shoe Tree, you won’t want to miss this. The Kids Musical Project will meet Thursday’s from 6-7:30 p.m. in the Choir Room. We resume Thursday, January 15. We will be learning a new kids’ musical entitled It’s All Because of Jesus, which will be performed in the Celebration Center on April 19. The kiddos are also performing in worship on March 8. The Project is led by Paul Gebb, Director of Children’s Choirs & Brooke Gebb, Worship Arts Coordinator. Please visit the Kids Musical Project Servant page and click on the link to sign up. For more information or questions, contact pgebb@ churchoftheservant.com.

Happy New Year!

Soccer Sign Up

Spring Soccer Sign up for ages 3-14 is ready! You will find information on the Welcome Counters, and on our church website (Children’s Ministries-Special Events and Programs). We are ALWAYS happy to have new coaches! Sign up for all the fun!

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As you and your children are enjoying the new things from Christmas, we would like to ask a favor of you. If you are cleaning out those things that are no longer your child’s “delight”, would you consider donating games and building sets to Children’s Ministries? We use these before the 9:15 and 10:45 lessons, and are always in need of new things to engage the kiddos.

We are asking for games that have all the pieces –– Legos, building blocks –– things that the kiddos can do together to enhance interaction.

Please, no craft supplies at this time.

Please bring any donations of these things to Cindy Brackenbury in the Children’s Area.

Thank you in advance!

Women Coming in February for Women Book Club Begins! Starting the week of February 9 for the next 5 weeks we will be reading two books in book club. Registration, with several times offered for each book, can be found on the website. Groups of 6-8 will be organized according to availability. After registration, you will receive an email notifying you of your group time and place. Books can be purchased on Amazon.com.

The two books this session are:

Simplify: 10 Practices to Unclutter Your Soul by Bill Hybels

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Overscheduled. Sound familiar? Today’s velocity of life can consume and control us . . . until our breakneck pace begins to feel normal and expected. That’s where the danger lies: When we spend our lives doing things that keep us busy but don’t really matter, we sacrifice the things that do.

What if your life could be different? What if you could be certain you were living the life God called you to live—and building a legacy for those you love? If you crave a simpler life anchored by the priorities that matter most, roll up your sleeves: Simplified living requires more than just cleaning out your closets or reorganizing your desk drawer. It requires uncluttering your soul. By eradicating the stuff that leaves your spirit drained, you can stop doing what doesn’t matter—and start doing what does. In Simplify, bestselling author Bill Hybels identifies the core issues that lure us into frenetic living—and offers searingly practical steps for sweeping the clutter from our souls.

New Year, New You Women’s Event is a Success!

On Sunday afternoon, 125 women gathered for an innovative and inspiring afternoon of great talks giving information on nutrition, exercise, books, blogs and apps for a new year and how to make space for God in the year ahead. This afternoon was the kickoff to our quarterly events for women’s ministry this year, which will nurture women in body, mind and spirit.

Bible Study Groups begin this week with an introduction week. It is not too late to join one for this 8-week session that runs from January 13/14-March 10/11. For a full listing of the studies, visit our website at www.churchof the servant. com or the women’s blog at cos-womens-ministry.blogspot.com for the latest information in women’s ministry.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.

As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely-written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

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Ministry “CAN A MAN OR WOMAN BE BORN AGAIN WHEN HE OR SHE IS OLD?”…or after he resigns?

N

icodemus’ question has been speaking for me ever since I turned 60. Now that I am 72, it is still speaking for me and maybe for you as well. Nicodemus wasn’t stupid and I don’t think he was a literalist. He was a man who studied the Torah and understood metaphors. Surely he didn’t think Jesus was proposing we physically be born again via our mothers. Rather, I think, Nicodemus was curious how anyone be born again after having grown old. How can one undo a life, the habits, the comforts, the routines long estab-

lished? Can we become new? Can we really change? We can barely convince ourselves to recycle.

Speaking of recycling and re-birthing, I want to take this occasion to offer my resignation as an official clergy staff person here at Church of the Servant the last day of 2014. I plan to remain an active participant here serving in whatever way I can.

Although I have served on the clergy staff at Church of the Servant since 1992, serving at the gracious invitation of the Church’s Senior Pastors and Personnel Committees, my appointment from the Bishop and the Cabinet of the United Methodist Conference of Oklahoma has been to The Center for Therapy and Wellness for many years and now to the Center for Psychotherapy, Education and Spiritual Growth. This appointment to the Ministry of Psychotherapy beyond the local church continues to be my primary focus and calling.

Starting in October of 2014, I have been approved to enter a training program in the Model of Psychotherapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy, pioneered and created by Dr. Richard Schwartz. Minimally, it will be a three-year program. While in training I will maintain a full patient schedule in

my clinic incorporating the new learning and skills which I believe will enhance the change and healing process that my patients seek. I feel the moving edge of God’s Spirit guiding me into this training with its new deepening, and hopefully expanding my capacity for service in Christ. This opportunity certainly seems like an answer to prayer, a hoped-for new birthing passage in my life, and a leading in the direction of creative aging, as Robert Raines says it in his book, A Time to Live (Seven Steps to Creative Aging.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to Drs. Norman Neaves and Robert Gorrell and the Personnel Committees across the years for the grace of opportunities you have extended to me and my family of service to God through Church of the Servant. Linda and I look forward to the years ahead with all of you, our family in Christ, as we love, live, laugh, cry, grow, play, work, sing, pray and struggle together to help bring God’s beautiful Kingdom and Queendom on earth as it is in heaven.

In Joyful Hope and a Thankful Heart, Curtis Nigh

Special Fish Appeal for Stop Hunger Now Sunday, January 18 in All 4 Worship Services

Come in and browse Earthglow’s new spring collection of stylish scarves. Hurry while they last!

Also browse unique gift ideas!

All profits go to missions.

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This will mark the 6th year of this wonderful experience of making meals for people somewhere else in the world. Last year over 1,200 individuals from our church and community gathered to make 151,000 meals. We will do it again on Feb 22. This coming Sunday is the Special Fish Appeal as we begin to raise the $30,000 that is needed to purchase the food to make the meals. $23.25 can feed a child for a month; would you consider feeding several children for a month? $279 will feed a child for a whole year; would you consider feeding a child for a year? Prayerfully consider how you might have a stake in Stop Hunger Now this year and come prepared for the offering on Sunday.

Our Prayers

Our Life Together

u Peggy Akins as Peggy recuperates from surgery. u Benny Allen and Jackie Groves as Benny deals with health issues. u Phyllis Armstrong as Phyllis deals with health issues. u John and Genny Brewer as John deals with health issues. u Dan and Cathy Bush as their niece, Allison Murray, and brother-in-law, Ron Middleton, both deal with health issues.

Our Prayers

u Phyllis Mosher as her premature great granddaughter, Emma Elizabeth Allen, is hospitalized at Integris Baptist Medical Center. u Tom Oden as Tom faces surgery at the OK Heart Hospital. u Benjamin and Kathryn Olds as Kathryn deals with health issues. u Rusty and Piper Pfister as Rusty recuperates from surgery. u Harrell and Wilma Pickens as Harrell deals with health issues.

u Marty and Dottie Christensen as Marty faces outpatient surgery.

u Peggy Pointer as Peggy deals with health issues.

u Jay and Nancy Collins as Jay’s mother, Sue Collins, deals with health issues; and Nancy’s uncle and aunt, Kenneth and Sue Harmon, both recuperate from injuries following an accident.

u Larry and Sara Rosa as Sara recuperates from an illness.

u Brian, Tamie, Taylor, and Brice Dickerson as Brian recuperates from surgery. u Clarke, Misty, and Dalton Farmer as Dalton recuperates from surgery. u Dale and Betty Folks as Dale recuperates from an illness. u Floyd and Sue Gilreath as Floyd faces surgery and treatment in LaQuinta, California. u Dennis and Sally Gilstrap as Dennis recuperates from an illness and their granddaughter, Brianna, deals with health issues. u Denene Harper as Denene recuperates from outpatient surgery. u Ron and Sharon Harper as Ron recuperates from surgery. u Joseph and Nancy Harris as Nancy deals with health issues. u Walt and Lauren Hawkins as Walt recuperates from surgery. u John and Carolyn Hays as Carolyn recuperates from surgery. u David and Mona Hedrick as Mona’s father, Jack Esford, deals with health issues. u Doyle and Michelle Hines as Doyle recuperates from surgery. u Pat Lauffenburger as Pat undergoes rehab and is a resident at Epworth Villa. u Jerry and Sally Liles as Sally faces outpatient surgery. u Nancy Morgan as Nancy recuperates from surgery.

u John Schille and Jimi Hadley as their daughter, Carrie Attala, undergoes tests and is hospitalized at Mercy Health Center. u Allen and Carrie Schlegel as their daughter, Cindy Irwin, undergoes tests in Tulsa. u Linda Shaw as Linda’s son, Daniel, recuperates from surgery.

Our Sympathy

u Pat and Fredde Gentry, Craig and Tanya Gentry, and Jay Gentry and Family at the death of Pat’s, Craig’s, and Jay’s father, Bob Gentry. u Rick and Shirley Jackson and Family at the death of Shirley’s uncle, Daily Wilson. u Richard and Jane Kirby and Family at the death of Jane’s mother, Margo Rost. u Debbie, Sean, and Drew McIntyre and Family at the death of Debbie’s husband and Sean’s and Drew’s father, Bruce McIntyre. u Larry and Linda Nowlin and Family at the death of their daughter-in-law’s father, Martin Welch; and at the death of their sister-in-law’s father, J.C. Young.

Celebrating

u Phyllis Mosher at the birth of her greatgranddaughter, Emma Elizabeth Allen. The proud parents are Cindy Ray and Brad Allen.

u Jack and Ann Thompson as Jack recuperates from surgery. u Mike and Tricia Todd as Mike recuperates from surgery and is hospitalized at Integris Baptist Medical Center. u Jon and Sandy Trudgeon as Sandy undergoes treatment at MD Anderson. u Ron and Jean Waters as Ron deals with health issues. u Bill and Mary White as their granddaughters, Morgan and Adriane White, both deal with health issues. u Tom and Evelyn White as Evelyn is hospitalized at Integris Baptist Medical Center.

CARE MINISTRIES

When a family is faced with an illness or crisis, it is sometimes difficult to remember to inform Care Ministries of that special situation. As a church family, all of us can help. If you know of a member who would benefit from our specialized care or our prayers through Care Ministries, call Care Ministries at 728-4738 or 312-4634.

Grief Support Group Begins January 22

Have you suffered the loss of a loved one? If so, we invite you to a grief support group, which will meet from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. each Thursday, January 22 through March 12. We’ll meet at Church of the Servant in South Adult room 6 (classrooms behind the Centrum). Whether it has been a long time since your loss occurred, or if your grief is new, we think you’ll find this group helpful. We will use the Grief Share curriculum, and you’ll receive a workbook at the first meeting. There will be time for discussion and sharing, and we will view a helpful video each time. Facilitators are Rev. Tim Travers and Don Ellis. To sign up, call Vicki Roberds at 728-4738 or email her at vroberds@churchoftheservant.com.

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Church of the Servant

14343 N MacArthur Blvd Oklahoma City, OK 73142-9725

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