Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. (Revelation 21.6)

This will be the last newsletter article that I will write as your pastor before I retire on August 31. For that reason, there are several things that I want to be sure to say to you before I go.

1) First of all, I want to say “Thank you” for the privilege of serving as your pastor. I feel genuinely blessed by being among you these past four years. Although everything hasn’t always gone as smoothly or in the directions that I might have wished, I have genuinely enjoyed knowing and working with you. You will remain in my thoughts and prayers long after my days among you has ended.

2) Nevertheless, this IS an ending. Beginning in September, I will no longer be available to perform pastoral functions in this church. Although some of you might be tempted to invite me to perform a wedding or baptism, to conduct a funeral, or lead worship, I must refuse such invitations because it is essential that the church move on to form a strong relationship with your next pastor, rather than looking backwards into the church’s past. Since I will continue to live in the area, it is possible that we may see each other from time to time at stores or various events. But while I’ll be happy to see you and to hear about your current life and family, I will not be willing to discuss matters pertaining to the life of the church. I am bound by the Ordained Minister’s Code of Ethics (the code can be found on the UCC website: ucc.org) to not interfere with or intrude upon the ministry of my successor, even though my heart might tempt me otherwise.

3) Finally, I want to be clear about my reasons for retiring at this time. I had said on many occasions that I hoped to continue in parish ministry for at least another couple of years, so this is a change of plans that I didn’t anticipate. My decision was not about money or about my position being made part-time. Instead, it was a decision about my understanding of Christ’s Church and the nature of ministerial leadership. During my time here, I have tried to help this church restructure itself to faithfully move into a more vibrant future. The center-piece of my efforts involved designing a structure that would foster the spiritual growth of each member, and to hold each member accountable for their ongoing efforts to grow in faith and in daily discernment of God’s will for their lives. I firmly believe that the lack of this kind of nurturing, non-judgmental spiritual accountability is the key reason why so many churches today are dying. Without it, no amount of money or members can revive them.

Unfortunately, this center-piece of my efforts was seen as too radical and threatening a change for most members to embrace, and that proposal was quickly rejected. But in my eyes, no church can be faithful to its calling without a serious commitment to the ongoing spiritual formation of its members. Worship attendance, committee structures, buildings and bank accounts cannot replace the hard, inner work of spiritual growth by each participant in the life of the congregation. No matter where we are on life’s journey, God invites us to keep moving toward Jesus!

Therefore, as I reflected on my own deepest convictions, my skills and abilities, my age and personality, and the disposition of the congregation at this time, I began to sense that God might
be calling me to a different path than the one I had planned. I no longer have the patience or energy for the endless series of unproductive meetings, the petty political struggles and unrealistic expectations of parish life. I am tired of trying to convince people that there is more to the Christian life than programmatic or organizational considerations that most people today already find boring and lifeless. I want to use my gifts to help people who are hungry and thirsty for a deeper drink of God’s life-transforming love. I am no longer convinced that the local church is the best place to find such people.

As a result, I have come to believe that God is calling me away from the parish and into a ministry of Spiritual Guidance for which I may be better suited. For 43 years, I have tried my best to guide institutional churches back to the spiritual roots that will allow them to thrive and grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Sadly, I have found little enthusiasm for such an endeavor within the local church, but only a misguided preoccupation for preserving a church culture that has lost touch with its primary mission. Fortunately, God now, in my retirement years, seems to be guiding me into a new form of ministry that will offer me a better chance of working with people who are hungry for deeper spiritual nourishment.

It is with a heavy heart that I retire with so many hopes and dreams for the church unfulfilled, but I cannot in good conscience continue to serve an organization that is so reluctant to embrace God’s call to change. I feel I have nothing more to offer you as your pastor, and I need to step aside and let someone else take my place who does.

May God bless you and prosper your life together in a community of faith that only Christ can create and sustain.

                                    — Duane

Mark 9:50 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

As we head into a time of transition at the church, we will be met with challenges and opportunities. I will be filling the pulpit at least for the month of September, maybe longer if needed. I’m looking forward to sharing a joyful time of worship and prayer with you all this month. There are some ways that you can help with the worship service: volunteer to be a scripture reader, bring food for our social time, write down hymns that you would like to have included in the future (a chart will be located in Steele Chapel), and make any suggestions of things that you would like us to try during worship.

As was Pastor Duane’s practice, my messages will center on the Gospel readings found in the lectionary. During the month of September (and beyond) the readings will be from the Gospel of Mark. I find this series of readings to be very appropriate to the developmental stage that we are facing in our church. In the coming weeks we’ll read and learn about such things as good coming from bad situations, figuring out just who we say Jesus is and what it means to follow Him, what God is saying to us when He keeps repeating His messages in different ways, and continuing to trust and believe in the Spirit that lives in each of us, and working together to further the mission of our Lord.

Mark 9:50 says that if salt loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? This can be a key verse for us to remember during this transition. It could be very easy for us to become apathetic – to start saying, “I just don’t care what we do anymore. As long as there is someone preaching each week so that I can go to church, that’s all that matters.” But God has much richer things in mind for us, we just need to have patience to learn what those things are. This will be a vital time for all of us to show support for each other, our board, our church and our Lord!

I look forward to seeing many of you during the worship service. While it is true that we all worship wherever we are, coming together during this time of transition will be so very important. I am joyfully thankful for the time to worship and pray together each week! Being together and sharing in this delightful opportunity to worship helps us to maintain the saltiness and be at peace with each other.

God’s Blessings to All,

— Sunnie

Jeremiah 29:11-13: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

God does indeed know the plans for each of us as individuals and for our church.  Our job is to listen, believe and act.  We have an exciting opportunity before us.  I won’t lie and say that it is an easy task that we have before us – it is not.  The most important thing is to continue to pray for God’s guidance, follow the example of Jesus, and be open to doing what the Holy Spirit leads us to do.  We just need to remember that our God is an awesome God who cares for us and about us.
I want to thank everyone for the tremendous outpouring of love that has been felt in our church this month.  I was worried that no one would come to church with the departure of our Pastor.  That was not the case.  I should have had more faith that God would be reaching out to all of us and continuing to call us to him.  I have thoroughly enjoyed leading the worship services on Sunday mornings.  I know that not everyone can make it to services, so I have been sending sermons to people that I think might be interested in reading them.  If you have not been receiving a copy of the sermon you have one of two options: come to service on Sunday morning and hear the real thing or get in touch with me (sunnie.mcphetres@dartmouth.edu or 763-2549) and ask to have one mailed to you each week.
One of the fun parts of the service has been singing hymns that people selected as their favorites.  If you have a favorite selection that you would like us to sing, there is a chart in Steele Chapel where you can list your favorite.
Going forward, it will be very exciting to see where the Lord leads us all as a congregation!
I want to leave you all with the prayer of peace that we have been praying in September when we light the peace candle:
When there is peace in the heart, there is peace in the home;
When there is peace in the home, there is peace in the community;
When there is peace in the community, there is peace in the nation;
When there is peace in the nation, there is peace in the world;
May peace begin right now, in each of our hearts.

Peace in our hearts – that is what our worship services have been all about!  Thank you for sharing in that with me.

May God send His Many Blessings upon Each of You,

— Sunnie

John 10:3 – The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 

We are the sheep of Jesus’ pasture.  He calls each of us out by our name.  Just as we each have a different name, so we each have a different calling toward carrying out the mission of Christ.  We all have to listen for our name and our calling.

About a year ago, I spoke to the church during a meeting and said that we are all part of one body and that body is Christ our Lord and Savior and that we each have different responsibility to that body, me included.  On that night I said that when I think, say, or hear, “someone should” I would ask Jesus if I am that someone and do the things that He calls me to do no matter how scary or how far outside of my comfort zone they may be.  When Isaiah heard the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send?” he didn’t say, “someone should go;” he said, “Here am I Lord, send me.”

So, Jesus called my name and called me to be the lay-pastor of our church during this time of rest and transition.  His word will be my guide.  1 Peter 5:2-3 tells me,  “² Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; ³ not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”(NIV)

That is what I do now – come before you eager to serve no matter how far outside my comfort zone that may be, because I am willing not because I have to.  The only thing that I ask is that you be willing to serve right beside me.  That doesn’t mean that I want you to be preaching in the pulpit; it means that I want you to figure out what God is calling you to do and to do it.  For some people that might be as simple as coming to worship.  For others it might be volunteering to host a Bible study.  For others it might be making phone calls to people who have moved away.  For others it might increasing a pledge. You are the only one who knows exactly what God is calling you to do so listen carefully to that still small voice. Sometimes even a smile, a note, or a hug is all that is needed to make the world brighter for someone else.

There have already been people stepping forward to help in several areas.  A stewardship campaign is underway thanks to the drive of a few people.  Some have volunteered to follow my example and keep in touch with some of our friends that are unable to attend the worship service.  People stepped forward to organize a community supper in October and many others helped after a long hiatus and are volunteering to help at the next one in November.  People have been forthcoming in writing down their favorite hymns so that I can include them in our worship service.  Yes, the Lord has been calling us and we have been answering.

As we approach the season of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for each of you and all that you do. 2 Corinthians 4:15 says, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.”  May we be full of thanksgiving and grace that overflows to the glory of God as we move through this adventure.  I’m looking forward to making this journey with you.  With the help of our Lord, it should be a magnificent trek.

With Much Grace and Thanksgiving,

— Sunnie

^““14As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.  ¹⁵My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds, of your saving acts all day long – though I know not how to relate them all.” (Psalm 71 NIV)

As we come into the Advent season, we enter a season of hope.  Just as a pregnant couple wait for their baby and hope for its future, we wait and hope as well.  We don’t really wait for the arrival of a baby; He was born more than 2000 years ago.  We hope for our future in Him.  Waiting is difficult; I don’t think that I have ever met anyone who enjoys waiting.  We have such busy lives that waiting seems to be a waste of time.  Waiting in traffic, waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for an appointment, waiting for the kids to come home, waiting for a diagnosis, waiting for dinner to be ready – we do a lot of waiting.

Sometimes when we are waiting we are so focused on our dislike of waiting that we miss opportunities.  When waiting in a line we can look around and see the many faces of Jesus around us.  When we are waiting in traffic, we can take time to focus on thankfulness by creating a gratitude list.  When waiting for a diagnosis, we can focus on prayer and the Will of God and know that He will be with us no matter what the outcome.

The great thing about Advent is that it gives us a reason to slow down and focus on the hope of our faith.  God makes so many promises to us and we know that He will make good on them.  That is what hope is.  Hope is not a wish, hope is the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us moving forward even when we feel frustrated or downtrodden.  As long as we have the promises of God, the promise of the Spirit within us, we have hope.  We hope for a time when Jesus will reclaim us all and we will live as one with Him.

Sometimes, as the Psalmist wrote, we don’t know how to express the hope that we have. How can we demonstrate that we have hope while we wait?  By following the two greatest commands: ³⁰Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12, NIV).  If we use our times of waiting to find ways to follow these commands, our hope will be evident and our waiting will realize that hope.

May God shower you with blessings as you wait and hope in this Advent season.

— Sunnie

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”  John 1:1-2

“New Beginnings.”  That is the title for the first sermon of 2016.  Not very original, I must admit, but very appropriate.  Each new year brings the chance for renewal.  Each new year brings the reality of change.  Looking back over the past year, we see just how much has happened for our church and for each of us personally.  While change is as inevitable as the passing of time, we can rely on one thing to remain steady.  The triune God will always remain with us and unchanged.
Over the advent season, we focused on the Light of Christ shining in our lives and through us.  As we move into this new year, we will continue to focus on how Jesus is at work in and around us both personally and in our church.  Each of us will have to make choices and changes throughout this year – some we know about now and others are still to be revealed to us.  How fortunate for us that God already knows what is instore and will be with us to see us through.  We will not be alone in our joys, our sorrows, our frustrations, our worries, or our elations!
As a church, we will also be working on new beginnings.  At our January meeting, we will be discussing what comes next for our church.  During 2015 we saw many changes: the retirement of our Pastor and the decision to have a time of rest with a lay-pastor.  During that time of rest we have seen members coming and going, small groups reaching out to the community in many ways, the reinstatement of Church Suppers, and the formation of a Bible study group – that doesn’t sound like rest!  That sounds like Christ making us ready for change and action!
I urge everyone to come to the Annual meeting on January 24.  We’ll be talking about what comes next.  Are we ready to begin the process of calling a new Pastor or do we need more time to rest?  How should we go about reforming committees?  Are we ready to look at our bylaws again and make the appropriate changes?  What do we want to look like in the community of Sharon?  So much to pray and think about.  I really hope that many people will come out for this meeting to let everyone know how they think things are going and what else they feel God is calling us to do!  God definitely has a plan for us – let’s talk and figure out what He is telling us!

In Peace,

— Sunnie

“If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place.” Proverbs
24:10 (The Message)

My Bible reading this week led me to the Proverbs.  For me, this is a book in the Bible
that always has exactly what I need to hear when I need to hear it.  The verse that I quoted above felt very appropriate to the situation in which we find ourselves as a church.  We have been faced with challenges but we are not falling to pieces.  We are taking this time to rely on God to help us move into God’s future.

I was overwhelmed by the positive feeling that I had in our recent annual meeting.  I was impressed that we were able to discuss what could be a very difficult situation (not having an actual Pastor).  We were able to look at the pros and cons of a plan of action for our church.  We talked with each other, prayed with each other and listened to each other all in love.  In the end, we had a plan that sounds amazing!  We will begin the process of creating our Small Church Profile in April and thus begin the process of searching for a settled Pastor.  It was suggested that I stay in my current role until one month after we find a settled Pastor, however long that may be.

During the annual meeting, I saw people taking on responsibility, joining committees and pledging to help move the church forward.  We acknowledged that we are healing, but we are not falling apart.  We agreed that we want to hear opinions about the needs of our church from people who are not coming through the doors each week.  We want to include everyone that we can in our process whether they attend Sunday services or not.

The most important thing that I felt, was the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room with us as we shared a meal, watched a slide show of some of the faces of Jesus in our midst, heard about the positive financial position that we are in, and planned to move forward into new missions and a new future.  I am so grateful that God led me to this position at this time in this church!  We are blessed – those who come to the Sanctuary on Sunday morning and those who participate in Spirit.  I thank the Lord that we are not falling to pieces!

In God’s Love,

— Sunnie

“⁷ Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.  ⁸ However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all.  But let them remember the days of darkness, for there will be many.” Ecclesiastes 11: 7-8 (NIV)

The Lent Bible study is focusing on different aspects of light and how it affects our faith journey. Some of us have been feeling the effects of the long nights during the winter.  As the days begin to lengthen we start to feel relief.  Hope is renewed and we look forward to spending more and more time outside.  We see the lights that God created: the sun, the moon, and the stars.  We see the lights that God gave us the capability to create: the lights in our homes, or the lights of a town or a city viewed from a distance.  Seeing light gives us hope and security as we move throughout our lives.

But there will always be times of darkness as well.  If we never have darkness, it can be difficult to rest or appreciate the light.  We can become irritable and restless.  It can be during times of darkness that we learn most to rely on our Lord.  We can choose to move about in the darkness on our own and bump into obstacles and trip and fall on things unseen or we can choose to fully rely on the Holy Spirit to guide our steps.  The darkness brings opportunities to grow.  Experiencing the times of darkness and remembering what we have gained is very important as we move back into the light again.

Sometimes the transition back into the light can be temporarily unsettling.  The light seems too bright and makes it difficult to see.  Jesus is very patient with us during those times.  He waits for our eyes to adjust.  He never forces himself on us.  He shows us the way and waits for us to open our eyes slowly and follow His path.  During these weeks leading up to Easter, we will indeed be following Jesus’ path through some very dark times that are filled with lessons of light.  On Easter we will rejoice and celebrate the true coming of Light into the world.  Let us all take time to reflect as we follow Jesus in His journey!

With the Love of the Risen Savior,

Sunnie