In 1738, during a bible study, John
Wesley had a personal experience when
he felt his heart “was strangely warmed.”
It is part of the Tradition of the
people called Methodists that “When we sense God's leading, God's challenge, or
God's support or comfort, we say that it's the Holy Spirit at work.”
When the Holy Spirit is at work …
our hearts are often strangely warmed …
I remember distinctly the
experience in a chapel in Heidelberg, Germany in 1991 …
I remember distinctly my heart was
strangely warmed the first time I saw the Pastor at St. Matthew’s United
Methodist in Annandale, Virginia take an infant during baptism and declare that
there was a piece of God in her that was in no one else, and that in her birth
he believed that God had looked over the ongoing creation from the edge of
heaven and continued to declare it good … very good.
Was your heart strangely warmed
today?
For those who were here when we had
our joint musical presentation with Crescent Ridge Stake and four hundred
voices as one sang “O Come All Ye Faithful …” was your heart strangely
warmed? The Holy Spirit is at work
in you.
Celebrations of life sometimes write
themselves … because the family of the one now with the Church Triumphant offers
such sparkling insight into how their mother, father, aunt, uncle very heart
was warmed by the church … often this church … and because of them … others experience
their own hearts being “strangely warmed.”
Maybe the warmth comes when on
television in the midst of an Ebola Crisis in Liberia, and the talking head on
the screen stands in front of a hospital – unnamed in the presentation – but
proudly displaying a cross and flame … and you … I … know that in Africa, the
United Methodist Church exists beyond the end of the road … The Holy
Spirit is at work in us.
Maybe your heart is strangely
warmed when a Hilltop parishioner describes an encounter downtown with a
homeless man, where she identifies herself as part of the Hilltop community and
he says that he knows Hilltop and that our message of God’s boundless Grace –
sung, spoken, and served – has touched him … his heart was strangely warmed …
I was asked in Colorado Springs
before I left for Utah and Hilltop – why I wanted to come? I said “I believe we can make a difference
…”
I firmly believe we ARE making a
difference … here in Sandy, in Salt Lake, in Utah, and across the planet. The Holy Spirit is at work in us.
The mission of the United Methodist
Church is transformation … that is our very why … we exist so that we can help
transform the world … ourselves, our neighborhood, our world … and it requires
hearts that are strangely warmed to do that … and the work of the Holy
Spirit?
Part of how we do that
transformation is by inviting fellow strangers in a strange land to first belong in a place of sanctuary …
Our transformative task at Hilltop
is helping all of God’s children find the meeting place of each individual’s
passion with the world’s greatest needs.
(Repeat that)
I believe that first and foremost,
our hearts – often strangely warmed – lead us to experience the sacred and the
holy. Transformation of the world begins
with the individual … (repeat that)
Through October I hope to come
before you and talk to your hearts about Hilltop and transformation …
More detail – the numbers – will be
addressed each week with THIS (hold up a future insert) and also in this (hold
up the newsletter) and on my “blog” which I will point to in my weekly eNote …
But the fundamental question – and
one that I pray warms your heart – strangely or not so strangely -- is does the
world need more or less of the message of God’s free and unconditional
grace? I think I know the answer to that
… I pray your heart is warmed right now …
Thank you … Pastor Dennis
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