This morning John Meunier posted a thought on his blog the question “What Would You Preach?” 

Now, as it happens this morning (10/18/2010) my wife had just completed her monthly notes for the church newsletter.  As I wrote to John, if we had known what he was posting, we might have used the picture of Wesley in the monthly report.

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Some background –

As background, about five years ago, she took a corner of the church parking lot and turned it into a flower garden that was designated the "Memorial Garden".  It is now a place where people can sit during the day for prayer and contemplation.

About four years ago, we took a plot of land that belongs to the church but that no one knew was the church’s property and began the Children’s garden.  We also use part of this plot for growing vegetables to be included in the Food Pantry ministry.

Two summers ago, we began the Friday Night Vespers during the summer.  These are held in the Children’s Garden on Friday evenings; it is a time of word and music.  I have invited a number of local lay speakers to present the message and local musicians to provide the music.  This summer we added a time for healing.  It has grown over the past two years and we hope that it continues next summer. 

Here are some pictures from last summer of the gardens – Friday Night Vespers in the Garden

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Here is my wife’s report –

Report of the Flower Ministry

"Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there." (Matthew 18: 20 – The Message)

As 2010 (where has it gone?) winds down, Tony and I are reflecting on the wonderful year we have had at Grace UMC. So much has gone on at Grace this year that it’s difficult to keep up with everything that has happened. The first highlight was watching a great bunch of our youngsters be confirmed. What an awesome day that was!

Second was the Children’s Garden as the setting for a 4th of July barbeque and then a chicken barbeque in August. It was a fantastic sight to see so many people from our church and our community sit down and “break bread together.” I think that these two events along with Carol Nelson’s Outreach Fair prove just how important Grace UMC is to this community. The people of Grace UMC are an integral part of the Newburgh community.

Sadly, we also had to say good bye to some of our dear friends as they went home to our Father in Heaven. They will be missed but their presence will always remain.

As I sit and write this report, I want to digress from actually reporting because I have been thinking about what a “church” means. Being somewhat of a history buff I remember how John Wesley started the Methodist Church. An Anglican minister, John Wesley saw the conflict between the message of the Gospel and the message of the Anglican Church which ignored the poor and less fortunate. What he saw drove him to find ways to make the Gospel message alive and meaningful to all people in all places, not just a few on Sunday morning.

At one point his Bishop assigned him a pastorate which he chose not to take; instead he went to Bristol, England where he started to do more than just preach. When he went to Bristol he was already in trouble with the Anglican Church for his ministerial activities. Going to Bristol took him from the hot water into the fire.

The opposition of the established Church forced Wesley and his followers to adapt new forms of worship and ministry. The Church denied Wesley, ministers who followed Wesley and those in the beginning Wesleyan movement (what became known as the Methodist Church) access to Church buildings and property. This ban also included churches and church property in the American Colonies. The oldest United Methodist Church in the United States (John Street Church in New York City) began as a “house” because Anglican law prevented it from being a church.

This forced Wesley and his followers to resort to “open-air preaching.” Even this did not stop church authorities from encouraging “mob mentality” as people disrupted his preaching and even tried to stone him and his followers. “They were denounced as promulgators of strange doctrines, fomenters of religious disturbances; as blind fanatics, leading people astray, claiming miraculous gifts, attacking the clergy of the Church of England, and trying to re-establish Catholicism…Seeing that he and the few clergymen cooperating with him could not do the work that needed to be done, he was led, as early as 1739, to approve local preachers…This expansion of lay preachers was one of the keys of the growth of Methodism.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley)

A little history note: It has been documented that the work of John Wesley and the Wesleyan Revival prevented a revolution in England such as occurred in France at that time.

The movement from the pulpit inside a church to free-form speaking in a field bothered John Wesley. He was used to formal, written sermons and preaching in the field called for more of an extemporaneous approach. But the Gospel message and the need to reach the people were more powerful and John Wesley adapted the message to the medium.

The connection I have with John Wesley is our Children’s Garden where we celebrate Friday Evening Vespers during the summer. I have this vision of John Wesley standing out in the middle of a field preaching the Gospel to the people. When we come together with our lay speakers it takes me back to a time when there was no physical church building and I realize it isn’t the building that makes us a Church but the people who come together. (Happily, we do not have to contend with the possibility of being stoned, only the din of the traffic on Broadway.)

John Wesley didn’t need a building to answer God’s call. His Church was in the fields with the people of God. It was the people, his followers, who constituted the Church. The building would come later as the denomination grew and became a part of the community.

For me the Church is the people not the building. The Church is where we gather, be it a building, a home, a garden or a street corner.

Many, many thanks to all those people who have made this ministry so successful, and especially to Pastor Evelyn who has been not only an inspiration but made me think about my vision and brought me to a new level of passionate spirituality.

Tony and I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and a Blessed and Happy Christmas.

In peace,

Ann Mitchell

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As Dan Lower wrote on his blog in response to John’s question, I also invite you to make your own response, either on this blog or on John’s (and if you post on John’s, let me know as well).