A Blessing be upon you, my brothers and sisters. As you gather together, in this meeting of CPSP, keep in your minds and hearts all those of us absent in body, but present in the Spirit along with those who have vacated this earthly tabernacle.Allow this meeting to be a blessed time of sharing your stories, both of victories as well as defeats, of winnings and losses, of good health and bad.
Let it be a time of exploring and renewing your mind about what God had in mind in bringing you into the creation. Also find a way to share that with others.
Be open to share your struggles with others, and be open to listen to those whose struggles are more than they can bear alone. And remember that when you are heard, you are blessed.
God, we believe that you stand ready to bless us and to forgive us and protect us from all evil.
Let his blessed name hold you close in a love that never fails. Amen.
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What I want to do this morning is talk about how congregations function like families. I am going to do it from a variety of points of view. I’m going to begin with a fable. This one is called "Burnout" and it’s about a fish tank with a scavenger fish in it, you know a scavenger fish is supposed to keep the fish tank clean. I’m trying to be as realistic about it in my use of language as possible so I hope that you will appreciate that.
Once upon a time there was a scavenger fish that lost its taste for shit. (I don’t think I have to read the rest of the fable. You all got the message already!) It was your normal, garden-variety scavenger and had never previously shown any signs of being different from the other members of its species. It lived in a normal-sized tank with the members of several schools and, from the very beginning of its association with this ecosystem, seemed always to be in perfect harmony with the environment. It never got in the way of the others and th...