My Sermon

This is the sermon I delivered this morning at West Portsmouth.....


Good Morning,

I bring you greetings from the Pleasant Valley Congregation. We held our business meeting last week and I am happy to inform you that our leadership will not change in 2012.
As many of you are aware the church now has five mission initiatives that are designed to help focus our mission and purpose to a world that desperately need to here what we have to say. The world also needs to here our story and discover what we have to offer as a Community.
One of my favorite initiatives is Abolish Poverty, End Suffering.
Let me explain why, this initiative has so much potential and drive behind that it excites me to see where the church will take it.
The church describes the initiative as, "We are poised to be Christ’s hands and feet, reaching out through compassionate ministries that serve the poor and hungry and stop conditions that diminish the worth of persons."
What would happen you all would make the commitment and say we as the West Portsmouth Community of Christ are going to take the next year and embrace this initiative.
I can tell you with confidence if you all would make that commitment this community would be changed for the better.
If you don't mind, let me share with you some of the reasons I believe this is the time to embrace this initiative.
In 2010, more than one in six Ohioans were served by emergency food assistance between July and September. Of those, more than a quarter-million were Ohio elders. In December of that same year, 19.8% of Ohioans reported that there had been times in the past 12 months when they did not have enough money to buy food that they or their family needed.
The official poverty rate for the U.S. in 2010 was 15.1 percent. According to the Census Bureau; the poverty rate is the highest its been since 1993.
Ohio’s Poverty rate is 15.3 percent.
“In the 20 counties that we serve, 1 in 4 kids are food insecure, which means they do not know where their next meal is coming from, and that’s very disheartening,” said Kurt Reiber, president of the Freestore Foodbank of Cincinnati.
Food insecurity refers to the availability of food and access to it. Those who are considered food insecure do not know when they will have their next meal. Many in low or fixed income situations are food insecure, often forced to choose between purchasing food or paying for rent or utilities. The increasing cost of living coupled with the downturn in the economy has forced a growing numbers of the middle class to utilize emergency food assistance.
In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.
In 2010, 14.5 percent of households (17.2 million households) were food insecure.
One of the ideas we are kicking around at the pleasant Valley branch is partnering with the Northwest School District to start and implement a backpack program.
If we proceed with this idea it would allow the children to take a backpack home every weekend filled with food. This would in some ways ensure the child and their family has something to eat.
There are some cases in this county when students bring home food from school they have to hide it. So, their parents to do find it, if they find it they will sell it for drugs.
At pleasant valley we are beginning to understand what is said in,  D&C 163---
4 a. God, the Eternal Creator, weeps for the poor, displaced, mistreated, and diseased of the world because of their unnecessary suffering. Such conditions are not God’s will. Open your ears to hear the pleading of mothers and fathers in all nations who desperately seek a future of hope for their children. Do not turn away from them. For in their welfare resides your welfare.
 
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Finally I would like to share with you one of the ministries I hold close to my heart.
For the last two years I have served as the co-President of the Scioto County Habitat for Humanity.
This is an exciting time for Habitat, In the past year in a half we have completed 3 homes for those who would otherwise not be able to experience the joys of homeowner ship.
Within the next month or so we will break ground for what will be our 10th house as an organization.
That, my friends is an exciting time for us. That 10th house will be in this community of West Portsmouth.
We are in final negations to purchase a lot of Lincoln Street.
We already have a family picked out for this home. They are more than excited about the idea of owning a habitat home.
To this provides a unique opportunity for this branch to own this project.
What if, the West Portsmouth Community of Christ said every saturday we would provide a meal for the crew. Or, what if, the West Portsmouth Community of Christ said this is the way we are going to embrace the mission initiative Abolish Poverty, End Suffering, by helping this family's dream become closer to a reality.
We all know the challenges we are facing as a community. I believe in these challenges we can find opportunity.

We can find opportunity to live out some of the new mission Initiatives that calls us into greater community. A community that’s united by the one that calls us all together.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes given by a church official. Grant McMurray former profit and president of the church once said in an address to a world conference,
“Our belief in community is founded upon our sure knowledge that the God in me seeks the God in you and that it is when we have encountered that divine reality at the very center of our faith that we finally, truly, know one another.”

As we move forward my we be rest assured of the peace of Jesus Christ is alive and well in our lives, in our community and in our church,

Again I thank you for the opportunity to share with you today.