I took a picture of the air handler before it disappeared. It sat in two pieces on the sanctuary floor, a large steel unit, part of the new system going into the building, and for several weeks it had been sitting where the whole congregation could reach it. People had been signing it. Names in marker across the metal, dozens of them, the way you sign a cast or a beam at a barn raising. Soon it would be installed, sealed inside the ceiling behind ductwork and tile, where no one would ever see it again.

Somewhere on that steel, Nicole and I had added a verse. First Thessalonians 2:8, in the words our translation uses: “We were glad to share with you not only God’s good news but also our very lives because we cared for you so much.” We were two names among many. But the verse is up there now, closed into the ceiling, addressed to no one who will read it.

I keep thinking about that. A congregation left its names across the steel, we added a verse among them, and then it all went into the ceiling.

It would be easy to call that a waste. Why write something no one will see? But the people signing that unit were not performing for an audience. They were doing what people do when they love a place and want to leave themselves in it. The point was never to be read later. The point was to put something true into the structure and trust it to hold.

Paul wrote that sentence to a church in Thessalonica he had been forced to leave sooner than he wanted. He was reaching back toward people he missed, telling them that what passed between them had been more than a transaction. He had not just delivered a message. He had handed over his life. The verse is plural before it is anything else, one community saying to another, we gave you more than words, we gave you ourselves. Nicole and I wrote it up there, but it sits among a whole congregation’s names, and together the names and the verse say the same thing. Not a claim about growth or success. People who share their lives and then let the gift go out of sight.

Most of what a church does looks like that air handler. The visits no one hears about. The prayers offered over names the rest of us never learn. The decades of quiet giving that built the room before any of us walked into it. The faithful little, done where no audience will ever applaud it, and then covered over by the ordinary business of the next week. We tend to measure a church by what shows, by attendance and budgets and the building itself. But the building is mostly held up by what got written on the inside and sealed in.

No one will read that verse again, probably not until someone opens the ceiling decades from now to replace the system. But the hidden things are not lost on God, who sees everything done where no one is watching. The ceiling tile does not need to come down for the verse to be known. The whole logic of the gospel runs this direction, toward the hidden thing, the cup of water given quietly, the closed door, the gift offered with no one keeping score.

The unit is in the ceiling now, doing its work, moving air through rooms that will fill with people who never know a verse rides above them. That seems about right. A congregation put its very life into a building, names and a verse together, and let the part no one would see go out of sight. The system will run quietly all that time. The verse will outlast everyone who signed it. And what is sealed away from every other eye is not sealed away from God.

“When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ‘These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.’” — Matthew 20:11-12 (CEB)

The early workers weren’t underpaid. They got exactly what they were promised. Their anger isn’t about their own wages, it’s about someone else’s.

That’s the moment fairness becomes a weapon. When our desire for justice stops being about making sure everyone has enough and becomes about making sure nobody gets more than they deserve.

We see this everywhere. In families arguing over inheritance. In workplaces measuring who earned what. In churches deciding who belongs enough to receive grace. The measuring instinct is powerful, and it feels righteous. But Jesus names it for what it is: resentment wearing the mask of fairness.

The early workers wanted the landowner to love the latecomers less. That’s never how God works. God’s generosity toward someone else doesn’t diminish what God gives you.

God of enough, when we catch ourselves measuring your love, redirect our hearts. Free us from needing others to receive less so we can feel we’ve received more. Amen.

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and moving on finally to the first.’” — Matthew 20:8 (CEB)

The landowner could have paid the early workers first and sent them home. Nobody would have seen what the latecomers received. Nobody would have complained.

Instead, he starts at the back of the line. He makes grace visible on purpose.

This is not an accident. The landowner wants everyone to see what generosity looks like when it isn’t measured by merit. He wants the full-day workers to watch as the one-hour workers receive a full day’s wage. He wants the math to be public.

Grace that hides is safe. Grace that shows itself creates a reaction. And God seems uninterested in keeping grace hidden. The whole story of scripture is God making love visible, in burning bushes, in bread broken, in a cross on a hill.

Where is grace showing itself to you today?

Generous God, you don’t hide your goodness. You make it visible for everyone to see. Help us recognize the grace unfolding around us today. Amen.

“Around five in the afternoon he went and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?’ ‘Because nobody has hired us,’ they replied.” — Matthew 20:6-7 (CEB)

“Because nobody has hired us.” Five words that carry a whole day’s worth of waiting, watching others get chosen, wondering what’s wrong with you.

These workers didn’t sleep in. They showed up at dawn like everyone else. They stood in the marketplace all day, through the nine o’clock hire, the noon hire, the three o’clock hire. Each time, someone else was chosen. Each time, they remained.

I recently led a funeral for a woman who had lived in care facilities since she was six years old. Eighteen people came. They were the caregivers and residents who had chosen her every day when no one else would. Sometimes the ones the world overlooks are found by the people who simply keep showing up.

God doesn’t pass by. God comes at five o’clock for the ones still waiting.

God who sees the overlooked, you come for those the world passes by. Teach us to show up for one another the way you show up for us. Amen.

These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.

Welcome

Good morning! I’m [NAME], [CONNECTION to McPherson First]. Welcome, whether you’ve been worshipping here for decades or today is your very first Sunday with us. You belong here.

Today we begin a new four-week series called The Gospel on Stage and Screen: Stories That Find Us. Each week we explore how the parables of Jesus show up in the stories our culture is telling right now. This morning we hear a story about a landowner who can’t stop going out to find workers, at dawn, at nine, at noon, at three, and even at five o’clock. It’s a story about grace that seems unfair.

Today is also Father’s Day and United Methodist Men Sunday. We give thanks for the ministry of the UMM in this congregation and across the connection, and we hold gently those for whom Father’s Day carries complexity or grief.

As followers of Jesus, we grow in faith through five membership promises God uses to shape us: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Today the promise we will sit with most closely is gifts, the way we participate in a generosity that started before we got there and won’t run out after we leave.

If you’re new or looking for your next step, visit mcphersonfirst.org/next or download the Church Center app. You can check in, request prayer, find ways to serve, or give. You can also text CONNECT to 620-241-3626 to stay in the loop.

Call to Worship (8:30 only)

I invite you to join in the responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.

Leader: The landowner went out early in the morning.
People: Before we asked, God was already on the way.
Leader: At nine, at noon, at three, at five, God kept going out.
People: God’s generosity has no closing time.
Leader: Some worked all day. Some worked one hour.
People: All received the same grace.
Leader: Come, worship the God whose love refuses to keep score.
People: We come with open hands and grateful hearts.

Welcome Your Neighbor

In Jesus’s parable, the landowner goes out again and again to gather workers nobody else has chosen. The vineyard is the kind of place where everyone gets noticed. This is what witness looks like, simply being present to one another and welcoming everyone who walks through these doors.

Picture someone who feels like the five o’clock worker, still standing in their own marketplace, wondering whether anyone sees them. Could you let them know they are welcome here and invite them to worship next Sunday?

Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

We’ve lifted our voices in song. Now let’s quiet our hearts and pray together, using the words on display.

All: God of the vineyard, you go out looking for us long before we go looking for you. Quiet the part of us that keeps score. Open us to grace that defies our calculations. Speak to us through your word today. Amen.

Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer

We enter a time of prayer together. During our prayer, there will be a couple of moments of silence. Use them however feels right. Prayers is one of the five membership promises through which God works in us. Text PRAY to 620-241-3626 anytime to submit a prayer request. Will you pray with me?

God of unearned grace, you go out looking for us before we know we are lost. We pause in your presence.

(pause)

We praise you because you are the landowner who keeps walking back to the marketplace. You do not weigh our resumes or check our timing. You place the same denarion in every hand. We praise you for a generosity that makes no sense by our accounting and reveals exactly who you are.

We confess that we have not always trusted your math. We have kept score on each other and on ourselves. We have grumbled when grace landed in someone else’s hand. We have measured our worth by who got more, who got less, and who got there first.

We offer our prayers of confession to God in this time of quiet.

(pause)

We give thanks for the unearned moments. For the friend who showed up when nothing had been asked. For the second chance we did not deserve. For the kindness from a stranger that came at exactly the right hour. Thank you for the denarions we have received without earning.

We pray for those in this community who are hurting, those facing illness, loss, uncertainty, and loneliness. Be near to them. We pray for those who feel overlooked, standing in their own marketplace at five o’clock, wondering if anyone sees them. Go out to them. We pray for our world, where the instinct to measure and compare creates walls between your children. Tear those walls down. On this Father’s Day, we give thanks for those who have shaped our lives with love, patience, and faithfulness, and we hold gently those for whom this day carries grief.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who turned the world’s values upside down, joining our voices in the prayer he taught us:

All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

All: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

All: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

The landowner does not run out of denarions. Every worker who walks in receives a full day’s wage. When we give, we practice gifts, participating in a generosity that does not run out because it belongs to God.

Thank you to those who give faithfully, month after month, quietly and steadily. You are the partners who carry this ministry through every season. If today is your first time giving, thank you for taking that step.

You can give through the offering plate, online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or through the Church Center app, the easiest way to give from your phone.

I also invite you to check in through the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or using the attendance pad in your row. Checking in is how we practice presence, showing up and being counted among the body of Christ.

Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.

Doxology (8:30 only)

Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow. UMH #94 in E♭. Chorus.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

We’ve given our gifts and offered our prayers. Now we are sent to practice service, to be God’s hands and feet in our community. Will you pray with me?

God of every good gift, thank you for the generosity of this congregation. Take what we offer and multiply it beyond what we can imagine. Send us out as people who serve the way you serve, not measuring, not calculating, just giving. In the name of Jesus, who gave everything. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

Go now, loved by a God who refuses to keep score. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

And may the God who goes out at dawn, the Christ who pays the same wage, and the Spirit who fires the accountant go with you always. And all God’s people said, Amen.

“He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I’ll pay you whatever is right.’” — Matthew 20:4 (CEB)

“Whatever is right.” Not a fixed amount. Not a negotiated wage. Just a promise.

The nine o’clock workers get a different deal than the dawn crew. The early workers agreed to a denarion, a specific, measurable contract. These workers agree to trust. They go into the vineyard with nothing to hold the landowner to except his word.

We prefer contracts. We want guarantees spelled out, terms we can enforce, relationships with clear boundaries around what’s owed. But some of the most important things in life, love, forgiveness, belonging, can’t be written into a contract. They require trust.

The landowner isn’t asking for blind faith. He’s asking them to believe his character is more reliable than any document. Today, notice where God is inviting you to trust beyond what you can control.

Faithful God, when we want guarantees, teach us to trust your character. Give us courage to step into your vineyard even when the terms aren’t ours to set. Amen.

Annual Conference ends the same way every year. After the worship and the reports and the long business sessions, the bishop fixes the appointments for the year ahead. Most of us know well before that moment where we are likely to land. Even so, nothing is final until the bishop makes it so. We promise, when we are ordained, to go where we are sent, and conference is where the sending becomes official.

For our family, the word was stay. The reappointment to McPherson First did not surprise me. I had every reason to expect it. But there is a difference between expecting something and watching it become final. Seeing my name beside the church I already serve, resting in the fact that it was there, settled something I had been carrying. It is easy to overlook in a service full of new ordinands and first appointments. It landed on me anyway, more than I expected it to.

Read more

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible. This week we’re listening to one of Jesus’s most provocative parables, a story so unsettling that two thousand years later, it still makes people argue. In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus tells a story about a landowner, a vineyard, and a pay decision that nobody saw coming.

To understand this parable, we need to understand the marketplace. In first-century Palestine, day laborers gathered each morning hoping to be hired. These weren’t lazy people, they were workers without permanent employment, dependent on someone choosing them that day. A denarion was a standard day’s wage, enough to feed a family for one day. No work meant no food. The stakes were survival.

Jesus sets the scene with a landowner who goes out at dawn to hire workers. They agree on one denarion, and off they go. But then something unusual happens. The landowner goes back, at nine in the morning, at noon, at three in the afternoon. Each time he finds more workers standing idle. “You also go into the vineyard,” he tells them. “I’ll pay you whatever is right.” Notice the shift: the dawn workers got a contract. Everyone after that got a promise.

Then comes the moment that makes this parable extraordinary. At five in the afternoon, with only one hour of daylight left, the landowner goes out again. He finds people still standing there and asks, “Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?” Their answer is heartbreaking in its simplicity: “Because nobody has hired us.” They didn’t sleep in. They showed up. They waited all day. Nobody chose them.

“You also go into the vineyard,” the landowner says. You also. Two words that change everything.

When evening comes, the landowner tells his manager to pay the workers, but starting with the last hired. This is deliberate. He wants everyone to see what happens next. The five o’clock workers receive a full denarion. A whole day’s wage for one hour of work. The dawn workers see this and expect more. But when their turn comes, they receive the same denarion they were promised.

The grumbling is immediate: “These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.” It feels unfair. By any reasonable labor standard, it is unfair.

But the landowner’s response reframes the entire parable. “Friend, I did you no wrong. Didn’t I agree to pay you a denarion? Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?”

That last question, “Are you resentful because I’m generous?”, is the theological heart of this story. Jesus isn’t teaching an economics lesson. He’s revealing something about the character of God. The kingdom of heaven operates on generosity, not on merit-based compensation. The dawn workers weren’t cheated. They got exactly what they were promised. Their anger comes from watching someone else receive what they didn’t earn.

This parable challenges us in ways that are deeply uncomfortable. Most of us identify with the dawn workers. We’ve put in the time. We’ve been faithful. We’ve worked in the hot sun. And the idea that someone who showed up at the last minute receives the same grace, that confronts our deepest instincts about fairness and reward. But Jesus ends the parable with a line that turns our expectations upside down: “So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last.”

The good news hidden in this difficult story is this: God’s generosity is not a limited resource. What God gives to the five o’clock worker does not diminish what God gives to the dawn worker. Grace is not a pie that gets smaller with each slice. The landowner keeps going out, at nine, at noon, at three, at five, because that is who the landowner is. God doesn’t stop looking for people who are still waiting.

As you sit with this passage this week, consider where you see yourself in the story. Are you the dawn worker who has been faithful and feels overlooked? Are you the five o’clock worker who can’t believe someone came for you at all? And can you hear the landowner’s question, not as an accusation, but as an invitation to let go of scorekeeping and receive grace for what it is?

This is part of the Voices of the Bible series from Andrew Conard. Each week we explore the scripture passage for the upcoming sermon, helping you encounter the text before Sunday morning.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.” — Matthew 20:1 (CEB)

The landowner doesn’t wait for applications. Nobody sends a résumé. Before the first worker knows the day will bring employment, the landowner is already walking toward the marketplace.

That’s how grace works. It moves first.

We spend so much energy trying to earn God’s attention, performing, achieving, hoping someone notices the effort. But this story opens with God already in motion, already searching, already ready to invite.

The workers standing in the marketplace at dawn didn’t choose the landowner. The landowner chose them. And that choice had nothing to do with their qualifications and everything to do with the landowner’s character.

This week, we’ll walk through this parable one verse at a time. Today, start here: before you ever asked, God was already on the way.

God of morning mercies, you move toward us before we even know to look for you. Open our eyes today to the grace already arriving. Amen.

A note for readers: I preached this manuscript at the 10:15 AM service. Pastor Chantel Makarawa, our Associate Pastor, preached her own message at the 8:30 AM service on the same scripture. Sharing this version here for subscribers who want to read along with the series.

“The release is not punishment. It is preparation.”

Week three of Tending the Soul closes the series with John 15 and Jesus’ image of the true vine and the vineyard keeper. The sermon asks the third and hardest of the Grace Group questions: what challenge are you giving to God? Underneath that question sits a quieter one this manuscript names directly. What are you willing to release, not because it failed, but because something better is trying to grow in its place?

In the manuscript below:

• The Kansas autumn just ahead, and what the falling leaves are getting ready for.

• Why Jesus uses the word fruit five times in eight verses and never once defines it.

• What John Wesley meant by Christian perfection, and why “being made perfect in love” is a different promise than the one we usually hear.

• The three movements of grace, prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying, and where the pruning of a good thing fits.

Read more

In his final conversation with the disciples, Jesus reaches for an image from the vineyard. The Father is the keeper. Jesus is the true vine. We are the branches. The keeper removes dead branches and trims living ones, so that the vine bears more fruit. The instruction that holds the passage together is short: remain.

New to Grace Groups? Grace Groups are small communities of 6 to 8 people who meet weekly to grow deeper in faith and support each other. They’re a place to be honest about your faith journey and watch over each other in love, not a Bible study, not a therapy group, not a place to fix each other’s problems. The format is simple, the conversation is real, and over time, these become the people who know your story. Every meeting follows the same five-part rhythm below.

1. Center

Open with prayer or a moment of silence. Take a breath. Let the week fall away.

God of vine and branch, vineyard keeper, give us courage to release what no longer bears fruit. Hold us in the cutting. Teach us to remain when our instinct is to pull away. Grow in us what we cannot grow in ourselves. Amen.

2. Soul Tending

Check in with where you are spiritually, not where you think you should be. These five areas can help you find your way into the conversation. Pick the one or two that feel most alive, or most stuck, right now.

• Prayers — How is your prayer life? What are you reading or listening to?

• Presence — How has worship or being with other Christians shaped your week?

• Gifts — Where are you giving your time, money, or energy?

• Service — Where are you serving? What does that look like right now?

• Witness — Where have you shared your faith or lived it out loud?

This week’s emphasis is the promise of presence, the discipline of remaining connected to the vine and to one another, season after season.

• Where in your life right now does “remain” feel hardest, and what’s tempting you to pull away?

• Which of the five promises (prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness) keeps you connected to the vine in the seasons when you’d rather drift?

• What practice of remaining could you build into your rhythm this week, knowing the keeper is the one who produces the fruit?

3. God Sightings

Share something from this week where you noticed God moving, in your life, in someone else’s, or in the world around you. Big or small, it counts.

Jesus says the keeper trims even living branches so they bear more fruit. Sometimes we only see the keeper’s work in hindsight.

• Where have you noticed God producing something good in your life that you didn’t engineer or earn?

• What season of pruning, the loss of a role, a relationship, a chapter, do you now see as preparation rather than punishment?

• Where is something tender and green just starting to break through that you want to pay attention to?

4. Growing in Grace

Name something you’re carrying, a decision, a fear, a next step you’ve been avoiding. The group isn’t here to fix it. Just to hear it, sit with you in it, and pray.

The third Grace Group question lands here: what challenge are you giving to God? What are you willing to release so something new can grow?

• What dead branch in your life have you been protecting, and what would it take to cooperate with the keeper’s cut?

• What good thing might God be asking you to release, not because it failed, but because the next harvest needs the energy?

• If becoming a member, or recommitting your membership, is one way of saying “I am willing to remain,” what does that look like for you this season?

5. Close

Pray for each other before you leave.

Each person shares one prayer need in a sentence. Then someone in the group prays for them out loud. Keep it simple: “God, I pray for [name]...” and one or two sentences is plenty. Trust that the keeper has not stopped tending you.

The keeper is still tending. Grow with us at mcphersonfirst.org/next.

“My Father is glorified when you produce much fruit and in this way prove that you are my disciples.” — John 15:8 (CEB)

The final week of Tending the Soul asks the third Grace Group question: what challenge are you giving to God?

Today we close three weeks of tending the soul with Jesus’ image of the true vine. John 15 names the rhythm underneath it all: remain in the vine, and bear the fruit only the vine can produce. Some branches get removed. Some get trimmed back. And every branch that stays connected to the source bears fruit it could never produce alone.

Today is also New Member Sunday. The promise we sit with most closely is presence, the discipline of remaining connected to the vine and to one another, season after season.

Come and receive.

God of vineyards, produce in us the fruit that points back to you. Amen.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything.” — John 15:5 (CEB)

Read quickly, this sounds like a scolding. But sit with it and something else emerges. This is relief. The pressure to produce on your own is gone. You were never meant to carry it.

We exhaust ourselves trying to be fruitful through sheer effort, more hours, more commitments, more striving. And when the results disappoint, we blame ourselves for not trying hard enough. Jesus says the problem isn’t effort. The problem is source. A branch disconnected from the vine can work as hard as it wants. Nothing will grow.

The flip side is the promise: if you remain in me, you will produce much fruit. Not some fruit. Much fruit. The fruitfulness flows naturally from connection, not from hustling. The branch that stays attached doesn’t have to manufacture anything. It simply receives and produces.

Jesus, free us from the exhausting belief that fruitfulness depends on our effort alone. Teach us that dependence on you is not weakness, it is the only way anything real grows. Amen.

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine.” — John 15:4 (CEB)

After the pruning comes the invitation: stay connected. The branch doesn’t heal itself. It doesn’t generate its own nutrients. It doesn’t will itself to produce fruit. Everything it needs flows from the vine, but only if it remains attached.

Remain is the most repeated word in this passage. Jesus says it again and again, as if he knows how tempted we’ll be to detach. After a pruning season, our instinct is to pull away. The cut stings. We doubt the keeper’s intentions. We try to go it alone, to prove we can produce without being so dependent.

But the branch that detaches withers. Not as punishment, as natural consequence. Apart from the source of life, there is no life. This isn’t a threat. It’s an observation about how things work.

Remaining doesn’t require heroic effort. It requires staying. Staying in the practices that connect you to God. Staying in the community that holds you. Staying in prayer even when it feels dry. The healing, the new growth, the fruit, all of that comes from the vine. Your job is simply not to let go.

Jesus, vine of life, we choose to remain. When pruning makes us want to pull away, hold us close. Flow through us with everything we need to heal and grow. Amen.

“He trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit.” — John 15:2b (CEB)

This is the verse that catches us off guard. Pruning isn’t just for what’s dead, it’s for what’s alive. The branches that are producing fruit are the very ones that get cut back.

Any gardener knows this. A vine left to grow wild will spread in every direction, producing lots of leaves and very little fruit. The energy goes to expansion rather than depth. Pruning concentrates the vine’s resources. It forces growth inward and upward rather than outward and thin.

God does this in our lives. The season when a good ministry gets scaled back so a better one can emerge. The moment a relationship gets simplified so it can deepen. The loss of a role that was working but was spreading you too thin to bear the fruit God actually wants.

This kind of pruning hurts more than the removal of dead branches, because it doesn’t make obvious sense. You were producing. It was going well. Why cut it back? Because the vineyard keeper sees capacity you can’t. More fruit is possible, but only if some of the current growth gets trimmed. Trust the shears.

God who prunes what’s alive, give us grace to receive the cuts that don’t make sense yet. Teach us that trimming good things makes room for greater things. Amen.

“He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit.” — John 15:2a (CEB)

This is the hard verse. Some things have to go. Not everything we carry is bearing fruit, and God loves us enough to cut what’s dead.

We hold onto things long past their season. The commitment that once gave life but now drains it. The identity that fit ten years ago but no longer matches who we’re becoming. The grudge we’ve nursed so long it feels like part of us. The habit that started as comfort and became a cage. We keep these branches because they’re familiar, because removing them feels like losing part of ourselves.

But the vineyard keeper sees what we can’t. A dead branch doesn’t just fail to produce, it diverts resources from the branches that could. It takes up space where new growth wants to emerge. Removal isn’t punishment. It’s making room.

The question isn’t whether there are dead branches in your life. There are. The question is whether you’ll cooperate with the vineyard keeper or fight to keep what’s already gone. What are you holding onto that stopped bearing fruit a long time ago?

Brave and loving God, show us the dead branches we’ve been protecting. Give us courage to release what no longer bears fruit and trust that removal makes room for new life. Amen.

These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.

Welcome

Good morning! I’m [NAME], [CONNECTION to McPherson First]. Welcome, whether you’ve been part of this community for years or you’re visiting for the first time. You belong here.

A vineyard keeper doesn’t tend every vine the same way. Some branches get trained along the trellis. Some get trimmed back hard. The keeper decides, because the keeper knows each branch by name. Today we close our Tending the Soul series with John 15, and Jesus’s image of vine and branches.

Today is also New Member Sunday. If you’ve been exploring what it means to belong to this congregation and you’re ready to take that step, we’ll have an opportunity to welcome you later in the service.

Five membership promises shape how we grow in our faith and how we support one another on the journey: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Today the promise we sit with most closely is presence, the discipline of remaining connected to the vine and to one another, season after season.

If you’re new or looking for your next step, visit mcphersonfirst.org/next or download the Church Center app. You can check in, request prayer, find ways to serve, or give. You can also text CONNECT to 620-241-3626 to stay in the loop.

Call to Worship (8:30 only)

I invite you to join in the responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.

Leader: Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper.”
People: We come to the one who is the source of all life.
Leader: God removes what is dead and trims what is alive, so that we bear even more fruit.
People: We come trusting the hands that shape us.
Leader: “Remain in me,” Jesus says, “and I will remain in you.”
People: We come to stay connected to the vine.
Leader: Come, worship the God who tends us, prunes us, and grows us into something beautiful.
People: We praise the God who produces in us what we cannot produce alone.

Welcome Your Neighbor

Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” None of us bears fruit alone. We’re connected to the same vine, which means we’re connected to each other. This is what witness looks like, staying connected and inviting others into the life we share.

As you greet your neighbors, think about someone who needs to know they’re not alone, someone who might be ready to put down roots in a community like this one. Who might you invite to worship next week?

Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

Pray with me using the words on display, asking the true vine to keep us connected.

All: God of vine and branch, we come with open hands. Some of us are holding on to things that no longer bear fruit. Some of us are being pruned and don’t understand why. Teach us to remain, connected to you, connected to each other, trusting that your work in us will produce a harvest we cannot imagine. Amen.

Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer

We enter a time of prayer together. During our prayer, there will be a couple of moments of silence. Use them however feels right. Prayers is one of the five membership promises through which God works in us. Text PRAY to 620-241-3626 anytime to submit a prayer request. Will you pray with me?

God of vine and branch, vineyard keeper, we come into your presence. We pause in your presence.

(pause)

We worship you as the source of everything that grows. You are the vine that feeds every branch. You are the keeper who kneels in the dirt, who inspects each shoot, who makes decisions about our growth with wisdom and love we cannot fully understand. We praise you for your intimate attention, for knowing each of us by name and tending us with hands that never tire.

We confess that we have not always trusted your pruning. We have clung to what is dead because it felt familiar. We have resisted the cuts that didn’t make sense, pulling away from you instead of remaining. We have tried to produce fruit through our own effort and wondered why we were exhausted. Forgive us for the times we chose self-sufficiency over dependence on the true vine.

We offer our prayers of confession to God in this time of quiet.

(pause)

We give thanks for the fruit you’ve already produced in our lives. For the relationship that deepened after something else was cut away. For the ministry that grew because we released what was spreading us too thin. For the new growth we’re just beginning to notice, tender and green and full of possibility. Thank you for every season of pruning that led to a harvest we didn’t expect.

We bring before you the needs of this community and world. We pray for those who are in the middle of being pruned, who feel the sting of loss, transition, or letting go. We pray for those battling illness, carrying grief, or facing uncertainty about the future. We pray for our neighbors who feel disconnected, branches that have broken off and don’t know how to find their way back to the vine. We pray for those joining this congregation today, that they would find here a community rooted in your love. God, tend your people. Produce in us the fruit that glorifies you.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, the true vine in whom we remain, joining our voices in the prayer he taught us:

All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

All: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

All: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

Jesus says that branches produce fruit when they remain connected to the vine. Giving is one of the ways we stay connected, releasing what we have into God’s purposes and trusting that fruit will come. When we give, we practice gifts, participating in what God is doing through this congregation.

Thank you to those who give faithfully week after week. Your generosity sustains this ministry and makes everything we do possible. If today is your first time giving, thank you for taking that step.

You can give through the offering plate, online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, through the Church Center app, or by texting GIVE to 620-241-3626.

As the offering is received, I also invite you to check in through the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or using the attendance pad in your row. Checking in is how we practice presence, showing up and being counted among the body of Christ.

Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.

Doxology (8:30 only)

Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow. UMH #94 in E♭. Chorus.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

We’ve given our gifts and offered our prayers. Now we’re sent to practice service, to bear the kind of fruit that points back to the vine. Will you pray with me?

Generous God, thank you for the gifts we’ve shared today. Use them to extend your love throughout McPherson and beyond. Produce fruit through our generosity that we cannot produce on our own. Send us out to serve as you have served us, with patience, with care, and with the confidence that you are the source of everything that grows. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

Go, connected to the vine. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

And may the God who tends, the Christ who sustains, and the Spirit who produces fruit in us go with you always. Amen.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper.” — John 15:1 (CEB)

The vineyard keeper isn’t a distant landlord checking in at harvest. In the ancient world, the keeper walked the rows daily. Inspecting. Watering. Training branches along the trellis. Deciding what stays and what goes. This is close, intimate, hands-on work.

God tends us personally. Not through a system. Not through an algorithm. Not through a set of universal rules applied impersonally from a distance. The God Jesus describes is kneeling in the dirt, examining each branch individually, making decisions about our growth based on intimate knowledge of who we are and what we need.

That changes how we receive the harder parts of this passage. When something gets cut from our lives, a relationship, a role, a habit we thought was serving us, it isn’t random. It isn’t cruel. It’s the vineyard keeper at work. The one who knows each branch by name. The one whose cuts are always in service of more life, not less.

Can you trust that the hands shaping your life right now belong to someone who knows you that well?

God, our vineyard keeper, thank you for tending us with hands that know us intimately. Help us trust your close, personal work in our lives, even when it involves cutting. Amen.

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible as we explore one of the most intimate conversations Jesus ever had with his disciples, the image of the vine and the branches in John chapter 15.

The setting matters. This is the night before Jesus dies. He’s gathered with his closest followers for what we call the Farewell Discourse, a long, intimate conversation that spans several chapters in John’s Gospel. Everything Jesus says here carries the weight of last words. And in the middle of it, he reaches for a metaphor from the vineyard.

“I am the true vine,” Jesus says, “and my Father is the vineyard keeper.”

In the world of first-century Judaism, this image was loaded with meaning. The prophets had used the vine as a symbol for Israel, God’s chosen people, planted with care, expected to produce the fruit of justice and righteousness. But the prophets also lamented that the vine had gone sour. Isaiah 5 describes God planting a vineyard on fertile ground, tending it with everything it needed, and then waiting for good grapes, only to find wild, bitter fruit.

Jesus steps into that ancient story and makes a bold claim: I am the true vine. The one that will actually produce what God has always intended. The source of life isn’t a nation, a temple, or a set of rules. The source is a person, and the question for every branch is whether it remains connected.

Then comes the part that makes us uncomfortable. “He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit, and he trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit.”

Two kinds of cutting. Two very different purposes. The first is removal, cutting away what’s dead. Dead branches don’t just fail to produce fruit. They divert energy. They take up space where new growth could emerge. A vineyard keeper who leaves dead wood on the vine is neglecting the whole plant. Removal isn’t cruelty. It’s care.

But the second kind of cutting is harder to understand. The branches that are producing fruit, the living, active, fruitful branches, those get cut back too. Any gardener knows why. A vine left to grow in every direction will produce lots of leaves and very little fruit. The energy goes to expansion rather than depth. Pruning concentrates the vine’s resources. It forces growth inward and upward instead of outward and thin.

This is the part that catches us off guard in the spiritual life. The season when something good gets scaled back. The moment a relationship or role that was working gets simplified, not because it failed, but because the vineyard keeper sees capacity for more. Pruning what’s alive hurts more than removing what’s dead, because it doesn’t make obvious sense. You were producing. Why cut it back?

Because the keeper sees what the branch can’t. More fruit is possible, but only if some of the current growth gets trimmed.

And then Jesus lands on the word that holds the whole passage together: remain. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine.”

The Greek word is menō, to stay, to abide, to dwell. Jesus uses it again and again in this passage, almost as if he knows how tempted we’ll be to detach after being pruned. When the cut stings, our instinct is to pull away. To go it alone. To prove we don’t need the vine.

But Jesus is clear: apart from me, you can’t do anything. This isn’t a threat. It’s an observation about how vines work. A branch disconnected from its source doesn’t gradually decline, it withers. Not as punishment, but as natural consequence. The life, the nutrients, the capacity to produce fruit, all of it flows from the vine.

Remaining doesn’t require heroic effort. It requires staying. Staying in the practices that connect you to God. Staying in the community that holds you accountable and holds you up. Staying in prayer even when it feels dry. The healing, the new growth, the fruit, all of that comes from the vine. Your job is simply not to let go.

The passage ends with a purpose statement that reframes everything: “My Father is glorified when you produce much fruit and in this way prove that you are my disciples.”

The fruit isn’t for our résumé. It’s not proof of our effort or our worthiness. It’s evidence of connection, the kind that makes people say, “Something real is growing in that person’s life.” And it points back to the vine and the keeper, not to the branch.

This is the final week of our Tending the Soul series. We’ve checked the roots. We’ve learned to notice the growth. Now comes the invitation to release, to let go of what’s dead, to trust the pruning of what’s alive, and to remain connected to the vine that produces in us what we could never produce on our own.

This is part of the Voices of the Bible series from Andrew Conard. Each week we explore the scripture passage for the upcoming sermon, helping you encounter the text before Sunday morning.

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“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper.” — John 15:1 (CEB)

Before Jesus says anything about pruning, fruit, or branches, he names himself. I am the true vine. Identity comes first. Before we can understand what God is doing in our lives, we need to know whose life we’re connected to.

The word “true” matters. In the ancient world, Israel was often described as God’s vine, a people planted with care, expected to bear fruit. But the prophets lamented that the vine had gone wild, producing sour grapes instead of sweet ones. Jesus steps into that story and says: I am the vine that will actually produce what God intended all along.

This is both comfort and challenge. Comfort because the vine is trustworthy, the source we’re connected to won’t fail. Challenge because it means our fruitfulness depends entirely on our connection to him, not on our own effort. Before we talk about cutting and growing, the invitation is simply to notice: are you drawing life from the true vine, or from something that looks like it but can’t sustain you?

Jesus, true vine, we turn our attention to you before anything else. Ground us in your identity so that everything else grows from the right source. Amen.