Notes from Kearney is a short mini-series during the 2026 Great Plains Annual Conference. Posts go up each morning of the conference. These are observation, not transcript.

Bubbles to the Ceiling

The morning started before the business did. I was up early for a workout and sat with scripture and prayer while the day was still quiet. Then I helped Nicole get her booth set up, including a bubble machine that put out a remarkable stream of bubbles, rising almost to the ceiling, more fun than it had any right to be.

The District Brunch

District brunches are new this year. The lines were long and the food was good. There were words from conference and district leaders, including our District Superintendent Karen Rice-Ratzlaff. An encouraging word came from the district lay leader. Stop lamenting the size of your congregations, she said, and enjoy the connection. In the middle of a conference this large, the smaller neighborhood of a district gathering was good to have.

The Clergy Session

The clergy session met at one. It is the closed session where the clergy gather as clergy, receiving from the Board of Ordained Ministry those moving toward commissioning and ordination and approving them for the next step. This year that included Chantel Makarawa, our associate at McPherson First, moving toward commissioning as a provisional elder. It is the covenant community of the order, a practice that reaches back to the beginnings of Methodism. In many ways it is still what Annual Conference is for me. We make promises to one another in that space, and we keep renewing them year after year.

Worship, Then Business

Opening worship filled the hall with singing, and the whole conference received communion together, soon followed by the first business session at four. The heart of the afternoon was the proposed Strategic Plan for 2026 through 2030, presented and discussed today and coming up for adoption on Saturday. The plan names who the conference hopes to be: disciples of Jesus Christ defined by grace, welcoming all people as beloved children of God, living as one connection across the districts.

The budget and the pension and health report were presented as well. The conference closed 2025 with a surplus, part of which is going back out as a $500 check to every local church. The session closed by holding two anniversaries together: seventy years of full clergy rights for women, and thirty years of the Order of Deacon. Two reminders that the church’s sense of who God calls has kept widening.

A denomination is easy to argue about in the abstract. Up close, on a Thursday in Kearney, it looks like bubbles at a booth, an encouraging word at brunch, communion shared by a whole conference, and a covenant the clergy keep renewing. The committee work now moves toward Saturday’s votes. For one day, the lesson was simpler than the docket: enjoy the connection.

“They are like a tree replanted by streams of water, which bears fruit at just the right time.” — Psalm 1:3 (CEB)

Not on demand. Not on our schedule. Not when the quarterly review says it should appear. At just the right time.

A tree doesn’t force its own fruit. It can’t rush the process by trying harder. It bears fruit because it’s connected to a source of nourishment and the season has arrived. The tree’s job isn’t production, it’s rootedness. The fruit is a natural consequence of staying planted in the right place.

We live under enormous pressure to produce. To show results. To justify our existence with measurable outcomes. And when the fruit doesn’t come on schedule, we assume something is wrong with us. We try harder. We push. We exhaust ourselves manufacturing what can only grow naturally.

The psalm offers a different way. Stay rooted. Stay connected. Keep returning to the water. The fruit will come, but on God’s timeline, not yours. And when it arrives “at just the right time,” it will be the kind that lasts. Not the forced, hollow kind that looks impressive but has no substance. The real kind. The kind that feeds others because it grew from genuine depth.

Patient God, free us from the tyranny of forced production. Teach us to trust your timing and stay rooted while the fruit grows at its own pace. Amen.

Notes from Kearney is a short mini-series during the 2026 Great Plains Annual Conference. Posts go up each morning of the conference. These are observation, not transcript.

Getting to Kearney

Nicole and I drove separately this year. I had a funeral Tuesday morning and met with another funeral family that afternoon before heading north. Two charging stops in the electric car, Concordia and Wood River, and I arrived at the hotel after dark.

Wednesday Before Conference

Wednesday morning was open for me before registration after lunch. Looking for breakfast, I found Kitt’s Kitchen and Coffee, not far from the hotel. I had a late breakfast and got some work done. Sermon edits. Email. Details for next week’s funeral still coming together. The work I leave in McPherson does not stop because I have arrived in Kearney, and there is usually a layer of overlap on the first day before I settle into conference mode. I am not quite there yet, but getting there.

I picked up my nametag at registration after lunch. Seeing colleagues in the hallway, a year since the last time we were together, is the moment when conference starts to feel like conference.

Service of Commemoration

The order and schedule of Annual Conference shifts a little from year to year. This year, the Service of Commemoration came first, ahead of the official opening of the conference. It has been done a variety of ways over the years, and this was one of the better ones in recent memory. Straightforward and thoughtful.

I arrived a little early and had time to sit and reflect. I remembered my Dad. I thought about my Granddad. Both were United Methodist clergy in this conference. Annual Conference is one of the places where the cloud of witnesses feels closest, and where the friendships that develop across a clergy career carry a kind of reach and depth I don’t find elsewhere. Local-church connections are real and deep. There is something different about sitting in a row with people I have known across my whole ministry.

The names of those who died in the past year appeared on a memorial video, faces and dates as the room sat with each one. Forty-three clergy. Twenty-four spouses. One child. Sixty-eight in all.

The dance team from Hamilton Chapel United Methodist Church in Parsons, Kansas, the Vikings Dance and Color Guard, was a highlight. They shared a piece set to “Thy Word Is a Lamp Unto My Feet.” Later they brought in a procession of light, and at the close they led a recession of the light.

Looking Ahead

Thursday brings District Brunches at 11, new this year. Clergy Session follows at 1 p.m., then opening worship, and then the first business session of the conference.

“They are like a tree replanted by streams of water.” — Psalm 1:3a (CEB)

The Common English Bible uses a striking word here: replanted. Not just planted, replanted. This tree was somewhere else before. It was uprooted, carried, and deliberately placed in a new location near the water.

There’s a whole story packed into that single word. Somewhere along the way, God looked at this tree struggling in dry soil and said, “You don’t belong there. I’m putting you somewhere better.” The replanting wasn’t punishment. It was rescue.

Most of us know what it feels like to be uprooted. A move. A loss. A season that stripped away everything familiar. In the moment, it feels like destruction. But the psalmist sees it differently. Sometimes the disorientation of being uprooted is actually God relocating us to a place where our roots can finally reach water.

The streams are constant. In the ancient Near East, a tree by a stream didn’t depend on unpredictable rain. It had a source that never dried up. God is not offering us occasional refreshment. God is planting us next to a supply that doesn’t run out.

God who replants us, thank you for every uprooting that brought us closer to the water. Teach us to trust the relocation even when it feels like loss. Amen.

“These persons love the Lord’s Instruction, and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!” — Psalm 1:2 (CEB)

In the ancient world, reading was almost always done aloud. The Hebrew word translated “recite” carries the sense of murmuring, speaking quietly, letting words move through your body. This wasn’t silent study at a desk. It was physical. Imagine someone sitting at the end of a long day, quietly speaking a psalm aloud, letting the words settle into their bones.

Day and night. The psalmist describes a rhythm, not an achievement. Morning and evening. Waking and resting. The person who thrives isn’t the one who has a single dramatic encounter with God. It’s the one who keeps returning, small, consistent, faithful.

We live in a culture that celebrates breakthroughs and transformation moments. But the psalm suggests that the deepest growth happens in the ordinary repetition. The prayer you whisper before your feet hit the floor. The verse you carry through a difficult afternoon. The quiet moment before sleep when you hand the day back to God. These small rhythms are how roots grow. Nobody sees them. But everything depends on them.

Faithful God, teach us the rhythm of day and night, returning to your word not once but again and again. Grow our roots in the quiet repetition. Amen.

This afternoon I drive to Kearney. The Great Plains Annual Conference convenes tomorrow at the Younes Center North, and for the next four days my attention will rest with the other clergy and lay members of our conference rather than with the day-to-day of McPherson. The work here does not stop because I leave town, but a few days inside the larger body of the United Methodist Church in Kansas and Nebraska belongs to a different shape, and I have learned to let it.

The theme this year is Serve Joyfully. The verse is from 1 Peter 4:10:

And serve each other according to the gift each person has received, as good managers of God’s diverse gifts.

That language is doing a lot of work for a conference theme. Service named as joy rather than burden. Gift named as something received, not earned. Stewardship named as the discipline of managing what was given rather than the anxiety of producing what was not. The verse sets the posture even before the gavel falls.

For readers who have never attended one, Annual Conference is a few things at once. It is worship, with multiple services across the week, each one threaded with the conference theme. It is a family reunion, where clergy and lay members from across two states gather, many of whom only see each other in this one week each year. It is a business meeting, where legislation moves through committees and out to the floor, the budget gets adopted, resolutions are debated, and ministry reports are received. It is a teaching season, and this year Dr. Ashley Boggan from the General Commission on Archives and History carries the teaching thread across the week. It is a service project, with Rise Against Hunger setting up Thursday morning to pack thousands of meals before the business sessions begin. It is a memorial, when the conference reads aloud the names of thirty members who have died since we last met. And it is a sending, when Saturday’s service commissions a new class of provisional ministers and ordains a new class of elders in full connection, all of them going out from our two states.

Hold all of those at once and you have a fair picture of the week. Pull any one of them out and the rest changes shape.

Four preachers will frame the week. Bishop David Wilson preaches the Memorial Service Wednesday evening, where the conference reads out those thirty names. Rev. Charlotte Abram, a retired Nebraska elder, brings the opening worship on Thursday. Dr. Ashley Boggan carries the teaching thread across the week. Bishop Carlo Rapanut preaches the ordination service on Saturday.

The ordination service on Saturday will recognize three classes at once. Three new provisional deacons will be commissioned. Fourteen new provisional elders will be commissioned alongside them, including Pastor Chantel Makarawa, our associate at McPherson First, who is moving from full local pastor into provisional elder. Commissioning is the step that begins the provisional period; ordination as an elder in full connection comes later, after those provisional years are complete. And seven elders, after their provisional years, will receive the laying on of hands as elders in full connection. By the time we leave Kearney on Saturday afternoon, the Great Plains Conference will have sent twenty-four new ministers into a denomination that needs them.

The business is full. Three social resolutions are on the docket: one supporting migrants, immigrants, and refugees; one answering the call of Kairos Palestine II; one supporting the transgender community. Thirteen church-closing resolutions sit alongside them, which is the slow, hard math of a denomination in transition. The Connecting Council brings forward Resolution 17 on the proposed Strategic Priorities for 2026 to 2030, a document the conference has spent months developing. Resolution 18 establishes Great Plains Disaster Response Sunday as a new annual Special Sunday, first observed this September. A standard housing resolution on clergy pension allowance also comes for a vote, the kind of legislation that rarely makes it into a sermon but quietly shapes the lives of retired pastors and their families.

Here is what I am watching for personally.

I am watching for the tone of the room when the difficult resolutions come up. A conference can adopt the same resolution two different ways. One is rancorous, with debate that leaves people more guarded than they were when they sat down. The other is honest, with disagreement that somehow strengthens rather than fractures the fellowship. The same words get voted on. The bond around the table does not survive equally either way.

I am watching for the strategic plan. The Connecting Council has tried to name a faithful path forward for a region with shrinking congregations, aging clergy, and real hope in pockets that do not always show up in the statistics. A strategic plan does not save a church. It does name what we will pay attention to. I want to see whether the plan we adopt actually points us at the work that matters in places like McPherson.

I am watching for Saturday’s service, and especially for Chantel’s commissioning as a new provisional elder. The service holds two acts inside one liturgy: commissioning for those entering the provisional period and ordination for those completing it. Every year that service reminds me that the church keeps choosing to send people into ministry even as the cultural ground shifts under our feet. The new clergy carry a calling and a covenant. The conference is making a promise to them as much as they are making a promise to the conference.

For the next several days, I will write a short post each morning from Kearney. They will be observation rather than transcript. Notes from the floor, not a play by play. I will name what the conference adopts by legislation framing without reporting individual votes or private hallway conversations, because the work of pastoral writing is different from the work of denominational journalism. I want to give readers a window into what an Annual Conference actually feels like for someone who is both a member of the larger body and a local pastor, holding both pieces at once.

If you read along this week, you will get a small picture of a denomination at work. Imperfect, slower than its critics want, more faithful than its skeptics expect. A body still trying to serve joyfully, however we got here.

I will write from Kearney tomorrow morning.

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 today is your first time walking through these doors. We are glad you’re here. You belong in this room.

There’s something about a tree with deep roots. It doesn’t panic when the weather changes, because its source of life runs deeper than the surface. Today we begin a three-week journey called Tending the Soul, and we start where Psalm 1 starts, by checking the roots.

Today is also Trinity Sunday, the church’s annual remembrance that the God we worship is one God in three persons, the Creator who plants us, the Christ who nourishes us, and the Spirit who grows us. And we will receive a Peace with Justice Sunday Special Offering, supporting programs across our United Methodist connection that address the root causes of injustice in our communities and around the world.

As followers of Jesus, we grow in faith through five practices God uses to shape us: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Today the practice we will sit with most closely is prayers, the daily rhythm of returning to God’s word that keeps the roots watered.

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

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

Leader: The psalmist says happy are those who delight in God’s instruction.
People: We come to be nourished by God’s word.
Leader: Like trees planted by streams of water, God gives us roots that go deep.
People: We come to drink from the source of life.
Leader: Day and night, God’s faithfulness sustains us.
People: We open our hearts to receive what God offers.
Leader: Come, worship the God who plants us, nourishes us, and helps us grow.
People: We praise the God who tends our souls.

Welcome Your Neighbor

The psalmist describes a life rooted in God’s instruction, bearing fruit because it’s connected to something deeper. That kind of rootedness doesn’t happen alone. This is what witness looks like, showing up for each other and inviting others into the journey.

As you greet your neighbors, think of someone whose roots feel dry right now, who needs the kind of nourishment only God can give. Could you invite them to drink from the same stream next Sunday?

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

Opening Prayer

The psalmist describes a tree planted by streams of water. Join me in praying the words on screen.

God of deep roots and living water, we come with open hearts. Plant your word within us. Nourish us by your Spirit. Grow in us the fruit of faith, hope, and love. Send us out to flourish in your world. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer 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 practices 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 deep roots and living water, we pause in your presence.

(pause)

We worship you as the source of all life, the one who plants, who nourishes, who tends creation with patience beyond our understanding. You are the stream that never dries up, the soil that receives every seed, the gardener who works in every season. We praise you for your faithfulness, steady as the water that feeds the roots of an ancient tree.

We confess that we have not always delighted in your instruction. We have rushed past moments of prayer. We have chosen distraction over depth. We have neglected the practices that root us in your love. Forgive us for the times we have tried to flourish on our own, apart from the source of life. We offer our prayers of confession to God in this time of quiet.

(pause)

We give thanks for the ways your word has shaped us, sustained us, and called us forward. For the moments when scripture came alive and spoke directly into our need. For the people in this community who have walked with us through dry seasons. For the gift of your instruction, not burden but delight, not restriction but freedom. Thank you for every root that held when the storm came.

We bring before you the needs of this community and world. We pray for those who are exhausted, whose roots feel dry and shallow. We pray for those facing illness, grief, or uncertainty, who need the nourishment only you can provide. We pray for our neighbors struggling with loneliness, worry, or loss of purpose. We pray for those new to faith, just beginning to put down roots, and for those whose faith feels stale and in need of renewal. God, replant your people by streams of living water.

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

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Peace with Justice Sunday Offering Invitation

Today is Peace with Justice Sunday across The United Methodist Church, one of our six churchwide special Sunday offerings. The Peace with Justice Special Offering supports programs that advocate for peace and address the root causes of injustice in our communities and around the world.

The psalm we heard this morning describes a tree whose roots reach deep enough to bear fruit at just the right time. The work of peace and justice is root work too, slow, mostly invisible, dependent on streams that never run dry. This offering supports United Methodists doing that root work across our connection.

To give to the Peace with Justice Special Offering, designate your gift to “Peace with Justice” through the offering plate, online, or in the Church Center app. This is a gift above and beyond your regular giving, and it makes a real difference.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

The psalmist paints a picture of someone whose life bears fruit, not through striving, but through being rooted in the right place. When we talk about roots going deep, generosity is one of those roots. Every gift we offer is how we practice gifts, planting ourselves in God’s economy and trusting that something will grow from it.

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.

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.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

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

Faithful God, thank you for the gifts we’ve shared today. Use them to extend your love throughout McPherson and beyond. Plant seeds of generosity that bear fruit in ways we cannot imagine. Send us out to serve as you have served us. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

Go, rooted in God’s word. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

And may the God who plants, the Christ who nourishes, and the Spirit who grows go with you always. Amen.

“Instead of doing those things, these persons love the Lord’s Instruction, and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!” — Psalm 1:2 (CEB)

The word is love. Not obey. Not endure. Not dutifully complete. The psalmist describes someone who genuinely delights in God’s instruction, who returns to it the way you return to a favorite song or a conversation that leaves you thinking for days.

The Hebrew word behind “instruction” is Torah. For the original audience, Torah wasn’t a list of restrictions. It was a gift, God’s guide for living well. To love the Torah was to love the relationship it represented. Every commandment was an invitation to know God more deeply.

Something shifts when we approach scripture as invitation rather than obligation. The question changes from “Did I read my Bible today?” to “What is God saying to me today?” One produces guilt when we miss a day. The other produces hunger that draws us back. If your relationship with scripture has become dutiful, that’s worth noticing. Not with shame, with curiosity. What would it take to fall in love with God’s word again?

God whose word is gift, rekindle our love for your instruction. Move us from duty to delight, from obligation to hunger for your voice. Amen.

The Book of Psalms opens with a question we’ve all asked: what makes a person truly happy?

The psalmist doesn’t start with what happy people do. The psalm starts with what happy people don’t do. “The truly happy person doesn’t follow wicked advice, doesn’t stand on the road of sinners, and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.”

Notice the progression in the Hebrew. First you’re walking, just passing through. Then you’re standing, you’ve stopped. Then you’re sitting, you’ve settled in. It’s a portrait of how we gradually drift. Nobody plans to end up stuck. It happens one pause at a time. You slow down near something that isn’t good for you. You linger. And before you know it, you’ve made yourself comfortable there.

But the psalmist isn’t interested in warning us about bad behavior. That first verse is just the setup. The real portrait, the one the psalmist wants us to see, comes next.

“Instead of doing those things, these persons love the Lord’s Instruction, and they recite God’s Instruction day and night.”

The word translated “Instruction” is the Hebrew word Torah. For the original audience, Torah wasn’t a set of rules to follow reluctantly. Torah was God’s gift, a guide for living well. And the word translated “love” here carries the sense of delight. This person doesn’t study God’s word out of obligation. They return to it because it feeds something deep inside them.

“They recite God’s Instruction day and night.” In the ancient world, reading was almost always done aloud. To “recite” or “meditate” meant to murmur, to speak quietly, to let the words move through your body. It was physical, not just intellectual. Imagine someone sitting at the end of the day, quietly speaking scripture aloud, letting the words settle into their bones. That’s the picture here.

And then comes the metaphor that ties it all together.

“They are like a tree replanted by streams of water, which bears fruit at just the right time and whose leaves don’t fade.”

The Common English Bible uses a striking word here: replanted. Not just planted, replanted. This tree was somewhere else before. It was moved, deliberately, to a place where it could thrive. There’s a whole story packed into that one word. Somewhere along the way, God saw this tree struggling and said, “You don’t belong there. I’m putting you somewhere better.”

The streams of water are crucial. In the ancient Near East, water was life. A tree planted near a stream didn’t depend on unpredictable rainfall. It had a constant source. Its roots could reach deep into soil that was always moist, always nourishing. When drought came, and drought always comes, this tree kept going. Not because it was stronger than other trees, but because of where it was planted.

Think about what this means for us. Most of us live in a drought of meaning. We’re busy, distracted, overwhelmed. Our roots are shallow because we never stay in one place long enough to go deep. We check our phones before we check in with God. We scroll before we pray. And then we wonder why our souls feel dry.

The psalm doesn’t shame us for that. It simply shows us another way. It says: there’s a kind of life available to you that doesn’t depend on your productivity or your circumstances. It depends on where you’re planted and what you’re feeding on.

And notice what the fruit does. It comes “at just the right time.” Not on demand. Not on our schedule. The tree doesn’t force its own growth. It simply stays rooted, stays connected to the source, and the fruit appears when the season is right.

This is the psalm’s invitation to us: become the kind of person who returns to God’s word not out of duty, but out of delight. Build a rhythm, day and night, morning and evening, of letting scripture speak into your life. Not because it will make you perfect, but because it will root you in something deeper than your circumstances.

This Sunday we begin a new worship series called Tending the Soul. Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore the practices that help us grow, and the first step is checking the roots. What are you rooted in? What feeds your soul day after day?

The psalmist says happiness isn’t found in chasing the right experiences or avoiding the wrong ones. Happiness is found in being rooted, replanted by the God who knows exactly where we need to be, connected to the water that never runs dry.

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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“The truly happy person doesn’t follow wicked advice, doesn’t stand on the road of sinners, and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.” — Psalm 1:1 (CEB)

The psalm opens with a bold claim: happiness is available. Not the kind that depends on circumstances or disappears when the news is bad. The rooted kind. The kind that weathers seasons.

But notice where the psalm starts. It doesn’t begin by describing what happy people do. It begins with what they don’t do. They don’t follow. They don’t stand. They don’t sit. There’s a progression there, walking past something becomes pausing near it, which becomes settling into it. Nobody plans to get stuck. It happens one small compromise at a time.

The psalmist isn’t moralizing. This is an observation about how drift works. We don’t wake up one morning far from where we want to be. We drift there gradually, one skipped practice, one cynical conversation, one comfortable habit at a time. The truly happy person isn’t someone who never faces temptation. It’s someone who has learned to notice the drift before the sitting begins.

God of true happiness, wake us to the small drifts that pull us from you. Teach us to notice where we’ve paused too long near what doesn’t nourish our souls. Amen.

“There’s a moment in every storm when the wind shifts.”

This Sunday closes the Fresh Start series on Pentecost and Heritage Sunday with Acts 2 and Philippians 4. The sermon traces the day God’s Spirit fell like fierce wind on ordinary disciples, and connects that miracle to McPherson First’s own founding in April of 1874, when four denominations decided to share one prairie room. Pentecost is not a one-time event somewhere else. It is the ongoing pattern of God’s Spirit making room for every voice in one body, and it has been at work in this congregation from the very beginning.

In the manuscript below:

• Picture McPherson in April of 1874, an incorporated city for forty days, no railroad yet, and four congregations who decided to share one building.

• Why the Pentecost miracle was not multilingual scholarship but the honoring of each listener’s dialect of home.

• Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit pours out on all people, young and old, servants and free, and what that names for a 152-year-old congregation today.

• The peace that outlasts the spectacle: Paul writing from prison about a peace that exceeds understanding.

Read more

Pentecost begins with a community willing to wait. The disciples gathered in one room for ten silent days, and the Spirit fell as fierce wind and individual flames. The miracle was not that the disciples became multilingual scholars, but that every listener heard in the dialect of home. Peter quoted Joel: God’s Spirit poured out on all people, sons and daughters, young and old, servants and free. Paul names the gift that outlasts the spectacle: a peace that exceeds understanding, guarding hearts and minds even when the future is unclear. On Heritage Sunday, this same Spirit testifies through 152 years of McPherson First’s faithfulness, and the invitation is simple. The flame is still being passed forward.

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 wind and fire and peace, gather us in this room as you gathered those first disciples. Honor every voice present. Pour your Spirit on every generation here, the longtime and the newcomer, the confident and the uncertain. Open us to receive the peace that exceeds understanding. We pray in the name of Jesus, whose Spirit fell at Pentecost and has not stopped moving since. 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?

Pentecost begins with a community willing to wait, and the Spirit moved when ordinary people stayed in the room together. As you check in, consider:

• Where in your life right now does waiting feel most uncertain, and what kind of peace are you longing for?

• Pentecost honored every dialect. When have you most felt heard in the voice that feels like home?

• Paul wrote about peace from a prison cell. Where do you need that kind of peace this week?

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.

• Who in your life has helped pass the flame of faith forward to you, and what did they do?

• Where have you noticed the Spirit moving through ordinary people in this congregation lately?

• Whose voice in our community do you sense the Spirit elevating that you might have been overlooking?

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.

• What is one anxiety you can bring to God in prayer this week, paired with one specific thanksgiving?

• The Spirit fell on disciples who stayed in the room together. Where might God be inviting you to keep showing up even when you do not know what comes next?

• As we move into Tending the Soul and the launch of Grace Groups, what fresh start is the Spirit already creating in you?

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.

Pass the flame forward this week. The Spirit is still moving.

“Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:6-7 (CEB)

All week we’ve walked through a room that shook, a wind that howled, flames that landed on every person, and a miracle where everyone, regardless of language or background, heard the good news in the voice that felt most like home. Pentecost is the moment everything changed.

But here’s the gift that outlasts the spectacle. When the wind settled and the crowd dispersed and the ordinary days returned, the Spirit stayed. And the Spirit’s deepest gift isn’t fire or language. It’s peace. Not the absence of trouble but the presence of God so thick that anxiety loosens its grip.

Paul knew this peace. He wrote these words from prison, and still he said: be glad. That’s Pentecost living. Not a single dramatic moment but an ongoing reality, the Spirit dwelling within, guarding your heart, whispering you are not alone every time the world shifts beneath you.

God of wind and fire and peace, thank you that your Spirit stays long after the spectacle fades. Guard our hearts today with the peace that exceeds all understanding. Amen.

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” — Acts 2:21 (CEB)

Peter’s sermon builds to a single word: everyone. Not everyone who gets the theology right. Not everyone who has been a believer since childhood. Not everyone who checks the right boxes. Everyone who calls.

The verb matters. Calling is active. It’s the cry of someone who knows they need help. It’s the parent at the end of their rope. The addict choosing sobriety one more time. The grieving spouse whispering a name into the dark. Calling on God isn’t a theological exam. It’s a reach. And Peter says that reach is always, always enough.

God of limitless welcome, thank you that your salvation begins with a cry. Give us courage to call your name and trust that you always hear. Amen.

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” — Acts 2:17-18 (CEB)

Peter stood up and told the crowd what was happening. He quoted Joel, but the words landed differently now. This wasn’t ancient poetry anymore. It was a description of the scene unfolding in front of them.

All people. Sons and daughters. Young and old. Servants. The people with the least power in that culture. The Spirit doesn’t follow the org chart. It doesn’t defer to credentials or pedigree. God chose to pour out divine power on the people the world would least expect to carry it.

This is still how the Spirit works. The voice you need to hear might come from the teenager in your youth group, the quiet neighbor who never speaks up, the person you almost overlooked. Pentecost dismantles every hierarchy that says some people are more qualified to carry God’s word than others. The Spirit is poured out on all people, and that includes you.

God of all people, open our ears to prophetic voices we might overlook. Pour out your Spirit on every generation and every station, and give us humility to listen. Amen.

“They were surprised and amazed, saying, ‘Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language?’” — Acts 2:7-8 (CEB)

The crowd’s question is the hinge of the whole story. Not how are they speaking? but how can each of us hear? The miracle wasn’t just about the speakers. It was about the listeners. Everyone was included. No one needed a translator. No one was left standing outside the meaning.

God chose to launch the church not with a single sacred language but with every language at once. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, each one heard the gospel in the words that shaped their childhood, their prayers, their dreams. God speaks your language. Not a cleaned-up, universal version. Yours.

That’s the church the Spirit built from its very first breath: a community where no one has to become someone else to belong. Where understanding isn’t reserved for the educated or the powerful. Where the good news arrives in the voice that feels most like home.

God who speaks every language, thank you that your good news arrives in the voice that feels most like home. Help us build a church where no one is left outside the meaning. Amen.

Patrick Lencioni opens The Advantage with a claim that lands hard for pastors. The single greatest advantage available to any organization, he argues, is health. Not strategy, not talent, not technology. Health. He goes further. Health is the first thing leaders should pursue, because everything else fails without it.

Tonight our Leadership Board meets to take up that opening case. I want to think alongside you about why a faith community would read this argument seriously rather than wave it off as borrowed business language.

The Word “Advantage” Sits Uneasily

Let me name what is awkward about Lencioni’s framing. The word competitive fits a market where organizations win at the expense of other organizations. The church does not operate that way, or at least it should not. We are not competing with the Methodists down the road. We are not in a market.

So we sit with the discomfort. Some words from another world will not translate cleanly into the church’s vocabulary, and we are right to notice. But here is what is true underneath the discomfort. Lencioni is naming something real. When an organization is healthy, when its leaders trust each other, when its mission is clear, when its work is reinforced, that organization can do its work. When an organization is unhealthy, the same work becomes nearly impossible. That observation does not stop at the office door. It walks straight into the sanctuary.

A church can have a beautiful mission and strangle it with internal conflict. A church can have gifted staff and burn them out through unclear expectations. A church can adopt a clear vision and undermine it through systems that point a different direction. None of that is unique to congregations, and none of it is solved by good theology alone.

Health Is a Biblical Category

Paul writes to the Ephesians about a body growing up into Christ, into maturity, into fullness (Ephesians 4:11-16). The metaphor is medical. Bodies grow well or poorly, and the difference matters. A healthy body can carry weight, do work, and adapt to stress. An unhealthy body collapses under conditions a healthy body could meet. Paul says the church is to be that kind of body. Mature, working, adaptive, joined together by every ligament.

That is not a side image. It is one of the central pictures of the church in the New Testament. The body of Christ does not exist in the abstract. It exists as a specific community in a specific place that either grows toward maturity or fails to.

Paul also tells the Corinthians, “Everything should be done with dignity and in proper order” (1 Corinthians 14:40, CEB). Order serves love. Structure exists so the love of God can move through a community without being tangled up in confusion. When we attend to the order of our common life, we are not stepping away from spiritual work. We are doing spiritual work in another mode.

Lencioni’s Four Disciplines, Translated

Lencioni names four disciplines that healthy organizations practice. Build a cohesive leadership team. Create clarity. Overcommunicate that clarity. Reinforce the clarity through human systems. Each one names something the church has been doing forever, in its own language.

A cohesive leadership team is what Acts 15 describes: leaders who can disagree honestly, decide together, and move together afterward. Clarity is what the creeds, catechisms, and confessions of faith have always offered, short, memorable, repeatable language for what a community believes and practices. Overcommunication is the lectionary, the liturgy, the Lord’s Prayer, the benediction. The church repeats. That is the point. Reinforcement is church order: bylaws, polity, practices that make our stated identity show up in how we hire, evaluate, schedule, and decide.

The four disciplines do not introduce something foreign. They name something familiar. Lencioni’s contribution is the sequence and the integration. The church’s contribution is the depth and the reason.

What Tonight Is About

Our Leadership Board sits down tonight to discuss this opening section together. The conversation is not about whether Lencioni is right. The conversation is about what these disciplines look like at McPherson First. Where are we already practicing them well? Where do we sense distance between what we say and what we do? What does it mean for us, for this congregation in this place in this season, to take health seriously as a faithful pursuit?

I will not share the specifics of what surfaces in the room. Names and details belong inside the meeting. What I will share, in the posts that follow, is what I am learning as a pastor walking my Board through this work in real time. Some of the learning will be hopeful. Some of it will be hard. All of it will be honest.

An Invitation

Notice your own church, or any community you are part of. Where is health visible? Where is it absent? Health does not announce itself; it shows up in ordinary moments. Trust between leaders. Clarity about what the community is for. Repetition of what matters. Systems that match the stated commitments. Look for those, and look for their opposites.

The next reading section is Discipline 1, building a cohesive leadership team (pp. 19-72). The Board takes that up June 24. Between now and then, two posts on Substack. The next one lands June 3, going deeper into trust as the church’s first faithful practice.

This series is not a critique of any church or any leader. It is a public reflection on the slow work of becoming healthier together.

Glad you are reading along.

Individual flames. Not a single bonfire that everyone had to gather around. Not a general blessing that fell on the group as a whole. Each person received their own flame, alighting on them specifically, resting on them personally.

The Spirit came personal. God’s Pentecost math isn’t one gift divided among many. It’s the whole Spirit given to each. The person next to you doesn’t receive a smaller portion because you were filled first. Your calling doesn’t diminish because someone else shares it.

This is how God works at the deepest level: personally, specifically, individually. The Spirit knows your name, your story, the particular shape of your fresh start. What God pours out arrives marked for you.

Holy Spirit, fall on us individually today. Mark each of your children as beloved, equipped, and called. Help us trust that your gifts arrive personal and never run short. 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

When the Spirit moves through a community, everything changes, and today we celebrate that transformative power.

Welcome to McPherson First United Methodist Church! I’m [NAME], and I’m delighted you’re here this morning.

We’re forming disciples of Jesus Christ who love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously. Whether you’ve been part of this congregation for decades or this is your very first Sunday, you belong here.

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. You’ll hear each of these named as we worship together today.

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

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

Leader: The wind of God’s Spirit moves through this place.
People: We gather, ready to be transformed.
Leader: Flames of faith rest upon each one of us.
People: We open our hearts to what God wants to do.
Leader: God pours out the Spirit on all people, young and old, longtime and newcomer.
People: We belong here. We belong to God.

Welcome Your Neighbor

The earliest church grew because people felt known and invited into community. When we experience God’s transforming love, we can’t help but share it with others. That’s the promise of witness, living in such a way that others see Christ’s love through us. As we stand and greet one another this morning, look around and ask yourself: who might you invite to experience this community of faith?

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

Opening Prayer

God of wind and fire, Spirit of Pentecost: fill our hearts with courage as we gather this morning. Give us ears to hear your voice speaking in new ways. Draw us closer to one another and to you. Amen.

Heritage Sunday Recognition

This Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate 152 years of faithfulness at McPherson First. The same Spirit that filled that upper room in Jerusalem has been moving through this congregation since 1874, through different buildings, different eras, and generation after generation of people who showed up and said yes.

Today we recognize you, not just for how long you’ve been here, but for the changes you’ve navigated together.

If you started attending McPherson First in 1976 or earlier (50 years ago or more), please stand. You were here when this congregation worshiped for the first time in this building on January 7, 1968. You lived through the union that made us United Methodist. You laid the foundation this church still stands on. Thank you. [Congregation responds with applause or spoken affirmation]

If you started attending between 1977 and 2001, please stand, and stay standing, 50-year folks. You were here when this church asked a bold question: “If we are true to our mission, what will be different in our church and our community in three years?” That question led to partnerships with HeadStart, to Steps to End Poverty, ministries that have changed the fabric of McPherson County. You turned faith into action. Thank you. [Congregation responds]

If you started attending between 2002 and 2016, please stand, everyone else stay standing. You invested in this building’s future, raising over a million dollars to renovate the education wing, install an elevator, update the kitchen, and create spaces where the next generation could grow. You saw what needed to change and you made it happen. Thank you. [Congregation responds]

And if you started attending in 2017 or later, please stand, so that we’re all standing together. You chose this church during some of the hardest years any congregation has faced. You walked through a global pandemic, through a denomination in transition, and you said, “This is my church.” You celebrated 150 years with us and now you’re part of Tomorrow First, writing the next chapter. Thank you. [Congregation responds]

Look around. This is 152 years of faithfulness, standing together in one room. The Spirit who shook that upper room at Pentecost has been at work in every generation represented here, and that same Spirit is at work right now, making all things new.

You may be seated.

Invitation to Prayer and Pastoral Prayer

One of our five membership promises is prayers, building a real relationship with God through honest conversation. Right now, we bring our hearts before God together. If you’d like our prayer team to pray for you by name this week, text PRAY to 620-241-3626 or submit a request through the Church Center app.

Will you pray with me?

God of Pentecost, breathe your Spirit upon us this day.

(Brief pause)

We praise you for your faithfulness to this congregation across generations. You have guided McPherson First through seasons of change and seasons of stability. You have raised up leaders and faithful disciples whose lives testify to your enduring grace.

We confess that we sometimes forget the power of your Spirit. We grow anxious about changes around us. We hesitate to speak your truth. We hold tight to what we know rather than opening ourselves to what you want to do in us and through us.

(Moment of silent reflection)

We pray for those gathering here for the first time and for those who have walked through these doors for decades. We lift up all who face unexpected change, in health, in family, in work, in faith. We hold before you the longtime members of this congregation whose faithful presence grounds us in your story. We pray for our community of McPherson, for those who lead and those who struggle unseen. Send your Spirit to empower every Grace Group, every act of service, every quiet prayer offered in your name.

We give thanks for the gift of community, for the power of your Spirit working in ordinary lives, and for the privilege of following Jesus Christ.

We pray in Jesus’ name, joining our voices in the prayer he taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 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 early church witnessed transformation and immediately responded with generosity, sharing everything so that no one lacked. We have that same opportunity. When we give our gifts back to God, we participate in God’s mission to transform lives and communities.

Whether you’re a longtime giver or giving for the first time, your generosity matters. 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.

We also invite you to practice presence by checking in this morning. Use the Church Center app, visit mcphersonfirst.org/next, or sign the attendance pad in your pew and pass it along.

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

Prayer of Thanksgiving

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

God of every generation, thank you for the gifts we’ve shared today and for the faithful members whose decades of service have shaped this congregation. Use our offerings to carry your Spirit’s work forward, into McPherson and beyond. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

You have been filled with God’s Spirit. Go and set the world ablaze. Love boldly. Serve joyfully. Lead courageously.

God the Creator who sends the wind, Christ who breathes peace, and the Holy Spirit who lights the flame, go with you always. Amen.

The Spirit did not tiptoe into the room. It howled. Luke reaches for the most violent image he can find: a fierce wind that fills the entire house. Not a corner. Not a hallway. The whole place shook with the presence of God.

Then fire. Not a single blaze consuming everything but individual flames landing on each person. The Spirit’s arrival was both overwhelming and intimate. It transformed the whole community and it landed on every single individual.

When God moves, it rarely looks the way we expect. We pray for a gentle nudge, and the ceiling tears open. We ask for clarity, and the ground shifts beneath us. But notice: no one was harmed. The fire didn’t burn. It marked. It said, you belong to this moment. Sometimes the most loving thing God does is refuse to be subtle.

Holy Spirit, you arrive with power we cannot control and tenderness we did not expect. Shake loose our need for comfort and mark us with your fire. Amen.