“This is why I endure everything for the sake of those who are chosen by God so that they too may experience salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” — 2 Timothy 2:10 (CEB)

Paul names a direction for his endurance. He is not enduring just to endure. He is enduring for the sake of someone else. His suffering has a destination.

The difference between enduring and white-knuckling is direction. White-knuckling is a private fight with a closed horizon. Enduring for someone opens the horizon. Paul keeps going because there are people on the other side of his obedience. Some he knows. Some he will never meet.

The congregation gathered in Ephesus, the kid in the back of a house church copying letters by candlelight, the stranger two thousand years later reading this sentence on a phone. Paul is enduring for all of them. Including you.

Whose name can you put on your own enduring this week?

God of endurance, teach us to carry our hard things in your direction, not our own. Put people on the other side of our obedience, and hold us until we get there. 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

Welcome to worship at McPherson First. I’m [NAME], [CONNECTION to McPherson First]. Whether you’ve been here for years or this is your first time, in the sanctuary or online, we’re glad you’re with us. You belong here.

This is week three of Passing the Flame, and the question turns harder: will you keep carrying the flame when it costs something? Paul writes this part from prison, and he doesn’t pretend the stakes are low. This is also Communion Sunday; in a few minutes we’ll come to an open table where all are welcome.

The promise we sit with today is service, showing up when it costs something, and the table strengthens us for that work.

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: Remember Jesus Christ.
People: Raised from the dead. Descended from David.
Leader: Our teacher is chained.
People: The word of God cannot be imprisoned.
Leader: When the flame is under pressure,
People: God stays faithful.
Leader: Come to the table prepared for tired travelers.
People: We come, remembering, and we come to be reminded.

Welcome Your Neighbor

Take a moment now to greet the people near you. Witness is one of the five promises we make to God and one another, and it begins with something this simple: seeing each other. On a hard week, the warmth of a stranger can be the first sign that the flame is still lit somewhere.

As you greet your neighbors, think about who is not here today. A friend, a coworker, a family member. Who might you invite to worship next week?

If you’re worshiping with us online, know that you’re part of this greeting too. Please stand and welcome your neighbor, then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

We’ve lifted our voices. Will you pray with me? Follow the words on the screen as we ask God to steady us for what is hard.

All: God whose faithfulness outlasts ours, we arrive from a week that tested us. Thank you for a word that cannot be chained and a table being set even now. Steady us for what is hard. Meet us at the bread and the cup. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who stays faithful. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Here in the sanctuary and worshiping online, before we come to the table, will you pray with me, bringing our joys and our burdens to God for one another and for the world.

Prayers is one of the five promises we make to God and one another. You can share a prayer request on the card in your pew rack and drop it in the offering plate, or anytime through the Church Center app. Will you pray with me?

God whose word cannot be imprisoned, you stay faithful when faithfulness costs us something. We pause in your presence.

Thank you for the Jesus you sent, who endured what we never will. Thank you for the word that cannot be chained, even when the messengers seem to be. Thank you for a table being set for us this morning that we did not have to earn.

We confess the ways we have let pressure bend what you asked us to carry. We confess silence when we should have spoken, complaint when we should have endured, and measuring our worth by what others noticed. When our flame flickered, we hid it instead of asking you to fan it. We sit with the names of those carrying more than we know, and we listen for how to walk alongside them.

We pray for those in this community who are ill, recovering, grieving, or carrying fears they have not named out loud. We pray for those whose flame is barely an ember. We pray for those whose endurance is costing them something real: a relationship, a reputation, a quiet sleep. We pray for those serving in hard places: teachers, first responders, caregivers, pastors whose call has been lonely lately. We pray for a world where faithfulness is treated as weakness.

Bless this congregation as we come to the table. Remind us that you stay faithful when we cannot. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, tested and true. Amen.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

We give as an act of trust. Gifts is one of the five promises we make to God and one another, and giving in hard seasons is especially honest, because it says out loud that the God who has provided will keep providing.

To those who keep giving month after month, even when the week has been heavy, thank you. If today is the first time you’ve given, thank you for that first 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.

Your bulletin has a fresh flame card today. If you did not write a name last week, consider writing one today, the name of someone who lit the flame of faith for you. Carry it home to pray over this week.

I also invite you to check in through the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or using the attendance pad. Checking in is how we practice presence.

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.

Holy Communion: Invitation, Confession, and Pardon

We come now to the Lord’s table. If you are worshiping online, please have bread and juice ready. Together we’ll share Christ’s invitation, confess where we’ve fallen short, and receive God’s grace. Join in the words on screen.

Paul writes to Timothy from prison and still finds words to give. At this table, the one Paul trusted becomes the host. The chained apostle could write: “If we are disloyal, he stays faithful.” That promise is the ground under this meal.

Leader: This is God’s table, and all are invited. Whether your flame is blazing or barely glowing, whether your week has held up or fallen apart, you belong at this table. We prepare our hearts to receive by confessing together.

People: Faithful God, we confess that we have let pressure bend what you asked us to carry. We have kept silent when we should have spoken, complained when we should have endured, and measured our worth by what others noticed instead of what you asked of us. When our flame flickered, we hid it instead of asking you to fan it. Forgive us. Make us tried-and-true, not by sparing us trials, but by meeting us in them. Amen.

Leader: Take a moment for your own silent prayer.

(All pray in silence)

Leader: Hear the good news: if we are disloyal, God stays faithful, because God cannot be anything other than what God is. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

People: In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven! Glory to God. Amen.

Holy Communion: The Great Thanksgiving

Leader: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Leader: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them up to the Lord.
Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth.

You lit the flame of faith in the stories of every generation. You called Abraham and Sarah out of what was familiar. You spoke to Moses at a burning bush. You raised up judges and prophets and faithful mothers and grandmothers who carried your word through every season. And when the time was right, you sent your Son Jesus Christ, not to avoid the pressure of the world, but to walk straight into it on our behalf.

In Jesus you revealed yourself as a God who endures, who stays faithful, who cannot be chained.

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

People: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. Through his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, set us free from sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

And so, remembering all you have done for us in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves to you, our praise, our thanks, our lives. United with Christ, we proclaim the mystery of faith:

People: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and juice. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty God, now and forever.

Leader: With the confidence of children of God, we pray together:

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. 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.

Holy Communion: Receiving

The bread we break is the body of Christ.

(Lift the bread and break it)

The cup we share is Christ’s life poured out for us.

(Lift the cup)

Paul wrote, “if we are disloyal, he stays faithful.” This table is the ground under that promise. Come tired, come tested, come true.

Friends, this is the table for tired travelers, faithful and faltering, and all are welcome. You don’t have to be a member of this church or even a United Methodist. Come with an open heart to receive God’s love.

When you come forward, you’ll receive a piece of bread; hold it carefully and reverently. It represents the body of Christ. Then you’ll be offered a small cup of unfermented wine or grape juice. Eat the bread and drink the cup. After receiving, you’re welcome to kneel at the rail to pray. If you’re worshiping online, receive the bread and cup now, knowing you are part of this body.

Prayer after Holy Communion

We’ve been strengthened at Christ’s table for the long road. Now we’re sent to practice service, faithful in the hard places of this week. Will you pray with me?

Eternal God, we give you thanks for this holy mystery in which you have given yourself to us. You meet us in chains and at crossroads, in easy days and under pressure, and you stay faithful when we cannot. Send us into the week ahead strengthened by this meal, ready to endure for the sake of others, in the name of Jesus Christ, our tried and true Lord. Amen.

Will you stand, or remain standing, as we sing together?

Benediction

Carry the flame under pressure. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

The God whose word cannot be chained goes before you, Christ stays faithful beside you, and the Spirit strengthens you for what is hard. And all God’s people said, Amen.

“This is the reason I’m suffering to the point that I’m in prison like a common criminal. But God’s word cannot be imprisoned.” — 2 Timothy 2:9 (CEB)

The sentence hinges on one word: “but.” Paul is chained. The word is not. The messenger is limited. The message is not.

The letter itself proves Paul’s point. Paul cannot travel, but the letter travels for him. Paul cannot preach in public, but his words reach a church he will never again see in person. Every time his letter was read aloud in a gathered congregation, the word slipped past the guards without having to ask permission.

You have probably felt chained at some point. By grief. By a diagnosis. By a job you cannot seem to leave. By the limits of a body that used to do more. Paul’s word stands up for you here. Your circumstances are not the outer edge of what God can do through you.

Where have your circumstances made you feel limited, and where might God’s word be moving anyway?

Unchained God, remind us that your word is free even when we are not. Use our limits as the unexpected place your good news keeps traveling. Amen.

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible. This week we are listening to the heart of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, the most personal letter he ever wrote. From a prison cell, probably in Rome, Paul tells a young pastor how faith stays lit when everything around it is burning it down.

Second Timothy is one of the Pastoral Epistles, letters Paul wrote to leaders he had mentored. By the time Paul writes this letter, he has been arrested, likely for the last time. Timothy is serving the church in Ephesus and carrying the weight of leadership during a period when Christianity is still legally vulnerable. Paul could fill a letter with complaints. Instead he fills this one with encouragement and with the conviction that the good news is not limited by his circumstances.

Paul begins this section with two simple words. “Remember Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead and descended from David. This is my good news.” That little sentence carries an enormous claim. Raised from the dead means the worst has already been faced down. Descended from David means this good news is not new; it reaches back into every promise God has ever made. When the pressure is on, Paul tells Timothy to start there.

Then Paul names his own situation. “This is the reason I’m suffering to the point that I’m in prison like a common criminal.” Paul is not being imprisoned for treason in the civic sense. He is imprisoned for preaching a gospel that threatens the political and religious assumptions of the empire. He sits in chains. And yet his next sentence pivots. “But God’s word cannot be imprisoned.” The messenger can be chained. The message cannot. The letter itself is proving Paul’s point; every time it is read aloud in a congregation, the gospel slips past the guards.

Paul then tells Timothy why he endures. “This is why I endure everything for the sake of those who are chosen by God so that they too may experience salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” Endurance has a direction. Paul is not enduring just to prove something. He is enduring for people he may never meet. That is what separates faithful endurance from self-punishment. Faithful endurance has other people on the other side of it.

Then Paul drops into what looks like an early Christian hymn. Four lines, probably sung in worship. “If we have died together, we will also live together. If we endure, we will also rule together. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are disloyal, he stays faithful.” Those four lines trace the rhythm of Christian life. Death joined to Christ’s death. Endurance rewarded with shared reign. Denial carrying real cost. And then, the line that changes everything: if we are disloyal, God stays faithful. Paul explains why. “Because he can’t be anything else than what he is.” God’s faithfulness is not reactive. It is built in.

Paul finishes this section with practical counsel. “Remind them of these things and warn them in the sight of God not to engage in battles over words that aren’t helpful and only destroy those who hear them.” Some arguments will eat a congregation alive. Paul tells Timothy to refuse them. “Make an effort to present yourself to God as a tried-and-true worker, who doesn’t need to be ashamed but is one who interprets the message of truth correctly.” The phrase tried-and-true is a craftsman’s word, the kind of tool that has held up under actual use. Not flashy. Reliable.

Paul is not telling Timothy to be perfect. He is telling Timothy to be reliable. The flame does not have to blaze. It has to keep burning. Under pressure, under suspicion, under arrest if it comes to that. The question Paul is handing Timothy is not whether faith will be tested. It is whether Timothy will remember Jesus Christ when it is.

As you sit with this passage this week, notice where the pressure is pressing on your own flame. Name what you are tempted to deny in order to make your life easier. And hear Paul’s final word. The word of God cannot be imprisoned. The one who was raised from the dead is still raising. The faithfulness of God does not depend on the strength of yours.

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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“Remember Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead and descended from David. This is my good news.” — 2 Timothy 2:8 (CEB)

Paul opens this section of the letter with two words. “Remember Jesus.” Not think about Jesus. Not believe in Jesus. Remember him. Paul uses a verb that means to bring to mind, to re-present to yourself what you already know.

Under pressure, the first temptation is to improvise. Invent a new strategy. Calculate a different plan. Paul names a different first move. When the flame is under pressure, go back to what you already know. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead and descended from David.

That second half of the sentence matters. Raised from the dead says the worst has already been defeated. Descended from David says this is not a new story. It reaches back through every covenant God ever made.

When the stress of a week pushes you to improvise, Paul’s counsel is simpler than we expect. Go back. Remember. Start there.

What do you already know about Jesus that you can return to this week?

God of memory, teach us to begin again where we have begun before. Return us to Jesus Christ, raised and reigning, the center of every story we find ourselves in. Amen.

“You’re not the first to carry this faith. You’re the most recent.”

This is week two of Passing the Flame, four weeks in Paul’s letters to a young pastor named Timothy. Preached July 26, 2026, on 2 Timothy 1:1-14, it sits with something most of us carry without ever thanking anyone for it. Writing from prison near the end of his life, Paul names the two women who lived faith in front of Timothy first, his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and he tells Timothy to rekindle a gift that is already there.

In the manuscript below:

• Why two photographs surfacing during an ordination service became a picture of standing in the middle of a stream.

• What the word “rekindle” actually pictures, and why it means you don’t have to manufacture a fire you don’t feel.

• How a spirit of power, love, and self-control holds together, and what goes wrong when any one of the three stands alone.

• The card in the bulletin, and the single name it asks you to carry home and pray this week.

Read more

This week in worship. Our church is in a worship series called Passing the Flame. This week we remember who first lit the flame of faith for us. Come join us this Sunday, July 26, though your group works great on its own. Worship is at 8:30 and 10:15 AM, or online at mcphersonfirst.org.

What Is a Grace Group?

A Grace Group is six to eight people who meet about an hour each week to grow in faith and care for one another. There is no homework and nothing to prepare. We talk honestly, ask a few questions, and pray. You only need to show up and be honest, and everyone is welcome.

A Methodist Way of Making Disciples

Grace Groups recover one of the oldest Methodist practices. Almost three hundred years ago, John Wesley gathered Methodists into small weekly groups that asked one another, “How is it with your soul?” and watched over one another in love. A Grace Group is that same way of making disciples, brought back for today.

Want to read more about this way of making disciples? The Class Meeting by Kevin Watson, and Calling on Fire by Ashley Boggan and Chris Heckert.

The Five Promises

Our five membership promises are also a simple way to talk about our faith journey:

• Prayers: connecting with God through prayer, scripture, and listening

• Presence: showing up for worship and the life of the church

• Gifts: giving to support the church’s mission

• Service: finding where you are called to serve

• Witness: sharing your faith in word and action

Your Hour Together

Everything for your hour together. The times are a guide, not a rule.

Our Covenant 0 min

Each time we meet, we say yes to these together.

• Show up. Come each week. The group needs you.

• Be honest. This is a place to be real, not to put on a show.

• Keep it private. What is said here stays here. That makes honesty safe.

• Give everyone space. Don’t take all the time. Let everyone share.

We Begin 2 min

We’ll begin with a moment of quiet, and then we’ll pray together.

Gracious God, you have brought us here, and you know each of us by name. Open our hearts to be honest and our ears to listen well. As we watch over one another in love, meet us in this hour. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Getting to Know One Another 5 min

We’ll go around the circle. Share your name, then pick one of these to answer.

• What is your favorite dessert?

• What is a movie or show you can watch over and over?

The Three Questions

These three questions are the heart of our time. We’ll move through them in order, and everyone gets a turn. The smaller questions underneath are just to help, and there are no wrong answers.

Soul Tending. How is your faith journey going? 10 min

• When have you felt close to God lately? When have you felt far away?

• What has helped your faith lately? What has made it harder?

Now we’ll notice where God has been showing up.

God Sightings. Where do you see God at work in your life? 25 min

• Where did you see God this week, even in something small?

• Who has shown you God’s love lately?

Now we’ll name what we want to hand to God.

Growing in Grace. What challenge are you giving to God? 40 min

• What is weighing on you that you could give to God?

• Where do you feel God nudging you to take a step?

Connect Back (optional, only if time allows): anyone may briefly name something they heard today that stayed with them. Keep it short, for connection, not advice.

We Close 55 min

We’ll keep a few moments of quiet now, space to allow what you shared and heard, and how God has been speaking, to settle in your soul, so you can carry it into the days ahead.

. . . a few moments of silence . . .

Faithful God, thank you for this time and for everyone here. Hold what we have shared, and send us into this week. Help us pray for one another, grow in grace, and trust that your love goes ahead of us. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

McPherson First United Methodist Church · mcphersonfirst.org/gracegroups

“Protect this good thing that has been placed in your trust through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” — 2 Timothy 1:14 (CEB)

The faith Timothy has received is a treasure. Paul does not tell Timothy to invent it or improve it. He tells Timothy to protect it, and names the protector: the Holy Spirit who already lives in us.

This is how faith moves. Received, treasured, guarded, eventually passed on. That is the arc of the whole series.

Walk into worship this morning, or open the livestream, ready to receive.

Holy Spirit, thank you for the treasure you have placed in our trust. Meet us today as we hold what has been passed down, and ready us to pass it on. Amen.

“I know the one in whom I’ve placed my trust. I’m convinced that God is powerful enough to protect what he has placed in my trust until that day.” — 2 Timothy 1:12 (CEB)

Paul’s sentence is quieter than we expect from a man in prison. He does not say “I know what I believe.” He does not list doctrines. He names a relationship. The one he trusts.

There is a difference between knowing about a God and knowing a God. Between checking the orthodoxy box and being able to say, out loud, whose voice has guided you when the ground was shaking. Paul has that second kind of knowledge. Chains have not shaken it.

The question Paul’s phrase leaves for us is simple and sharp: whom do you know? When the storm comes, whose presence steadies you?

Whom do you know, well enough to trust, when everything else shifts?

God whose presence does not move, meet us again in worship tomorrow. Remind us whose we are by meeting us with yourself. Amen.

Most mornings, a short devotional from me is waiting in your inbox before the day takes over. That daily note is the heart of what I do here, and it is the thing that actually arrives in your email.

I publish more than that, and I want to be clear about the difference. Some things I send straight to your inbox: the morning devotional, the Friday reflections, the guides our Grace Groups use. Other things I simply post on the site for anyone who wants to go further: the Voices of the Bible readings, the worship liturgy behind Sunday, the planning notes for a series, the full sermon each week. The daily email is the promise. The rest is there when you want it.

I have also been at this far longer than this publication suggests. My first post in ministry went up on August 30, 2006, which makes this August twenty years. I have carried the writing across a few platforms since then, sometimes posting almost daily, sometimes going quiet for long stretches. This is simply its latest home, and right now it is the most faithful I have been to the practice.

I want to tell you what these months have built, and then I want to say thank you.

When I started again here, I did not know who would read. The honest answer turned out to be more of you than I expected, and from further away than I imagined. Most readers are here in McPherson. Some are scattered across a few states. A handful check in from places I have never been. What holds you together is not geography. It is that you open the email, you read a few paragraphs, and you let them sit with you on the way into your own morning.

That is the whole point. I do not write to be impressive. I write hoping it will be useful for your life of faith: a line of scripture turned a slightly new way, a question worth sitting with, a reminder that grace is already at work in the ordinary parts of a Tuesday. Whether it actually helps your own spiritual journey is not mine to measure. I can only hope that it does.

Almost everything here is free, and it will stay that way. The daily devotionals, the reflections, the Grace Group guides, the worship resources, the Voices of the Bible, the reading-together posts: free, always, because that is the right default for a pastor writing to the people he serves. You never have to pay anything to belong here or to read along. A couple of things sit behind a paid subscription, the full Sunday sermon manuscripts and a monthly personal note, and those are there for readers who want to support the work, not because they are the real content.

If this writing has meant something to you, and only if you have both the means and the desire, you can support it directly now. A few readers already have, and I am grateful to them. Think of it less as a purchase and more as a way of saying, keep going.

Support This Work

I am not trying to make this big. A small, faithful readership, mostly people I will actually see this week, is exactly the kind of thing worth tending well.

So this is my first quarterly note, and mostly it is a thank-you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for forwarding a devotional to someone who needed it. Thank you for telling me, in the grocery store or after worship, that a particular morning landed. That is its own kind of gift, and it keeps me showing up at the page.

I will see you tomorrow morning, same as always.

Grace and peace,
Andrew

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“So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord or of me, his prisoner. Instead, share the suffering for the good news, depending on God’s power. God is the one who saved and called us with a holy calling. This wasn’t based on what we have done, but it was based on his own purpose and grace that he gave us in Christ Jesus before time began.” — 2 Timothy 1:8-9 (CEB)

Paul writes these words from a cell. “Don’t be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord or of me, his prisoner.” He knows what being tied to a chained man costs. People distance themselves from prisoners.

But Paul refuses to let shame be the whole story. God, he says, “saved and called us with a holy calling,” not based on what we have done but on God’s own purpose and grace.

Shame tells us we have to earn our place. Paul reminds Timothy the call is grace. Before any of us did anything right or wrong, God had already decided to include us. It started with God’s choosing, not our résumé.

The antidote to shame isn’t pretending we have nothing embarrassing about us. It is remembering whose call we answered.

What are you tempted to be ashamed of that Jesus has already covered with grace?

Grace-giving God, when shame tries to name us, speak over it. Remind us that we are called by your purpose, not our performance. Amen.

“God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled.” — 2 Timothy 1:7 (CEB)

Paul does not say Timothy was wrong to feel afraid. He simply says fear is not the Spirit God gave you. The Spirit God gave you is made of three things, all together: power, love, self-control.

Notice the combination. Power without love becomes violence. Love without self-control collapses into sentimentality. Self-control without love becomes rigid religion. The three belong together, braided. The Spirit of God is not aggressive, not soft, not stiff. The Spirit is steady. Warm. Disciplined.

When we step into a conversation we would rather avoid, or show up for a person who asks a lot of us, we often discover we have more of this Spirit than we assumed. The gift shows up in the using.

Where have you been calling yourself timid when the Spirit has given you something else?

Spirit of power, love, and self-control, grow us into the courage you’ve already placed inside us. Let timidity be the old story, not the next chapter. Amen.

There is a logic to Lencioni’s six questions that becomes visible only when you walk through them in order. Tonight our Leadership Board sits with them as a sequence. I want to walk you through the same sequence, with theological depth on each one.

The shape is this. Mission gives a community its reason for existing. Values describe the character grace is forming in the people who carry the mission. What we do names the practices through which the mission becomes visible. How we will succeed names the faithful choices that shape our finite resources. What is most important right now names the season’s particular focus. Who must do what names the people responsible for each piece of the work.

Each question builds on the one before. Skip a question and the rest get fuzzy.

A Logic of Faithfulness

Read those six again, in order, and you can see the logic. Mission without values produces effective harm. We get good at doing the work, but the work damages the people doing it and the people we serve. Values without practice produces hypocrisy. We say what we believe and live differently. Practice without strategy produces exhaustion. We pour ourselves out on every good thing without discernment about which ones are ours to do. Strategy without focus produces drift. We have priorities, but they all matter all the time, which means none of them really do. Focus without ownership produces paralysis. Everyone agrees something is most important; no one is responsible for it.

Every faithful community needs all six. Most churches have only some.

The reason this matters is that most strategic planning processes in churches stop at one or two of the questions. The mission gets revised. The values get a refresh. Then the process ends, and a year later the staff and the Board are back to the same patterns of fragmentation and overload. The questions further down the list, the ones about practice, strategy, focus, and ownership, never got their full answer. The work becomes a cycle of restating beliefs without ever changing how the work actually happens.

The six questions are not a sequence to rush through. They are a sequence to live into.

Mission as the Missio Dei

Mission is the first question because it grounds everything else. Why does this particular community of faith exist in this particular place? The church does not invent its mission. It receives it. Long before any of us showed up, God was already at work in McPherson, Kansas, calling people to faith, shaping disciples, working out the redemption of the world. Our mission is to participate in what God is already doing.

That framing matters because it keeps us from confusing mission with brand. Mission is not a slogan; it is a description of God’s work that we are joining. Our mission statement at McPherson First, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” names that participation. The work is not ours to invent. It is ours to receive and to live.

Values as Character

Values are the second question because they shape how we carry the mission. In Wesleyan terms, values describe sanctification. The grace of God forms a particular kind of character in a particular kind of people. The values are not aspirations. They are descriptions.

When the Board affirmed “love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously,” we were not naming the church we wished we were. We were naming the character grace is forming in us, in fits and starts, in this season. The work is not to produce these values through effort. The work is to cooperate with the Spirit who is already producing them.

What We Do as the Work of the Body

The third question, what do we do, is the ecclesiology question. Most churches struggle here. Not because they do too little, but because they do not have plain language for what they actually do. The membership vows give a Methodist congregation a starting point. Prayers. Presence. Gifts. Service. Witness. Those are not abstractions. They describe what a functioning congregation actually does, week after week.

This is where the work moves from belief to practice. The Board will take this up in earnest in the coming months. The conversation is not about what we wish we did. It is about how we describe what we already do, in language a visitor could understand.

How We Will Succeed as Stewardship

The fourth question is about strategy as stewardship. God gives every community finite resources: time, people, money, energy, facilities. Asking how we will succeed means asking how we will steward those resources faithfully. It means having the courage to say no to good things so we can say yes to the right things.

For McPherson First, three strategic anchors emerged at the March retreat: grow engagement, build financial sustainability, facilities and long-term vision. The Board’s continuing work is to test whether those anchors are right and to define what success looks like for each. That is faithful stewardship work. Not strategic planning for its own sake; strategic planning as discernment.

What Is Most Important Right Now as Kairos

The fifth question is kairos, the discerned right time. Not every season calls for the same thing. The biblical witness is full of moments when God’s people had to focus. Rebuild the temple. Cross the Jordan. Feed the five thousand. Sometimes the most faithful thing is to set aside many good options and concentrate on one.

Our rallying cry at McPherson First is “grow engagement,” expressed in three dimensions: worship attendance, serving and volunteering, and Grace Group participation. That is a temporary, focused, qualitative commitment for this season. Not forever. For now. The Board will continue to define what “engagement” looks like in practice and to know when we are growing in it.

Who Must Do What as Calling

The sixth question is calling and accountability. The body of Christ works because every member has a role. Paul is relentless about this in 1 Corinthians 12. God gives gifts; the community functions when each member exercises theirs. Accountability in this frame is not punishment. It is the grace of clear roles, so that what one person carries another does not have to.

This is the question that is still ahead at McPherson First. Once the strategic anchors are formalized and the rallying cry dimensions are defined, the Board will turn to ownership. Who carries each piece of the work? What does success look like for each owner? That is the conversation that turns clarity into action.

What Tonight Is About

Tonight the Board takes up these six questions together. Not all at once, all the way through. Just enough to begin tracing the logic and noticing where we have answers and where we do not. By the end of August, the Board will have walked through all six. Some will be settled. Others will be in motion. None will be finished, because organizational health is never finished.

The next post lands August 5, moving from clarity to over-communication. How does clarity actually take root in a community? That is where the work gets real.

Glad you are reading along.

“Because of this, I’m reminding you to revive God’s gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands.” — 2 Timothy 1:6 (CEB)

“Revive God’s gift that is in you.” The older translations use the word “rekindle.” The Greek word Paul chooses carries the image of fanning a fire back to flame when only embers remain.

The claim underneath the instruction is striking: the flame is already there. Timothy does not need to find it, earn it, or manufacture it. The gift has been given. What Timothy needs to do is breathe on it.

Embers are fragile. Leave a fire alone long enough and the glow slips below the ash. Stir the ash, add air, and the flame returns. The fuel was always there.

What happens to our faith between Sundays often looks like this. No crisis. No rebellion. Just quiet, and underneath the quiet, a gift still burning, waiting for attention.

What part of your faith needs air this week more than answers?

Holy Spirit, breathe on the embers we’ve let grow cold. Revive the gifts you placed in us before we even knew to ask for them. 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

Welcome to worship at McPherson First. I’m [NAME], [CONNECTION to McPherson First]. Whether you’ve been part of this community for years or this is your first time, whether you’re in the sanctuary or joining us online, we are glad you’re with us. You belong here.

We are in week two of our series Passing the Flame, walking through Paul’s letters to a young pastor named Timothy. Last week we sat with the question: what is worth holding onto? This morning Paul gets specific about where Timothy’s own faith came from. He names Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, two women who lived an authentic faith in front of Timothy long before Timothy claimed it as his own. Somewhere, someone lit your flame too. Today is a chance to remember them.

As followers of Jesus, we make five promises to God and to one another: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Today the promise we will sit with most closely is presence, showing up, both for God and for one another. Paul reminds Timothy that presence is how faith gets passed.

In your bulletin this morning you will find a flame card, our series graphic on the front and a blank back. Before worship ends, you will be invited to write a name on the back, the name of someone who lit the flame of faith for you. Hold the card with you throughout the service.

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: Paul names Timothy’s grandmother Lois.
People: Someone we can name lit our flame too.
Leader: Paul names Timothy’s mother Eunice.
People: We carry faith we did not begin.
Leader: God did not give us a spirit of timidity.
People: God gave us a spirit of power, love, and self-control.
Leader: Come to receive what has been passed to you.
People: We come ready to remember, ready to rekindle.

Welcome Your Neighbor

Let’s take a moment to welcome one another. Witness, one of the five promises we make to God and one another, begins right here, with noticing the person beside us. The presence of a kind stranger can be the way someone first meets the love of Christ.

Picture someone whose flame of faith feels dim today, waiting for someone like Lois or Eunice to show up. Could you be that presence this week and invite them to worship next Sunday?

Please stand and welcome your neighbor. If you’re worshiping with us online, know that you’re part of this greeting too. Then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

With that song still echoing, let’s turn it into prayer. Pray the words on the screen with me, asking God to rekindle what was placed in our hands.

All: God of every generation, you lit our flame through people we may not have thanked. Rekindle in us the gifts they placed in our hands. Remind us we carry a treasure worth passing on. Teach us presence again. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer

Here in the sanctuary and online, we come now to pray as a church. There will be a moment or two of quiet; let them be your own.

Prayers is one of the five promises we make to God and one another. You can share a prayer request on the card in your pew rack and drop it in the offering plate, or anytime through the Church Center app. This week, consider letting one name on a flame card become a prayer you actually pray, every day. Will you pray with me?

God of generations, you have placed us in a chain of faith that includes grandmothers we knew and grandfathers we never met, teachers and friends and strangers who took time. We pause in your presence.

(pause)

Thank you for the names we are remembering this morning, for those who prayed for us before we knew we needed it, and for the Lois and Eunice figures whose ordinary faithfulness has been forming others for years.

We confess the ways we have kept faith hidden, treated it as private, or assumed it was someone else’s to pass along.

We sit with what we have received and have not yet shared, and we listen for what you would have us do.

(pause)

We pray for those who are ill or recovering, those grieving, and those waiting on diagnoses, test results, or hard conversations. We pray for those wondering whether their faith is still worth holding; fan the embers until the glow returns. We pray for a world that teaches children faith is something to hide.

Bless those who feel timid this morning. Place your Spirit of power, love, and self-control in them until timidity is no longer their story. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who never hid himself from us, 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. 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

Part of following Jesus here is learning to give. Gifts is one of the five promises we make to God and one another, a way we invest in the community that will pass faith to the people coming after us.

Thank you to those whose giving shows up month after month, quietly investing in faith that outlasts us. If this is your first time giving here, thank you for beginning.

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.

Your bulletin includes a flame card today. On the blank back, write the name of someone who lit the flame of faith for you. Take it home as a reminder to pray for that name this week.

I also invite you to check in through the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or using the attendance pad. Checking in is how we practice presence.

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

What we’ve given here goes on to pass faith to people we may never meet. Now we’re sent to practice service, becoming for someone else the presence that shaped us. Will you pray with me?

God of every gift, thank you for the offerings received this morning, and for the quieter offerings we cannot see: a prayer said in a car, a bulletin taken home, a name remembered. Bless the giver and the giving. Send us out to become for someone else the presence that shaped us. Make our service a thank-you for what has been passed to us. In the name of Jesus Christ, whose life became our gift. Amen.

Will you stand, or remain standing, as we sing together?

Benediction

Carry what has been passed to you. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

The God of Lois and Eunice and Timothy goes before you, Christ keeps the flame burning beside you, and the Spirit of power and love fills you. And all God’s people said, Amen.

“I’m reminded of your authentic faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I’m sure that this faith is also inside you.” — 2 Timothy 1:5 (CEB)

Two names. Lois and Eunice. Grandmother and mother. Paul says them out loud in a letter that will be read aloud in churches. He wants Timothy to know that the authentic faith he carries first lived in these two women.

Paul doesn’t explain what they did. He doesn’t list their teachings or their miracles. He just says: the faith first lived in them.

Faith, like fire, is caught more often than taught. Children watch where their parents look when they are afraid. They notice whose name is whispered in the kitchen before dinner, whether the Bible on the nightstand is read or just dusted. The patterns stick long before the words are explained.

We tend to remember spiritual heroes in the abstract. Paul remembers Lois and Eunice by name.

Who in your life first lived the faith in front of you?

God of every generation, thank you for the ones who lived faith where we could see it before we could name it. Help us live it in front of the ones who are watching us now. Amen.

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible. This week we are listening to the opening of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, his young protégé in ministry. Second Timothy is widely regarded as Paul’s most personal letter and likely his last. In these fourteen verses Paul moves from a warm greeting to one of the most moving reminders of faith in the whole New Testament. Faith, Paul says, is received before it is lived, and Timothy’s faith first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.

Second Timothy belongs to the group of letters scholars call the Pastoral Epistles. These are letters written to leaders rather than to congregations. By the time Paul writes 2 Timothy, he is in prison, probably in Rome, likely aware that his execution is near. Timothy is serving as a leader in the church at Ephesus, the major port city Paul had mentored him toward. Paul writes one more letter, not primarily to instruct Timothy on church administration, but to hand something on.

The letter opens with thanksgiving. “I’m grateful to God, whom I serve with a good conscience as my ancestors did. I constantly remember you in my prayers day and night.” Paul’s opening tone is prayerful and personal. The verb Paul uses for remembering is the same verb used in Jewish prayer, the constant bringing of names before God. Paul serves the same God his Jewish ancestors served. Faith, for Paul, is not a new invention. It reaches back.

Then comes the line that gives this passage its heart. “I’m reminded of your authentic faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I’m sure that this faith is also inside you.” Paul names two women. Lois, the grandmother. Eunice, the mother. The word the Common English Bible translates as “authentic” could also be translated as “sincere” or “without hypocrisy.” Paul is saying the faith these women lived was the real thing. And that real thing is now inside Timothy. Timothy did not grow his faith alone. It lived first in someone else.

The next instruction uses a striking image. “I’m reminding you to revive God’s gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands.” The word Paul uses here carries the image of fanning an ember back into flame. The flame is already there. Timothy does not need to create it. He needs to tend it. Paul then tells Timothy what Spirit God has given. “God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled.” Three qualities braided together. Power without love becomes cruelty. Love without self-control becomes sentimentality. Self-control without love becomes rigid. The three together describe a steady, courageous life of faith.

Paul knows shame will be a temptation. He has been arrested. Timothy’s association with him is now risky. So Paul names the temptation directly. “Don’t be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord or of me, his prisoner. Instead, share the suffering for the good news, depending on God’s power.” Then Paul describes the call they both share. “God is the one who saved and called us with a holy calling. This wasn’t based on what we have done, but it was based on his own purpose and grace that he gave us in Christ Jesus before time began.” Grace before performance. Call before résumé.

The passage rises to its most personal confession. “I know the one in whom I’ve placed my trust. I’m convinced that God is powerful enough to protect what he has placed in my trust until that day.” Paul does not list beliefs. He names a relationship. The one he trusts. Chains have not shaken the relationship.

Paul closes this opening section with a charge. “Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you heard from me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Protect this good thing that has been placed in your trust through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” The faith is a treasure. Paul tells Timothy to guard it, and he names the help: the Holy Spirit already lives in us.

As you sit with this passage this week, consider the names you would write if Paul asked you who first made faith real to you. Consider where the gift in your life has faded to embers and needs air. And remember Paul’s final word. The Spirit who lives in us is strong enough to protect what has been placed in our trust. Faith is received. It is rekindled. It is held. And one day, it is passed on.

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’m grateful to God, whom I serve with a good conscience as my ancestors did. I constantly remember you in my prayers day and night. When I remember your tears, I long to see you so that I can be filled with happiness.” — 2 Timothy 1:3-4 (CEB)

Paul writes from a prison cell, but his opening words are thanksgiving. “I’m grateful to God, whom I serve with a good conscience as my ancestors did.” Faith didn’t start with Paul. He inherited it. And now, from chains, he prays for Timothy day and night, remembering tears and longing for reunion.

The letter is saturated with memory. Before Paul teaches or corrects, he remembers. The Timothy he sees in his mind is carried by prayer, not by program.

Consider for a moment: somewhere, someone has been praying for you. A parent, a grandparent, a friend from years ago, a pastor whose name you’ve forgotten. You are on prayer lists you will never see, carried by names spoken from memory in the dark.

The flame you carry is not only what you have kindled. It is also what other people’s prayers have kept alive.

Whose prayers have kept your flame lit?

Faithful God, thank you for every prayer we have never heard. Keep us in the remembering of others, and make us faithful in our remembering of them. Amen.

“Before we ever opened a hand, God’s hand was already open.”

This sermon launches Passing the Flame, four weeks in Paul’s letters to a young pastor named Timothy. It begins where the whole series begins: with the question of what is actually worth holding onto. Preached July 19, 2026, on 1 Timothy 6:6-19, it sits with the quiet comparison game most of us play without deciding to, and with Paul’s surprising claim that contentment, not accumulation, is where real gain begins.

In the manuscript below:

• Why a Kansas grain cart at harvest turns out to be a picture of how to hold what we have been given.

• What John Wesley’s three plain rules about money reorder, and why it is the third one that changes everything.

• Where the love of money actually lives, and why it is not about the size of the account.

• The one concrete step this week that turns contentment into generosity.

Read more

This week in worship. Our church is beginning a new worship series called Passing the Flame. This week we ask what is actually worth holding onto. Come join us this Sunday, July 19, though your group works great on its own. Worship is at 8:30 and 10:15 AM, or online at mcphersonfirst.org.

What Is a Grace Group?

A Grace Group is six to eight people who meet about an hour each week to grow in faith and care for one another. There is no homework and nothing to prepare. We talk honestly, ask a few questions, and pray. You only need to show up and be honest, and everyone is welcome.

A Methodist Way of Making Disciples

Grace Groups recover one of the oldest Methodist practices. Almost three hundred years ago, John Wesley gathered Methodists into small weekly groups that asked one another, “How is it with your soul?” and watched over one another in love. A Grace Group is that same way of making disciples, brought back for today.

Want to read more about this way of making disciples? The Class Meeting by Kevin Watson, and Calling on Fire by Ashley Boggan and Chris Heckert.

The Five Promises

Our five membership promises are also a simple way to talk about our faith journey:

• Prayers: connecting with God through prayer, scripture, and listening

• Presence: showing up for worship and the life of the church

• Gifts: giving to support the church’s mission

• Service: finding where you are called to serve

• Witness: sharing your faith in word and action

Your Hour Together

Everything for your hour together. The times are a guide, not a rule.

Our Covenant 0 min

Each time we meet, we say yes to these together.

• Show up. Come each week. The group needs you.

• Be honest. This is a place to be real, not to put on a show.

• Keep it private. What is said here stays here. That makes honesty safe.

• Give everyone space. Don’t take all the time. Let everyone share.

We Begin 2 min

We’ll begin with a moment of quiet, and then we’ll pray together.

Gracious God, you have brought us here, and you know each of us by name. Open our hearts to be honest and our ears to listen well. As we watch over one another in love, meet us in this hour. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Getting to Know One Another 5 min

We’ll go around the circle. Share your name, then pick one of these to answer.

• What is your favorite dessert?

• What is a movie or show you can watch over and over?

The Three Questions

These three questions are the heart of our time. We’ll move through them in order, and everyone gets a turn. The smaller questions underneath are just to help, and there are no wrong answers.

Soul Tending. How is your faith journey going? 10 min

• When have you felt close to God lately? When have you felt far away?

• What has helped your faith lately? What has made it harder?

Now we’ll notice where God has been showing up.

God Sightings. Where do you see God at work in your life? 25 min

• Where did you see God this week, even in something small?

• Who has shown you God’s love lately?

Now we’ll name what we want to hand to God.

Growing in Grace. What challenge are you giving to God? 40 min

• What is weighing on you that you could give to God?

• Where do you feel God nudging you to take a step?

Connect Back (optional, only if time allows): anyone may briefly name something they heard today that stayed with them. Keep it short, for connection, not advice.

We Close 55 min

We’ll keep a few moments of quiet now, space to allow what you shared and heard, and how God has been speaking, to settle in your soul, so you can carry it into the days ahead.

. . . a few moments of silence . . .

Faithful God, thank you for this time and for everyone here. Hold what we have shared, and send us into this week. Help us pray for one another, grow in grace, and trust that your love goes ahead of us. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

McPherson First United Methodist Church · mcphersonfirst.org/gracegroups