Who are we?

Good Morning!

It is good to be in the house of the Lord! I’m the new pastor here at Cedar Grove UMC in Parkersburg. My name is Brian Boley. For those of you watching at home, continue to stay safe – if you don’t feel safe meeting with us, please continue watching at home until you feel safe. Folks, this virus is still deadly to the old and to the young. Wood County’s number of total positive cases has jumped from about 50 to 80 just in the last week. We need to wear masks here and in the shops and stores of world – not for our protection, but for the protection of the vulnerable among us. For loving our neighbors is central to Christian living.

I want to thank you for continuing to support Cedar Grove during our time of Covid. Your donations continued strong until just recently – I ask that if you are watching at home you might take a moment to put a donation in the mail to us hear at 168 Old Turnpike Rd in Parkersburg, WV 26104. Or stop by the church or the parsonage and drop it off. I’d love to meet you – we can sit outside if you like.

I also want to thank the entire team of people who helped get the parsonage in shape and unload our stuff. The place is now beautiful and most of the boxes have been banished to the recycle bins by Donna Elliott. My wife Saundra sends along her thanks.

One of the hardest things to preach is the first sermon at a given church. The reason is we pastors care deeply about each of you – in particular, what your relationship is with God, the viability of your church, and whether or not we will see you one day in New Jerusalem in our new, glorified bodies. Scripture tells us that those of us who lead and teach have responsibility for your souls. And so we care about the condition of your soul. While acknowledging that God working through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, speaking to us through Scripture does the most remarkable work, we pastors also recognize that we must listen to God’s Scripture and Holy Spirit and help connect you to God through Jesus.

For my role is not to be your Holy Spirit, telling you what is right and what is wrong. My role is not to be your Sunday morning entertainment. My role is not to give you an emotional service that makes you laugh, cry, and walk away saying, “The preacher really brought us the Spirit today!”

No, my role is to help people connect with Jesus, first and foremost. And then, after I have introduced you to Jesus, to help you learn to follow Jesus more and more fully by teaching each of you how to read and interpret Scripture, to learn two-way prayer – asking God what to do and then listening to the Holy Spirit’s soft, quiet, whispered response. My role is to encourage you that that Voice you hear is truly the voice of God speaking to you through the Holy Spirit, and therefore you’ll need to be about your Heavenly Father’s business, just as Jesus was.

For the Apostle Peter in his old age wrote to a vast number of disciples: 2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…

This is what Peter said. And remember that Peter had followed Jesus closely, so closely. Peter, you will remember, declared on the night of Jesus’ arrest that Peter would never desert Jesus, that he would never deny Jesus, but before the rooster crowed three times that night Peter denied Jesus three times. When Jesus was on the cross, dying, Peter was nowhere to be found. He had deserted the leader he had sworn to follow. Can you imagine Peter’s joy – and fear – when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the assembled disciples and then assured them that if they – and we – continued to follow Jesus, that they would be able to follow Him into eternal life? And Peter must have wondered if that promise applied to Peter, the one who had deserted Jesus.

But Peter, you will recall, was restored, not only in his discipleship, but also in his leadership role by Jesus as they later walked alongside the beach at Galilee after Jesus’ resurrection. And Peter led the other Apostles on the day of Pentecost and led them to accept non-Jews as Christians after his experience at the home of the Roman Centurion Cornelius. So when Peter wrote, he wrote with authority and reminded the followers of Jesus who they were – and so I remind you today who you are in Peter’s words:

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to explore who the people of God are called to be – what the purpose of you, the chosen people, the royal priesthood, God’s special possession, is.

But first, let me tell you a bit about myself. I’ll tell you a bit today, and I hope that you will come to know me over the next few months as we meet in twos and fours.

I’m originally from St. Marys. My mother still lives in the same house her and my father moved into a month before I was born, on the hill above St. Marys. I rode a school bus like all the other kids did. I graduated from St Marys High School. Frankly, I was a nerd. I was into science and math and music – but I did not attend church. I think we attended church a couple times before I started school, and then our family attended six weeks straight when the cooling towers fell at Willow Island.

I went to WVU and majored in physics, actually astrophysics, the study of stars and planets, but I also took several courses in philosophy and history. And when I graduated, the economy was so bad I went back to get a master’s degree from WVU in business – marketing and finance. That got me a job in Texas Instrument’s Industrial Automation division in Johnson City, TN.

A few years later, I became an insurance agent for a year, met and married my wife Saundra who was an agent for another company, and then I promptly took a job near Buffalo NY as marketing manager with a high tech company. Soon we moved to NJ where I worked for a subsidiary of the company you know as Panasonic, once again in factory automation. It wasn’t until we moved to Atlanta that I began to attend church – an independent evangelical church that sent out a person or a family every year to the foreign missions field, or founded a daughter church with a group of 10 or 12 families. It was intense; we soon discovered that if you are not growing as a Christian you might as well be dead.

We eventually started our own Internet-based company, and finally moved it to Lowell, OH in 2003. I planted an orchard, 80 fruit trees and 50 grapevines. Then, I took a bunch of graduate education classes and got a job teaching at Parkersburg Catholic and taught part-time at WVUP and OVU. And during this time we got involved at FUMC Williamstown, as well as operated a ministry to the international students at Marietta College. Many Friday evenings, it was not unusual to walk into our home and find a dozen or so students from China, as well as students from Korea, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil eating dinner with us and listening to an explanation of, for example, why Christians adopt orphan Chinese girls from Chinese orphanages or why the Christian Trinity is like the egg.

And, by the way, we’ve raised five children. Daughter Heather and husband David have four children and live in Myrtle Beach where she is advertising sales manager for the Sun newspaper. Daughter Hollie and husband Chris are in Atlanta where he is an Army captain and she raises their three children. Chris has Covid, by the way. Please pray for them. Son Ian will be married next weekend to Clara in a Zoom ceremony – he is finishing up his Ph.d. in military history and they have to move from Austin TX to Washington DC by July 20 for her new job with the Foreign Service. Daughter Jessie is asset protection manager at a huge supermarket in Fairbanks, AK. She also has her welding certification. At age 22, youngest son Andrew is a full-time Methodist pastor at Meadow Bridge between Rainelle and Hinton with three churches.

Back in Williamstown, I taught Sunday school, and then became a lay speaker and then lay leader and worship leader, began seminary, and then became a part-time pastor in Pleasants County, graduated from seminary and then we moved to Clarksburg where I became a full-time pastor, Saundra was a part-time, then full-time pastor, and now we are back in Parkersburg, where I preach her and Saundra preaches at 7th Street UMC.

I’m telling you all this because I want you to know that this all took time. From the time I began to attend church to the time I was saved was about a year, and from then it took another 7 years before I taught Sunday School, and then it took another 7 years before I began seminary. It has been 7 years since I graduated from seminary. A life spent with Christ should be a life of continual growth. It is not supposed to be like flipping a switch – one day you are a heathern, and the next day a fully mature Christian leader. It is a process that takes time.

And one other thing. Between us, my wife, my son, and I have attended or led about 40 churches of many denominations – Church of Christ, Southern Baptist, Lutheran, evangelical, Reformed, Bible Missionary, Free-Will Baptist, Missionary Baptist, even Catholic and yes, Methodist. We have also had the honor of being invited and attending Jewish and Islamic services because of our friendships we’ve made over the years. We’ve attended regular services at churches as small as a half-dozen people and as large as 800 worshipers. So do not assume that anything I do is “catholic” or “Baptist” or whatever, because I’ve seen enough to know what the full spectrum is of Christian worship services, what makes a church successful and what leads to failure. And I have learned from each of these churches – but what I will teach is solidly, conservative, evangelical Methodist.

Peter says we are all part of a royal priesthood. The ancient Latin word for priest was “pontifex”, which literally meant “bridge-builder”. As priests, our job is to build bridges between God and the people around us. But that takes time, just as building our own relationship with God takes time as we take a simple rickety swing bridge when we first encounter Christ and work with Jesus and the Holy Spirit to build a firm, solid, multi-lane concrete spiritual bridge between God and ourselves.

John Wesley, the man who began both the Methodist movement and the movement that led to the EUB churches – the Evangelical United Brethern churches – Wesley believed that salvation was a process, not an event. God taps you on the shoulder and puts the Gospel in your face. Eventually one day, you choose to follow Jesus and God declares you are no longer a rebel, that you are welcome in the Kingdom of God. When we choose to follow God’s Son, we are no longer enemies with God, but instead God becomes our biggest coach and cheerleader – but we then spend most of our lives learning by following Jesus so we will be saved from our own foolishness. And we begin to teach others by word and by deed what it means to be a Christian. Mind you – you ARE teaching others what it means to be a Christian, even if you aren’t intending to.

And time and again we make a mess of life, hurting ourselves and hurting others. And God – who understands that we have chosen to be loyal followers of His Son – God looks at us and now says lovingly, “Again? You did it again?” God helps us get on our feet again, whispers words of encouragement through the Holy Spirit and cheers as we try once more. Our goal is to eventually reach Christian perfection, which is when we don’t want to do anything that is outside of God’s will. That takes continually growing as we follow Jesus down the path of holiness.

Some of you will listen carefully to what I teach you. You’ll learn that it is not our position to be each other’s Holy Scripture and Holy Spirit, but it is critical for each of us to regularly read the Holy Scripture, meditate upon it, roll it around in our mind like a wine taster moves the wine around in his mouth, and then to apply that scripture to our lives. You’ll learn that it is important to listen to that gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit in the back of our mind, to react to the Spirit’s voice, and take action as the Spirit directs you. You’ll learn that it is NOT your personal responsibility to invite people to church, - we don’t get off that easily - but we are each to go much further, to responsibly teach people the basics about Jesus Christ, his teachings, his sacrifice, and his resurrection and what this Good News means for people, going to all the people you know with this Gospel first and foremost on your minds.

You’ll learn that giving grace and forgiveness is a core part of the Christian life because we have received grace from God. Instead of pointing out to people how they are breaking the Law of Moses and how these people you meet are not living like a Christian you’ll learn to accept that many of the people around us are not Christians, only people who believe in a vague God. How should they understand how to live unless we love them and gently lead them toward Christ through the advice given us by the Holy Spirit?

You’ll learn that what is comfortable for you is not necessarily what God wants you to do, for there is no reason to grow when you are comfortable, and God wants growth because God wants mature Christian followers rather than spiritual babies.

You’ll learn that God looks at you and sees you as potentially a great spiritual warrior who may need a bit more training, but you’ll also learn that God will lead you along the path of spiritual growth, the path of holiness if you ask God to do this.

You’ll also learn that the best way to walk the path of holiness is to attempt to be the very best you can be at leading other people to the knowledge of Christ, for becoming excellent at leading others to Christ requires us to learn Scripture, to learn two-way prayer, asking God for direction and guidance and then listening to the response of the Holy Spirit, to learn to become grace-filled and forgiving ourselves, we’ll learn to become tolerant of the rough parts of other people, we’ll learn that all we have has come, not from our work and knowledge, but from the gifts of treasure and knowledge given to us by God the Father simply because we’ve made the one decision that is ours to make. We’ve decided to do our best to follow Jesus Christ.

Some of you will learn that following Jesus Christ takes renewed effort every day, but that it is ALWAYS worth that effort. Some of you have already learned most of these lessons. If you have, perhaps you’ll learn how to pass on what you’ve learned to others. Perhaps you’ll learn new ways to explain these things to your friends, neighbors, and family.

And others of you may not listen and learn these lessons, preferring to offer excuses to the Holy Spirit such as “I can’t do that”, “God wouldn’t want me to do that”, “That’s someone else’s job”, “I’m too old”, “I’m too young”, “I’m too busy”, or even, “He can’t make me do that, can he?”

And I feel sad for you, for while you may end up in Heaven, you will miss so much in this life you are living today. For God not only wants us in Heaven, but also wants us to have a joyful, abundant life today. And that is what I hope I can teach over the next few years – to you and to hopefully dozens and even hundreds of other people who join us.

So hang on for the ride! For this church is going to grow in so many ways – numbers, yes, but also we are going to find ourselves stretched and tugged at by God as we move along the steps of our leader, Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray for these people in these churches. I ask that you protect them, to lead them to hear your Good News, to transform each person into people who love you and all the people they meet. Make them a welcoming people to everyone they meet, as people who are not concerned with their comfort as much as the comfort of visitors and people who do not know your love, that they will become a great power for transformation in this part of the world. Teach them many good things, Father, and I thank you for the friends we’ll make while we are here. Pour down your grace and Holy Spirit upon all the people here, that they may do your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remember: You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Act accordingly.