DOWNLOAD PDF BLEST BE THE TIE THAT BINDS : MODELS OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTRY

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1 Chapter 1 : God Pause Devotion for 6/7/ - "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," ELW - Luther Seminary "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" John Fawcett UM Hymnal, No. Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above. Jul 15 Anonymous This is such a blessed hymn. It makes me feel so uplifted, Thank You Lord for inspiring the writing of this song. The church that he was supposed to be promoted to was one of the most influential of his time. That church later became Metropolitan Tabernacle pastored by Charles Spurgeon. John Fawcett continued his faithful ministry to the humble people at Wainsgate until a paralytic stroke caused his death in at the age of In recognition of his ministry and many accomplishments, including the establishment of a school for the training of nonconformist men for the ministry, Brown University in America conferred the Doctor of Divinity degree upon him in On another occasion, the King of England is said to have offered John Fawcett any gift he might desire. He replied, "I have the love of my people - I need nothing more that even a king could provide. Just finished my early morning devotion and this wonderful hymn just spontaneously popped out of my heart. Gracious Jesus thank You so much. Aug 14 Anonymous This is so beautiful, this hymn just came to mind as I worshiping the Lord, I had to look it up and sing it, these old hymns are so up lifting, God Bless. Beautiful and powerful words. Yes it humbles me, makes me feel loved and closer to God and my church family. Thank You Heavenly Father. Jul 28 Akosua Ahwenepa-Pokuah Yonkers, New York, United States This is an inspirational hymn, it always makes me humble myself in the Lord and also encourages me to love mankind more and more. He was converted at 16 under the preaching of George Whitefield, and he was ordained a Baptist minister at the age of He began his ministry at a poor church in Wainsgate in northern England. The small congregation could only afford to pay him a minimal salary, partly in potatoes and wool. Not long afterward, he wrote this hymn for the congregation at Wainsgate. He recognized that the bond of love he knew there was worth more than any material wealth. The fellowship of kindred minds Another version of the 1st line of the 3rd stanza says: This glorious hope revives Our courage by the way; While each in expectation lives, And longs to see the day. Page 1

2 Chapter 2 : May - NEXT Church Authoritative information about the hymn text Blest Be the Tie That Binds, with lyrics, PDF files, printable scores, MIDI files, audio recordings, piano resources, and products for worship planners. A Sermon by the Rev. Suggs, preached on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 15, On July 8, we had Margie Price in the pulpit. She had also been a guest preacher here last summer. This happened many years ago, when I was invited to dinner by a single mom who was a member of my church, and her only son had just graduated from seminary. Being immensely proud of her son, who was returning home to visit one weekend, she invited him and his wife for dinner to meet Tracy and me and a few other people as well for a meet and greet get-together. The new graduate was, to put it bluntly, very ego-secure. When he spoke, others stopped their small talk and listened to him. The conversation was going back and forth at the dinner table, and talk turned to some of the problems in the world. Well, this pause was going to give birth to triplets. All eyes were on him. The feeling of it is a mistake or an error. Rather, this is a notion of needing improvement; you can do better. In her sermon, Margie referenced Paul Tillich and the notion of sin as separation. I would like to expand on that idea a little. He expanded the notion or revised it or reformed it as to the notions of both sin and of God. Let me go into both of those just a bit. PD Image courtesy of Pixabay. For example, the expulsion from the garden; the hostility between humans and nature; the hostility between brothers, going all the way back to Cain and Abel, like the very first brothers and all the brothers since and sisters too; the confusion and estrangement among the nations; ever since the Tower of Babel, one nation has been against another nation; and even the prophets complain against the kings, and they complain about the people over idolatry. There is lots of separation, lots of estrangement. This is probably the concept he is most famous for, in which he understood God as being-itself, and he used the phrase the ground of being. This metaphor is of God as the ground of our being. There are three ways you can take this: One is an analogy. What ground is to a plant is what God is to a human being. You can let your mind fertilize that thought. A ground state also means fundamental, like the basis or foundation. The third way of understanding this phrase is linked to Genesis Chapter 2, Verse 7. This is the second crea tion story: It is possible to say that [God] is the power of being in everything and above everything, the infinite power of beings. Consistently, Tillich refers to God as an idea, an existential idea in which God is the foundation of existence and meaning. So if something exists, then it is rooted in God. If you exist, then of necessity you are rooted in God, as the ground of your being. If a plant exists, then of necessity it is rooted in God, the ground of its being. Sin is not being aware of it, of feeling separated, estranged. And all of us have felt that way, plucked up, uprooted, alone in a meaningless universe, separated and estranged from God, our fellow humans and nature, and sometimes even ourselves. The cure, the healing, the salvation, is the realization that we are loved, accepted, united all along, despite having felt or thought otherwise. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about him. The one who knows about depth knows about God. This is a very compassionate observation from a sermon Tillich gave: You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience, we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance. God is the ground of our being. Grace is becoming aware of our connection, our rootedness, our being enfolded into the family of God. She wrote a book called Glorify, and she talks about estrangement in one of the chapters. In it, she references a book called Bowling Alone by political scientist Robert Putnam, who writes about the fragmentation of our society. But then he goes on. You get the picture. Between and, when the book was published, family dinners Page 2

3 dropped by 43 percent. Having friends over to the family house, regardless of why dinner, wine and cheese, cards, watching the game, fell by 35 percent. It is a deeper separation, a more profound estrangement. To state something every one of us knows intimately, we are also doing religion alone, and that is a problem. It is our very interaction with others that our faith, our spirituality, our sense of interconnection and interdependence is deepened. Somebody who ticks you off, somebody who votes another way. Somebody who, every time you say something, says something contradictory. Imagine such a person. And then, on this side, the commandment: How do you reconcile that? We all have this tension in our lives. Love thy neighbor, one of the great commandments. Jesus was not fooling around when he said that. All of the law and the prophets depends upon it. Yet there are specific neighbors whom we can come up with. How do we reconcile them? Comfort through a hug. PD image courtesy of Pixabay. Let me suggest this: Church â a relatively safe place to practice loving God, self, and neighbor. And by practice what I mean is getting up again after we have fallen down, trying again after we have missed the mark, loving and forgiving, loving and forgiving, loving and forgiving some more until one day we actually find ourselves being Christlike. Imagine every oppositional person as a gift from God to strengthen and expand your ability to love. Actually, that graduate from seminary was right. The problem with the world is sin. But to hell with the problem. Page 3

4 Chapter 3 : Biography of John Fawcett, (Spiritual Songsters) When we sing "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love" we express two aspects of our life in Christ. First, it is a life of love for God and neighbor. The love of Christ shapes our minds and hearts. It goes among things that change. People wonder about what things you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and grow old. Written by poet and pacifist William Stafford, it introduced a sermon by our former pastor Mahan Siler to mark the 20th anniversary of the decision to affirm and celebrate same-gender covenants made by this congregation in, twenty-six years ago this month. In a moving reflection by the beloved pastor who led this congregation through that tumultuous time, Mahan identified Micah 6: No cuts are required. As I stood in that circle listening to the lovely harmonies reverberating in the chapel, I found myself asking: What are the ties that bind us? Today is the first Sunday in the forty days of Lent when we are especially called to reflect deeply on who we are and who we are becoming. What ties each of us to the Pullen family? What ties us to each other? How do they impact who we are as a church and who we are becoming? Before I say more, let me take us back to the text from 1 Corinthians 12 that George read for us. Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth at a time when the congregation was divided by schisms. We Baptists know about church divisions. My life-long Southern Baptist father used to tell a joke about three Baptists who were marooned on an island in the middle of the ocean. After only a brief time of being stranded together, they founded the First and Second Baptist Churches. So picture a real mess when you visualize the church at Corinth to whom Paul is speaking. The spirit has given everyone a gift and no gift is better or more important than the others. You are a diverse group and that is a problem only when some are given status over others. The gifts you have been given are to be used for the common good â for the betterment of the community. Individuals can express faith in a broad and liberating range of situations but you must consider whether your choices are helpful for the community. All members are equally important. Now we may want to take issue with the Apostle Paul on a variety of subjects, but his description of the church in 1 Corinthians is pretty amazing for his time â and for ours. He describes a community that honors diversity. Kind of like Pullen. So let me summarize my own thinking and the input of the Lectionary group to name several ties that bind us. First, as Mahan said, our mission is one of the ties that binds most of us to this church and to each other. The heart-felt, truly passionate desire to reach out beyond these walls and our personal lives connects many of us to one another and the Pullen family as a whole. Then within these and other issues of social justice we could name more specific needs that touch the hearts of people in this faith community who are using their feet and their funds to address them. For example, on Friday, the Thought for the Week published on the website of the Community of the Cross of Nails in Coventry, England was the story of the grief and the hope of our partners at First Baptist in Matanzas, Cuba, who just received a cross of nails like the one that hangs in the back of this sacred space. Two of our partners are now partners because of our mission. We share a common vision of a just and loving world. We can debate how and when to take particular actions and where to set healthy limits. We do have these debates and sometimes they are hard. But underlying those differences of opinion is a common thread: I agree with a second tie that binds us named by the Lectionary participants: Now I admit that there are times that this rule modification has made me weary. I have wished that some speakers would learn to self-regulate. And occasionally I have wished that opinions were shared more kindly. But the point is to allow all voices to be heard. In our discussion of this on Wednesday, someone noted that at the end of challenging congregational meetings when different opinions have been aired and discussed, you will often see people who expressed those divergent views talking with each other in conversations that are not arguments. Bless those of you who go toward and not away from people who hold opinions that are different from yours. Our nation is desperately in need of this gift in these days. As I noted earlier, there is something that touches my heart about standing in that circle, singing about being a loving community and looking into the faces of our Page 4

5 fellow travelers on this journey. I know this is true for many of you. It could be short or long or easy or messy or emotional or even boring. I believe another, harder-to-acquire tie that binds many of us together is trust. We all know that trust is hard to build and easy to break. It is well-known now that if very young children do not have adults in their lives who can be trusted to care for them and meet their basic needs, those children are likely to have trouble trusting others when they become adults. Trust depends on the deep listening to each other I just described. But it also requires respecting fellow church members enough to assume their beliefs and actions are well-intended even when they seem foolish to us, are inelegantly expressed, or we disagree with them. It requires us to give people the benefit of the doubt and not question their motives. Years ago I was in a church where the trust level was very low. As a result, every decision was a struggle and meetings were painful. If the pastor recommended a particular action, some members just knew there was an ulterior motive. Money was held in the tight-fisted hand of a church treasurer who operated from a Depression-era money mentality on steroids. As a result, I felt a breath of fresh air when I came to Pullen. I trust that the hard-earned money generously given to this church will be used for good by the groups who oversee it and spend it. So compared to many congregations, my sense is that the trust level here is pretty high. That can be frustrating at times. This person spoke about how he learned new things about Pullen people and Pullen Church as he moved from one council or committee to another. Each new group taught him something about the community that is Pullen. You know, sometimes we complain that we have so many council and committee positions to fill every year. It takes more than people to fully staff our volunteer positions not counting interest and support groups, ad hoc groups and all the volunteers that make our congregational care, education, worship and missions possible. The more you invest, the more invested you will become. There are times when I marvel when people gather for worship on Sunday or for Wednesday night dinner or for an Adult Ed Committee or Missions and Outreach Council meeting. Actually, it has always been time to talk about our leaky roof. But seriously, your presence and your concerns, even when they are expressed in ways that ruffle feathers, reflect your investment in the Pullen enterprise that is bigger than any of us. It began with a cloud of witnesses more than a century ago and will be here long after all of us have gone on to our reward, as my mother would say. Someone has said that love is not a feeling but rather a decision-commitment. We may be drawn into love by our feelings. But real love that lasts is so much more than a feeling. It IS a decision. It IS a commitment to look beyond oneself to care for something or someone else. You demonstrate love by your presence here and the ways you offer your gifts to this community. Many good folks come through our doors a time or two or maybe a little more because they like the idea of an open, progressive church. But among those of us who have invested ourselves here, there is deep love for fellow Pullenites and for the church as a whole. Why do they do this? Because they love this place and all of you and they want to know who needs their prayers or a note or a call or a visit or, in true Baptist fashion, a casserole. Pullen Church is not perfect by any means. Sometimes our thread gets pulled pretty tight and some may wonder if it might break. But whatever your opinion about the volume of activity here, I hope you trust that all of it comes from the hearts of Pullen people who care deeply about each other and our troubled world. These are hard days to be progressive Christians and it is easy to feel lonely, fearful or powerless to stop the forces that generate truly bad policies and laws one after the other. Therefore, it is essential that we respond as best we can to the needs of our fellow Pullenites and the world beyond Pullen. Whatever ties you to this Pullen enterprise, please hold on tightly to the thread. Know that you are precious to God and precious to us. We want to accompany you just as we accompany our partners in other lands. We want to be joined in heart with you by a thread that you can hold onto all your days. Page 5

6 Chapter 4 : è æ Œï¼š Blest be the tie that binds See more of First Congregational Church of Granby on Facebook. Blest Be the Ties that Bind - 10/14/ See All. Posts. First Congregational Church of Granby. He was born in the year near the town of Yorkshire, England. He was orphaned at age As a young boy he was then forced to work in a sweatshop 14 hours a day. He learned to read by candlelight during these traumatic growing years of his life. He was converted at age 16 under the preaching of the Anglican priest George Whitefield. He entered the seminary and was ordained a Baptist minister at the age of He began his ministry at a poor church in Wainsgate in northern England, a tiny congregation that could only afford to pay him a minimal salary, partly in potatoes and wool. He accepted the call and preached his farewell sermon. The wagons were loaded with his books and furniture, and all was ready for his departure, when the parishioners gathered around him, and with tears in their eyes begged of him to stay. Not long afterward, John Fawcett wrote a hymn for the congregation at Wainsgate entitled, Blest Be the Tie that Binds, recognizing that the hand of love he knew there in that small, simple congregation was worth more than any material wealth. If John Fawcett holds out a vision of congregational life with this beloved hymn, the playwright Thorton Wilder holds up a mirror to congregational life, as we too often experience it. As we hear Mr. Stimson berating the choir about their singing, and then we hear in the first act, the three women tittle-tattling about the alleged alcoholism of the choir master, in the background we hear the choir practicing the hymn Blest Be the Tie That Binds. Human beings are sinners. We do not always agree with each other. We have differing opinions, different visions, and different ways of resolving issues. We hurt each other, and sometimes I really think we are not aware of how or how deeply we hurt another person; and then I do think, sadly, that there are times when we hurt each other very deliberately. This Gospel text from Matthew 18 comes out of community life, and it gives us a recipe for reconciliation between people. Jesus is pretty clear to provide advice on how to move toward reconciling grievances. And although I recognize that this may not be a recipe for every situation, it does give some pretty clear and specific advice. The first step, says Jesus, is for the one who has suffered the hurt to go to the person who has inflicted it. This is never as each as it may sound. The reality is that we often like to wallow in our hurt but never really address it to the person who has hurt us. But if the one hurt has the courage to speak to the other and the other has the courage to listen honestly and openly, Jesus is saying that reconciliation is a possibility. And if this does not work? Then take one or two others along with you. Not so you can gang up on the other person, but in Jewish tradition, at least two people were needed as witnesses. And if that does not work, invite the community to help resolve the situation. It can easily be misunderstood. At first glance this verse may seem to mean that the offender should be excluded from the community. After all, Gentiles were outsiders! They were not members! They were the ones forbidden by Jewish Law to be part of the family! What holds we sinners together is not that we all think alike, or even that we always treat each other in a nice way. What holds us together is our Baptismal promise and commitment to die to self, and our being sealed as one community by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Jesus Christ. And all of this, not simply so we can be one, big happy family sitting together enjoying ourselves, but that we can work together to use our combined resources to reach out beyond ourselves. The more I called them, the more they went away from me. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bonds of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. We are called to forgive because Christ has first forgiven us. Paul writes to the Romans: Page 6

7 Chapter 5 : Hymn: Blest be the tie that binds A distinctive form of congregational singing originated among enslaved Africans who were converted to Christianity before Emancipation, reaching its apogee in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century black Baptist and Methodist churches. Just for Fun Have everyone wear an apron. Give prizes for the most unique, most colorful, the most worn, etc. Have a sharing time. For the programs, cut out an apron shape out of colorful cardstock paper and glue lace or ribbon on them for the ties. Have a Vintage Apron fashion show. Have some of your ladies model some vintage aprons. Have embellishments such ribbons, buttons, ric-rack, etc. Work on an apron sewing project as a group. Make a few aprons for your church kitchen or for your nursery workers. This is a great theme to have a recipe swap, so let you ladies know ahead of time to bring in a recipe. Be specific if you want, such as for pies, main dishes, etc. A great theme also for having a homemade cookie swap. Have a few of your best bakers make cakes for your event and have an old fashioned Cake Walk. Food and Serving Have any ladies that are serving, wear aprons. Good old fashioned food or serve something that used to be all the rage, such as jello salads or fondue. Photo Sources Want the photo used for the page title of this theme? Any Scripture quoted is in the King James Version. Permission is given to print a physical copy of this page for use in event planning with copyright information and website url intact. No reposting or reprinting of this material online in any way and no part of this material may be submitted to any publications on or offline. Please pass on the page url if you want to share this information with others. Check my related Pinterest board for more ideas! Thanks for stopping in. Please leave any extra ideas for this theme in the comments. Or if you have used this theme, let me know! Love hearing from you. Page 7

8 Chapter 6 : SERMON: Blest Be the Tie That Binds UCC, First Congregational Church of Binghamton,NY Blest Be the Tie that Binds! As you read this letter, the th session of the North Georgia Annual Conference has come to a close. Two thousand delegates from the United Methodist churches of North Georgia met at the Classic Center in Athens, and Peachtree Road was well represented. Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares. We share our mutual woes; our mutual burdens bear. And often for each other flows the sympathizing tear. When we are called to part, it gives us inward pain; but we shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again. From sorrow, toil, and pain, and sin we shall be free; and perfect love and friendship reign through all eternity. Dennis from Glory to God: Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren. We admire the sentiment, and our hearts are warmed to know that, in Fawcett at least, there was an individual of faith who opted for relationship and commitment over money and prestige. But would we truly respect such a decision today? Would we make such a choice ourselves? I oversee the membership rolls at Fourth Church, so I have many conversations with people about their decisions to move to or from Chicago. More often than not the factors behind those decisions involve employment: Whether through our words or our actions, so many of us make it clear: But there is the question I want all of us to consider. Prayer Great God of heaven, keep me grounded here on this earth, so that I might comprehend what is worth pursuing. Help me to resist using my freedom and my strength in search of status and wealth that will never satisfy. Instead help me to find, by your Spirit, relationships and bonds of community by which I might have a foretaste of the fellowship of your blessed world to come. Chapter 7 : Devotion for Tuesday, October 18, Fourth Presbyterian Church Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship our spirit finds Is like to that above. 2 Before our Father's throne, We pour our ardent prayers; Our fears, our hopes, our aims are oneâ Our comforts and our cares. Chapter 8 : Tie that Binds-Formed 10/07/18 Colonial Park United Church of Christ "Blessed Be The Tie That Binds" sung by the congregation at First Baptist Church of Pacific Beach on Sunday, December 3, Music Director: Rod Anderson. Chapter 9 : Ties that Bind Pullen Memorial Baptist Church Blest Be the Tie That Binds (United Methodist Hymnal #) HymnSite. One Day- Congregational Singing Blest Be the Tie That Binds God So Loved the World Fountainview Academy. Page 8