So, 

What are some of your gifts and talents?

As part of the community of faith you come with some awesome opportunities to share Christ’s love and presence with others. But you also come with some pretty awesome gifts and talents too!

Remember, no one is here in this community by accident! God has called you here, and God intends for you to be here.

God has plans for you and us together to be growing his Kingdom right here in downtown Otisville.

So, again, what are some of your gifts and talents?

To be sure, it was no different in that first century church in downtown Jerusalem!

Jesus had ascended and the Holy Spirit had come and now the church was rocking! New folks were joining all the time. The worship was strong and the caring for all kinds of struggling folks was even stronger!

Remember this is a church that had not only the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus, but it also had folks who had been healed by Jesus, fed by Jesus, and taught by Jesus.

It had former blind people, women, slaves, paralytics, servants, tax collectors, people who had demons cast out of them, women of ill repute, soldiers, poor folks, rich folks, Jews, proselytes, and folks from all over the world, who remember, spoke all kinds of other languages in addition to Greek.

There were lots of preachers and teachers!

And lots of people who could share stories about Jesus. 

But also in the mix were cooks, cleaning people, accountants, craftsmen, farmers, herdsmen, soldiers, fishermen, lawyers, Pharisees, and all kinds of folks with all kinds of skills, even carpenters!

And then the craziest thing happened.

While the food was being passed out to some in the community who were widows, some of the Greek speaking widows shared that for some reason they were getting less food than the Aramaic speaking widows. BTW, Aramaic was the street language of the people in Jerusalem.

Uh oh! That’s not good!

The church was sharing with the poor and needy much like the church does now. But this early church had a problem it needed to fix!

Believers were so excited about the many ministries of the church that they were actually donating and even selling off possessions so that they could help others they had grown to care about with some basic needs like food.

Understand that in those days there was no social security. Your social security was a spouse and/or children, and if your spouse died and you had no children, you were on your own. 
Having no food, or little food meant you just didn’t get to eat, unless someone else stepped up to help. And so, the church did. 

Feeding people is a ministry that our church has participated since I came here as pastor 38 years ago, at least. Our Board of Deacons is amazing, made up of people much that that first group of Deacons set apart for ministry here in Acts 6.

We have fed all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances and it has expanded from an occasional bag of groceries - to our current food pantry that monthly feeds over 50 families.

It has also expanded to provide over 300 backpacks to children in school from food scare families to make sure they have breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday when they are not in school.

And it has created a lending medical closet to provide crutches, walkers, commodes, shower chairs and wheelchairs to folks who need them.

It is our calling. And it is our blessing! And guess what? God has sent exactly the people with exactly the right gifts and talents to do the work of caring God intends. You!

So, what are some of your gifts and talents?

The church in downtown Jerusalem thought that feeding others who were hungry was God’s work in this world. 

Remember last week’s sermon where 5,000 where waiting for Jesus to heal their family and friends and Jesus fed them?

And there were twelve baskets of bread left over?
And I pointed out that we are the keepers of the 12 baskets?

Jesus had taught them well! Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, get thirsty folks drinks, visit the sick; be Jesus’ presence with those in need!

And if some are not getting fed fairly, what do we do? 

We look around the community and note that while it has lots of preachers that need to keep preaching, and healers that need to keep healing, it also has all kinds of people who are really good at logistics. 

The Jerusalem church had ministers, but like ours, it also had administer-s. And not only that, but it had people who spoke Greek, and it had people who had Greek names! 

It wasn’t going to be Joshua who dropped off your food if you were a Greek widow, but one named Prochorus, Timon, or Parmenas!

The Apostles instead of worrying, or deflecting, or arguing, or being defensive, called to the community for those whom God had sent with the gifts and talents to get food to hungry people, and then set thm apart for just that ministry. 

Deacons, from the Greek word “diakonos” which means servant or minister, someone who comes to bless you!

Because you see, in community God blesses us with wisdom, passion and purpose! And God blesses us with people God has sent on purpose to get Kingdom work done!

So, what are some of your gifts and talents? The community of faith needs you! Amen!