Sermon Introducing the Faith5

St. Peter recently hosted a workshop for our conference on the subject of Faith5 and Cross+Gen ministry. Our presenter was ELCA Deacon Kristin Johnson from St. Petri Lutheran Church in Story City, and we had several people from our congregation participate. If you’re not familiar with the Faith5, check out Dr. Rich Melheim’s work at Faith5.org.

For our Sunday School end of year festivities, the Sunday School kids sang at Saturday worship and we had a congregational supper of walking tacos and even a piñata – it was Cinco de Mayo, after all!

I took the sermon time during the service to introduce the Faith5 as a practice for families to try using over the summer. The lectionary Gospel for this week is John 15:9-17, and we focused particularly on John 15:12. (I also preached a more traditional sermon for our Sunday morning service – you can read that here.)

We’re going to do something a little different for the sermon tonight. In your bulletin, you’ll find a bookmark that says, “Faith5.” Pull that out, and we’re going to practice doing each step.

Faith5 is a tool for helping you talk about faith at home as a family, or even if it’s just you at home, you can use it each night to think back on your day.
Someone tell me what step number 1 is.

———Share———

The first step is for each person to share a high and a low. When you’re doing this each day, you’d want to do a high and a low from just that day, but for tonight, let’s do a high and a low from this week.

My high from this week is that I got to visit with some people I hadn’t gotten to talk with before, and we had communion together, and I got to pray for them. It was pretty cool. I thought we’d probably talk for like 20 minutes, and instead we kept chatting for almost an hour. So that was my high for the week.

My low is that I think I’m going to need to mow the lawn in the next couple of days. I love this weather, but with all the rain, the grass is growing and mowing the lawn just isn’t my favorite chore to do.

Now it’s your turn. I know the Sunday School kids have been doing this for a couple of weeks, so they know what’s going on, but the rest of you get to practice too. This isn’t just for kids or families, all of us can think of a high and a low from the week. With the people around you, take about two minutes and share your high and low.

Try to get in groups of about 4 to 6 people, and they don’t have to be the same people you drove here with tonight. Make sure everyone has at least one partner to share with.

[Time for sharing]

———Read———

On your bookmark, the second Faith5 step is read. You can read anything from the Bible, but it works best if you pick a short story or just a verse or two.

You could pick a different verse each day if you want to, maybe from the Portals of Prayer devotion, or you can use the same verse all week and listen for God to tell you something new with it, and then maybe you’ll even have it memorized by the end of the week.




The verse for tonight is verse 12 from our Gospel reading in John. It’s right about in the middle of the bottom reading on the back of the bulletin. Here it is: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Kids, take a crayon out of your worship bag, and I want you to find that verse and underline it. Then you can share with anyone around you who needs a pencil or a crayon to mark it. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Let’s say it one more time together. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

———Talk———

Step three is talk. This is where you think about what God might be telling you through that verse and apply it to your life. One good way is to think about the high and low that you just shared, and to see if the verse has any connection.

I had a head start because I knew we were doing this tonight, and my high was getting to visit and pray with someone. I went to visit them because I wanted to show them love and to let them know God loved them. So when I did that, I was trying to follow Jesus’ commandment.

My low was about mowing the lawn, and I’m not sure how that connects. Maybe if I mowed someone else’s lawn that would be a way of showing them love, or maybe it will make my neighbors happy when they see my lawn is mowed.

With the same people you were with, take a minute or two and talk about that verse. Maybe it’ll connect to your high or low, or maybe you have another idea to share about what the verse is saying. Talk about what we read.

[Time for talking]

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

This verse is a really good one to reflect on, because Jesus sums up what we’re supposed to do as Christians. If we love Jesus, we will keep his commandments, and his commandment is simple. Love each other. Sometimes that can be hard to do.

For Jesus, loving involved laying down his life and dying on the cross for us. This week, keep thinking about how Jesus has loved you, and then how you can follow his command to love other people.

———Pray———

Step four is to pray. Praying is really important, because we’re not supposed to just talk with each other; Jesus tells us to talk with God too.

I bet some of you already pray before bed. If you do, that would be a great time to do the Faith 5 together as a family and make this step your prayer time. Or, if you don’t, this would be a great way to start.

Sometimes I think we’re afraid to pray out loud, or we’re not sure if we’re doing it right. This is a really easy way to pray. Start by saying “Dear God,” so you know who you’re talking to, and then tell God thank you for something, and since we just did highs and lows, you’ve already got something to thank God for.

So, “Dear God, thank you for when I got to meet new people, or for getting to play outside today,” or whatever your high is.

And then ask God for whatever you’d like God’s help with, probably your low. “God, please be with me when I need to mow the lawn.” Or maybe there’s someone sick you can pray for, or something you’re worried about.




You can end the prayer by saying “In Jesus’ name” because Jesus is the one who told us to pray and who gives us permission to talk directly to God, and then we usually say “Amen” at the end of a prayer, which means, “Ok God, let it be so.”
Praying out loud doesn’t have to be complicated or long, it’s just talking with God.

[Lead prayer:
Dear God, thank you for ______, please help me with _______.
In Jesus name, Amen.]

———Bless———

What’s the last step of the Faith5? Bless! This is my favorite step, because it’s really easy, but it’s really important and it’s not something most of us think of doing enough. All you need to do to bless someone is to look at them and say “God bless you.”

Or you could say “Jesus loves you.” Or, “Remember you are a child of God and Jesus loves you.” Or, if you want, you could use one from the Bible and say “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord’s face shine upon you with grace and mercy. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.”

The Sunday School kids have already been practicing this. When we were at the nursing home a couple of weeks ago, they went around blessing the people there. Remember that?

When you bless someone, you can raise your hand toward them, or ask them if you can draw a cross on their forehead or on their hand. So, take a minute and bless each other, reminding the people around you that they are a child of God and Jesus loves them.

[Time for blessing each other]

If you’re paying attention, you probably noticed that we do most of these steps together each week in church. We greet one another, we read Scripture and think about how it applies to our lives. We’re going to pray again together in just a minute, and I’ll give a blessing at the end of the service.

But church isn’t the only place to do these things. We don’t leave God behind when we leave this building. Now that Sunday School is done for the year, I hope all of you can come to church each weekend, because it’s important for us to get together for worship as God’s people. But I also really hope Saturday night or Sunday morning isn’t the only time you ever pray or think about God.

Christin and I put together a booklet for you to use during the summer to help you use the Faith 5. Each week has a verse from the week’s readings, so you’ll get to hear the verse in church, and then have it at home to keep reading and memorize.

We’re also going to use this model to craft some creative worship services for the whole congregation a couple of different times this summer. For now, we’ll continue our worship with our hymn of the day, #499, “Come Thou Found of Every Blessing” and you’re going to notice a strange word in the second verse. It says, “Here I raise my Ebenezer.”

I will give the first swing at the piñata to anyone who knows what an Ebenezer is.

Anyone know?

It comes from 1 Samuel 7:12. The Israelites were in trouble, and God rescued them from their Philistine enemies, and as a monument to God’s saving them, Samuel set up a stone as a monument, saying “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” The word “Ebenezer” means “stone of help.”

So raising an Ebenezer is a little bit like looking back at your highs and your lows and thinking about how God was with you in both the good and the bad times.

Let’s sing, #499.