Putting Our Faith in Action

[This short message was shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio during the Sunday morning worship celebration on October 1, 2006. It came after the youth of the congregation shared this video on their Week of Hope trip in June, 2007.]

James 5:13-20

This is the fifth and final week of worship celebrations built around the New Testament book of James.

In all of our Bible lessons during this period, we’ve seen a central important message: After you’ve said, “I believe in Jesus Christ as the risen God and Savior of my life,” live your faith. Go to Jesus each day for the forgiveness, new life, renewed hope, and the ability to live the faith you confess.

James has shown us that people who live their faith in Christ...

• care for those within the Church and outside the Church;
• provide for the poor;
• tame their tongues;
• quit trying to prove they’re better than others;
• rely on God for wisdom; and,
• as today's lesson shows us, pray and ask God for healing.

I want to briefly mention a few ways you and I can live our faith in the weeks and months to come.

First of all, get behind our youth. An interesting study of effective youth ministries among Roman Catholic churches showed the most important ingredient in such ministries is not having a lot of activities. Their most effective youth ministries are those in which the youth are valued and welcomed into the life of the congregation. I'm sure that's true of our Lutheran youth, too!

Helping youth to experience being valued and welcomed begins with adults who so love Jesus that they live their faith through making young people feel valued and welcomed.

You’ve just seen a video about our youth’s proposed Week of Hope trip. We need your help so that as many of Friendship’s twenty-five middle and senior high students can go, defraying their parents’ and their expenses.

So, please pray for the youth as they raise the money.

Also, please volunteer to help us with our hot dog sale at Sam’s on November 11 and with serving dinner at TGIFriday’s on November 16. For the Friday’s gig, we need twenty adults aged nineteen and above. Our goal is to raise at least $1900 at Friday's and about $300 at Sam's. We can do this. Please sign the sheet you’ll find up here after worship to help.

Second, get involved in Friend Day. Invite people who need Jesus in their lives to be with us for worship on October 29, three weeks from today.

Inviting others to worship with us helps us to grow not only numerically, but spiritually. We expand our own dependence on Christ as we lean on him to give us the silences and the words that will incite people to be with us on that day.

People who invite others to worship and to grow close to Christ with them are displaying compassion and concern for the eternal well-being of others.

Let’s be known as the church that lives its faith in every facet of our lives. Four ways I want to ask you to consider doing that are:

• pray for our youth,
• help them with the hot dog sale on November 11,
• help them with the TGIFriday’s dinner serving on November 16, and
• help your unchurched friend, your congregation, and your own spiritual growth by inviting a friend to be with us on October 29.