November 16, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Zechariah 8:9-16; James 1:22-25; Mark 12:41-44
In a stewardship sermon, Rev. Derek van Gulden takes James at his word (quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, and doers of the word, not only hearers) and walks through all the Old Sloop does: faith formation, outreach, music, the Old Sloop Fleet and a building open to the whole town. What does this church mean to you, and how much of yourself will you give?
Transcript
People of God. Will you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this morning I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help me this day not to be the instrument of anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every breath, in every step, in every moment of every day. Amen.
So you'll have to forgive me. I'm going to do something I don't do too often. I hope you're okay with this. I won't tell you how uncomfortable sometimes I feel up here because I am used to moving, but I want to make sure I don't miss anything that I actually wrote today. So the real title of this sermon isn't What's in your Bulletin. It should be more like living the love and justice of Jesus through all that we have, all pouring ourselves out in so many different ways.
Today you heard three different scriptures. I'm going to focus on James and then on Mark. James says, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. I share those words with you because every time I read them, every time I hear him, I am reminded that very rarely am I quick to listen, slow to speak, and sometimes let my anger get the best of me. In these days when so many things are changing that some of us don't understand, some of us cry about, we lament about, and then we pick ourselves up and we find ways to take action. J spoke of some. But in the midst of all that, we need to continue to learn and to pay attention to James's word. Quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.
When we're stressed. When we feel well, let me rephrase that. When I am stressed, when I feel overwhelmed by going on what's going on and can't even understand it. I don't get much done. Sometimes I feel that. What can I do? What can one person do? What can we as a congregation do? What can we as a community do? And sometimes I hang on to that way too much. But then something kicks me and I get up and I start to listen. I don't speak much because I'm learning from so others that know so much more than I do about all these situations. And I leave my anger with God.
I guess that's the sound of my anger. But. Maybe I shouldn't have stood up here. AM I too close, Jeff? No. Oh. Oh. Well, listen.
James also says what comes out of our mouth matters. And it can make a difference for good or for evil. Something else we need to continue to pay attention to.
Now, believe it or not, what I'm giving you today normally would be called a stewardship sermon where we talk about money. We talk about the church and all we do and why we give to the church. You couldn't figure that out yet, could you? What I want to talk about is this call. That James also said to be doers of the word, not just listeners to be doers of the word.
These days we hear quite often or I do, of churches that are closing. There's a new word for it. Legacy church. Someone doesn't like me standing up here, so I'm going to move. The wireless mic. If you want to stand up here, maybe try using the pulpit. Okay. Kind of reminds me when I first came fourteen years ago, our sound system was also somehow on the same wavelength or whatever it is with the EMS here in town. And every once in a while you'd hear it. Oh. There we go. So I would say I have a loud voice, but I know that the people are very efficiency. How's this? Ah. So I'm going to try to go back up here.
I was told early on in my vocation as a pastor that there will be Sundays that will tax you, that will challenge you. I thought they were talking about the people, but I don't usually find that about the people. What I want to talk about today. Wow. I'll stand back. Here is how we as a congregation, both historically and in the present time, live out those words of James to be doers of the word, to be quick, to listen sometimes not to slow to speak. And we try as hard as we can not to let our anger get the best of us.
But during this stewardship Season as we go through it. And I remember the first UCC church I attended. In November, they said it was stewardship season. I had no idea what that was. And every Sunday, the pastor's husband would get up and talk about giving to the church. I didn't go in November, partly because at the time with two incomes wasn't always enough and I didn't understand it. Slowly, I started to understand it. As a pastor, when I came to Massachusetts, the Massachusetts, the historic Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, I was lucky to get invited into a stewardship clergy group for clergy that struggled with stewardship and learned so much.
So my question to you is how often are you doing something with the church? For how many of you is Sunday just the only day you come? How many of you come during the week for a program? Programs could be anything. Class gathering. Zoom things. How important are those in your life? Your daily life? Very important for many.
And the next question is out of the abundance you've been blessed with by God. How much are you willing to give? Like the older woman who gave all she had. Now I'm not asking you to give all you have. I'm asking you just to think about what this congregation, what the ministries of this church here in Rockport and throughout the created world mean to you. All the ways that you have chance to take part in them.
And I'm going to educate you a little bit, because it's very rare that we all sit down and talk about everything we do. I think since the pandemic, quite often in most churches is there's not many people left in the pews. Unfortunately, and I'm sorry to say this, but sometimes those people live streaming aren't noticed. But they are an integral part, like all of us of this congregation. And most of them, I see two to three, four times a week on Zoom, sometimes in person. But I want to speak to you about what goes on here.
One of the newest trends that people still struggle with is that word faith formation. Two words. What happened to Christian education? What happened to Sunday school? Faith formation is Katie can tell you much better than I can because she is so educated and understands this. And you may not know it, but she's also a faith formation director in this conference that other people call to ask advice, help them through problems. And that's the bigger Southern New England Conference of the UCC youth Group, which she started up again this year, ages four through seventh grade. Right now, she's averaging eight kids every time they meet. They met Friday because I can hear them above me. Usually they have pizza, but now they've been making waffles. Quesadillas. I believe there were seven or eight of them up there. And these are youth that you see periodically, and sometimes you see them doing other things.
Kids club, which are the younger kids, is averaging about eight old sloop youth Sunday mornings. Sunday school. Can be as many as fourteen youth of all ages. Fourteen. That's huge. And I believe there's about twenty youth that are involved with this congregation one way or another. Youth group. Alumni. Yes, Katie keeps in touch with all those who have gone through this church, grew up in this church, were baptized, confirmed. A lot of them have finished college and have been working. Somebody said in the real world and I said, it's all real. But they get together at least once a year and a lot of them you see coming at different times during holidays. The biggest draw is, of course, the rummage sale, where, you know, you're always going to see leap and a few others.
We've been working since the pandemic on intergenerational worship, which is another new word, simply means we do everything together. It's how we learn. It's how youth learn. And you see the youth take part in communion. They help me do baptisms, which are afterwards, a couple will call me or I see them later on down the line. And you know what they remember most? The kids blessing the water, Which is great. And we rearranged worship services on the first Sunday of the month so they can be here and not have to finish what they're doing or leave what they're doing with Katie and come in here and try to commune at the end.
You also see the youth showing up at all different places. How many people come to old sloop presents? The coffee houses. You will see usually two of them there, at least serving. And they love it. Coffee hour after church. You will see them there too. And of course, my favorite, which I'll miss this year, is the pie bake. When everybody gets together, peels the apples cause them does all the stuff and bakes. And if you want to smell something good, it just smells phenomenal in there because they do it all here. And it is an intergenerational thing. And of course, all the fairs that we have the old sloop Fair, the Christmas Bazaar, the rummage sale.
Other programs we do is all intergenerational, which is wonderful. We are blessed. Katie is director of the Faith formation. Part of the church is also the one in this church responsible for our social. What do they call that? Facebook. Everybody said something different. Social media. She does all our social media. And if you ever need to do something, you should really go through her. But she uses that platform also to tell the community what we're doing here, reaching out to them, listening to them. She also works with the families in our church and others. to put together special packets for families to do faith formation at home. She started that during the pandemic, and I know some of the families that use it. Advent is always a fun one.
And I want to talk a little bit about. Outreach. We hear Jay and the outreach committee, everything they're doing. And these are also opportunities. Sometimes we miss that. They're inviting us to join them. Some of the organizations in the area that we support Open Door, which we knew, this church was one of the founding members of Open Door working to help food insecurity. And right now it is. Well, James shared with us, it's almost like the numbers of people they're serving is doubled or more action. Grace center family promise. North shore members of this church still do stuff with each of those. Even family promise North Shore that four weeks out of the year, we hosted through them homeless families. We are still deeply involved with them. And if you were interested in any of these, come and talk to me or Jay or anybody else and all those work on homelessness, Rim refugee Immigration Ministry works on immigration, and we have members of this church that are deeply involved in that, supporting disaster relief around the world and locally, and then outreach keeps this congregation abreast and current of many issues that somehow we get don't really hear everything on the news music.
What can I say about the music? But it's amazing. Phil and Christina and all those who sing in the choir and give their time of it. When I was coming here and told some people that I've been called, they said the music was amazing. Totally amazing. And it is inspiring music from both choirs and combined choirs, soloists, guest musicians, our artist in residency program, teaching and inspiring us all and in so many different ways that we don't even think of. Music is what pulls all of us together in worship and in other times, Old Sloop Presents, which is a part of the outreach committees but goes beyond that, providing access to music at affordable prices for people in this community. It's a platform for young and up and coming artists to perform. It's a huge ministry. A few years ago, I actually snuck in and asked if I could say a prayer beforehand, and we keep it to a prayer of peace. And I run into people all the time that say, we really like that aspect. It goes so well with that whole ministry. We're reaching a lot of people.
The old sloop fleet, that is the quiet group that does so much to care for our congregation Giving rides, doing visits, getting cards sent, food when people need it. And so many other ways they do flowers and just reaching out.
A ministry that you may not be aware of is run by the trustees. Our facility. One of the things you hear about throughout Christianity today, or at least in the United Church of Christ, is now that we've made it through the pandemic and we've learned to do things so much differently now we need to get into the community, find out what they need, and find ways we can help them. This church has been doing that for a long time. This beautiful sanctuary, we don't just use it on Sunday mornings, although we are blessed to. It's also a venue for funerals and memorial services. Celebrations of life for weddings, which all of a sudden seem to be getting more and more here. We had a couple call me recently and they said, we're not members of the United Church of Christ. We're part of a different faith tradition. But we've heard you have the largest space, and it's gorgeous, and we need room for two hundred and fifty plus people. And then when we started talking, they went, oh, you guys are just like us. It's amazing. This church also uses its space for day retreats. You probably don't know that, but the Morgan Room throughout the year is used periodically by other nonprofits or other churches that come here for a day retreat. They never do it in the summer, though. I noticed. The Verizon cell tower, which we do make income from, which is great, but it also provides improved cell coverage here on the island, except in the law building.
Old Sloop Fair, the Old Sloop Christmas Bazaar, and the Rummage sale. They're there to bring in some income, but we know what they really do is bring us all together. It gives us a chance to get together when we might not in church, just because it's once a week and so little time. But those are integral aspects of this church, not only for us, but for the community. The rummage sale is the one. I've been here long enough that I now know and recognize the families that come together and do their shopping here and how much fun they have. And there's one family where. Mom and dad and a son who's probably in his thirties, and he tries to stretch what they're going to buy for themselves, get a little flashier, a little more style. It's fun to watch.
People of God, this church, this congregation has a history of being a part of the community has does the other faith traditions in this town and on Cape Ann. We are no different than anybody else. We have a bigger space, which some call a blessing. Other people call. It just looks like there's no one there on Sundays when we watch you. It's a big space. And yet, when needed to, we have the space. This coming winter, it'll also be a venue for some of the concerts from the Shaolin, as they will be closed for a couple of months to do some renovations. So I can't remember. I think there's three set up now or three or four? Two. You'll see. But you can come in here and get tickets.
So when you're thinking about stewardship, what? I lost. When you think about what to give. And I know a lot of you have already filled out your pledge cards and. As in one church that I trained in, somebody stood up and said, can we increase our pledge in the middle of the year? It was. Sixty percent of that church increased their pledge that year. In June. And they're on a calendar year like we are.
How much does this church mean to you? How much? Do you give of yourself? And when I talk about that, of course, we talk about money, but we also talk about the equally important things. Prayer. Praying for all those ministries. Praying for one particular one. Praying for this congregation. Praying. For the love and justice of Jesus being lived out as doers and not just hearers.
And of course, sharing the gifts that we have. I know some people have said, but I don't really have any gifts. And I went, good Lord, look at what you do for work. Look at this. Well, those aren't gifts. I said, it's all a gift. Every one of you has gifts, and we're all beloved. But let us continue to be doers as we always have been. Let us support this church in all the ways we are able to, and let us do it. Working toward the love and justice of Jesus through all the ways that we do now and more. Amen.