Author: Nicky Scott

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

– Romans 8:28 –

Employing Your Experience

This Sunday will mark the sixth and final installment of our sermon series exploring the ways that we have been shaped for God’s purposes. Guided by the acronym ‘SHAPE’, developed by Rich Warren, we have examined our Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, and Personality. This Sunday, we are going to look at how our Experiences shape, not only who we are, but how we can live out God’s good and life-giving purposes in the world.

When it comes to the area of experience, it’s important to recognize that God can use all of our experiences for his good purposes. This includes those experiences which may not seem particularly spiritual or godly, and which may have even been negative and/or painful. God never wastes a good or bad experience to draw us closer to himself and to make his loving reign known in the world.

The Rev. Dan McMullen, Diocesan Missioner of the Upper Kennebecasis, will be with us this Sunday morning at St. Paul’s.

In addition to speaking to us about the ways that God makes use of our experiences, Dan will also be sharing with us from his own recent experience of leading a group of young people from across the Diocese on a discipleship trip to Toronto. I hope you can join us a we learn from both Dan’s and our own experiences together.

Rev. David Turner+

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“Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.”

– Romans 12:9 (The Message) 

You have Your Personality for a Purpose.

We are exploring the meaning and purpose of our lives by taking a closer look at how God has shaped us. To guide us on this journey we’ve borrowed the acronym SHAPE, developed by Pastor Rick Warren, and which stands for: Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experience. We are continuing our series this week by exploring the Purpose of our Personality.

No two people have exactly the same personality, however, there are elements of our personalities which we have in common with lots of other people. For example, some of us are more expressive than others. We like to talk a lot, or sing out loud, or speak to large groups of people, which others of us do not enjoy doing. Some of us tend to be more introverted and prefer to spend time deep in thought and/or reflecting on how we feel about something before we take the step of expressing what we think or how we feel. Still others are much more task oriented than the rest of us. Their focus is on “getting stuff done” rather than talking, or thinking, or reflecting on how they feel.

Whatever our differences or similarities may be, it’s important that we recognize and appreciate the value of every personality, and it’s important to consider what the larger purpose of our own unique personality may be.

In Mark 12:28-32, Jesus says that each of us is called to love God with the whole of who we are, with all out heart, and with all our soul, with all our minds and with all our strength. And he says that we are also called to love each other as well as our selves. So, it’s worth asking, how do I love God and love others with my personality?

If I’m a talker, how should I go about loving God and loving others with my talking, or my singing, or my public speaking, or whatever it is that I like to do to express myself. If I’m the sort of person who feels things very deeply, how do I love God and others with my feelings, or my thinking? If I’m a thinker how do I love God and others with my thinking? Or, if I’m a person of action, how do I love God and others in the way that I get things done?

In other words, the question we all should be asking ourselves is, “How do I love God and others in the way that is true to who I am?” It’s as we learn to love God and our neighbours in the ways that our personalities lead us that we’ll see and know the purpose for which God gave us these personalities.

I hope you’re able to join us on Sunday as we discover the purpose of our personalities together.

Rev. David Turner+

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We will be changing to one service beginning on June 24, 2018 with a start time of 10 am complete with Children’s Ministry. 

“the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7
At St. Paul’s, we are on a journey of exploring how God has shaped us. To help us on this journey we have adopted the acronym SHAPE, which stands for:  Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, & Experience. This Sunday we are going to consider the second of these aspects of how we are shaped by examining the shape of our hearts.
When talking about our hearts we have to be clear about what we mean and what we don’t mean. For example, in this series we are not going to be examining the physical organ that pumps our blood. But we also don’t mean the heart in a purely romantic sense. We’re not just going to explore our emotions or our yearnings. We’re going to explore what the Bible says about the human heart, which goes much deeper than just our emotions.
When the Bible talks about the heart it’s talking about something that directly influences not only our feelings and desires but also our thinking and planning, our decision-making and even our wills. The preacher Timothy Keller describes what the Bible means when it talks about the heart in this way:
“The heart is used as a metaphor for the seat of our most basic orientation, our deepest commitments — what we trust the most (Proverbs 3:5; 23:26); it is what we most love and hope in, what we most treasure, what captures our imagination (Matthew 6:21). Every heart has an inclination (Genesis 6:5), something it is directed toward. The direction of the heart, then, controls everything — our thinking, feeling, and decisions and actions … No wonder Jesus is so concerned about our hearts.” (Tim Keller. The Revolutionary Christian Heart. timothykeller.com 2015)
Tim Keller is right. Jesus is really concerned about people’s hearts. In several places we read about his distress at people’s stubborn hearts (Mark 3:5), his concern for people whose hearts are far from God (Mark 7:6), and his warnings that what most often gets us into trouble is what comes ‘out of the heart’ (Mark 7:19, 21). But we also see him responding to the deepest needs of peoples’ hearts by bringing them fellowship, forgiveness, healing, and hope.
At St. Paul’s this Sunday we’re going to focus on Jesus’ ability to minister to, and even transform our hearts, because it’s when we allow Jesus to speak and minister to our hearts that we’re really on our way to finding and fulfilling God’s purposes for our lives.

Rev. David Turner+

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“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Now remain in my love.”

– John 15:9 –

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which, unlike other annual celebrations in the life of the Church, is the celebration of a theological reality rather than a specific event. On Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the revelation and the mystery that while there is only one true God, perfect and undivided in will and essence and holiness, the one true God is three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In one way or another, everyone gets tripped up by what seems like the puzzle of the Trinity. How can God be both one and three at the same time? The thing to remember is that God is not a puzzle to try and solve. God is a relationship that we have been invited to experience and to be a part of.

In fact, we have been made for this relationship. We have been made and shaped by God to be in relationship with Him, and as we grow in our relationship with God all kinds of amazing things happen in our lives and in the world through us. In John chapter 15, Jesus calls this “bearing fruit”.

This “bearing fruit” happens because God has made and shaped each one of us to be a unique conduit for his love and grace and life-giving power in the world. Being in a growing and life-giving relationship with God, therefore, isn’t just good for us. It’s good for everyone around us because God has made each of us to be a blessing to the world. The more we come to appreciate how God has shaped us, the more we will grow in our relationship with him and the better equipped we will be to bless others.

Last Sunday we started a journey of exploring how God has shaped us by adopting the acrostic SHAPE, created over 20 years ago by pastor Rick Warren. SHAPE stands for: Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, & Experience.

This Sunday, we are going to look at the first of these aspects of our SHAPE, our Spiritual Gifts. It’s my hope that the more we learn more about the spiritual gifts that God gives us, the deeper our relationship with him will become and the readier we will be to bless others. I hope you can join us as we learn more about how God has shaped us and wants to bless us together.

Rev. David Turner+

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