After 90 years of the missionary era, we took over the reins in the early 1980s.  God does not speak through the missionaries; God speaks through us now.  In the future we may play a bigger role by being proactive as a Church to help our people in and outside the Church.  Our Alaska Province has grown in administrative ability through the tenure of good past Presidents and wonderful leader, The Rev. Peter Green today.  Soon we may be able to manage our own trust portfolio.  We have Bishop Michael Keyes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Alaska Synod, as our guest.  We welcome our good brother in the Lord, who will speak on the issue of Full Communion.  Last year through the Moravian Pastor’s Conference, we were trained in how to recognize and deal with sexual abuse.  We are being challenged by the Alaska Army National Guard, Veteran’s Affairs office to be proactive as first responders for our military veterans who recently redeployed back from Iraq and Kuwait.  Chaplain Paul Everett and Mr. Mike Pascale will give a presentation to help us to understand the signs and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, so that we can help our soldiers. 

I rejoice in what God is doing in our midst.  Although I was trained in a liberal Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, PA and graduated in 1977, like you I am a product of a Bible believing conservative evangelical church.  We believe in salvation by grace, not of works.  We believe in the work of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church.  We believe in the inerrancy of scripture.  We grew up a bit when a just four or five years ago, we allowed women to be ordained within our Province.  I believe in our hearts that we want our Church to make a difference in our villages and cities.  This way our Church will be relevant.  So too we want it to grow in quality and number.  We want to win and disciple the lost so that they in turn can serve in the wonderful society that we all live in.

Is the Church willing to change, be more open, and become meaningful to the people in our villages?  Are we stagnate, complacent, or are we willing to learn and grow and change and to help our people grow in Jesus Christ and bring the gospel and express it in new or more meaningful ways?  Are we willing to elect a new Bishop who will speak to these concerns and issues?  Are we willing to enter into dialogue for Full Communion with a different denomination that we know little of but has much power in society?  This is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that has almost 5 million members in America. 

In order to deal with these issues in our thinking we should try to be up-to-date.  We must strive to be informed and willing to think in terms of how the Bible applies to our lives and use God’s Word to speak to the issues we must deal with in our communities.

We should be willing to enter discussion and be on the cutting edge of always growing in ministry and improving ourselves.  My mother was Yupik.  She taught me everything I know about our culture, its values and its food.  I know that change is not a good word in our culture.  Maybe what we need to use instead of the word change is to “improve what we are doing” as a Christian people within the Moravian Church.  Yupik Christians are adaptive people and can be resilient (more flexible) in improving the Church so that it will grow and continue to respond to the needs of our society.

Improvements can mean change, but if you don’t use the word change in its context of total revamping, then it does not have a negative connotation.   We have to take little steps of faith forward.  One of the things I believe the Holy Spirit is saying to us through our young people – we can preach from the pulpit, try new things, and be more enthusiastic and excited and allow God to do His work in the hearts of our people.

Alaska Moravian Church Synod 2008 is a special one!  It’s an opportunity for all of us to strengthen and to improve on the Great Commission which the early missionaries originally gave us from their hearts and shown us through their actions.  It’s also an opportunity to clarify where we should go further as a church into the 21^st century.  How do we do this?  First we must recognize that our villages are more progressive and we have become more dependent upon western ways, medicine, and technology.  We are becoming more educated.  The Moravian Seminary & Theological Institute in Bethel headed up by The Rev. Tom Conrad along with a very active Seminary Trustees Board along with Bishop Jacob Nelson has been striving for higher standards.  Indeed I believe we can bring the gospel to our people in more learned ways and impact our villages with spiritual health.  Our church can grow to impact people in our area, in Alaska, in our Nation and around the world.  The Seminary is a good example as we look at two other denominations willing to sponsor our Moravian Seminary and allow their pastors to receive certification in Bethel, Alaska.

Today with the high cost of energy it has become very difficult for our families to survive.  Our clergy are poor by government standards.  I know many may feel like those in the book of Revelation who John spoke to.  These individuals suffer and wait for Redemption.  Life is not easy.  But for now we continue to struggle and are thankful for God’s grace each day.  We must bond more, work together more, and plan more in order to grow our Church into a Moravian Church that powerfully speaks to our people and culture.

God has blessed us richly as the only true indigenous organized Church in America, from the top tier on down.   God has given us the resources, the humility and dependence upon the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and ability to see where we should go.  May we all pray more and make decisions on what Christ wants; may we make decisions not based on popularity, but based on what Jesus Christ our precious Savior wants to make our Church more relevant or meaningful.

Paul the Apostle says, "Fulfill my joy by being of the like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one purpose" (Phil. 2:2 NKJV).

One of the signs of falling from the truth in the Christian Church is the bickering and disunity among Christians.  Jesus said that the world would know that we were His disciples by the love that we have for one another (John 13:35).  In Col. 3:14, it says that love is the perfect bond of unity.  The New Testament speaks about us being unified in Christ (Eph. 4:5).  In response to Christians who follow after individuals rather than Jesus, Paul says that Christ is not divided (1 Cor. 1:12-13).  Though Christ is not divided, His body of believers are.  Divisions in the Christian church can be a healthy and necessary thing: "For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you" (1 Cor. 11:19).  But too much of a good thing isn't good.

In Our Moravian Motto it says; “In Essentials unity, not-essentials liberty, but in all things Love.”  Maybe we need to remember this again in light of some of the changes happening in some of our churches through the Holy Spirit’s work in our midst.  It is all right to have differences of opinion on the non-essential matters like worship styles or days, pre-trib rapture, post-trib rapture, what heaven looks like, and that some of our loved ones who don’t know Jesus are suffering in hell or that they are in soul sleep until the Judgment, or how old we will be in heaven.  Whether you believe one or the other, it does not affect your salvation.  Yet far too many Christians use these non-essential differences as justification for division and sometimes even cause anger and loss of respect for the local church, the Church Elders and established traditions.  When this occurs, the love of God in our hearts is sacrificed to our stubborn pride.  Instead of saying to one another, "I am right and you are wrong," we should be saying something like, "It is certainly possible that you are correct.  Now, let's work together to glorify God and expand His kingdom."  Perhaps this is too simplistic, but at least it displays an attitude of humility that helps to bring unity.  It is the devil that wants us to fall into the self abuse of division and bickering.

There is a time for division in the body of Christ.  When an individual or a church group is denying clear Scripture and remains unrepentant after being admonished, then it is time to break fellowship with that person or group.  Such is the case with the Metropolitan Community Church denomination, which openly advocates the support of homosexuality. 

I know we are thinking of Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran church.  Nationally their Bishops for several years have been entertaining the idea of accepting homosexual relationships into their church. Is our Church one that feels it is ok to align ourselves with a Church like the "The United Church of Christ that set up a $500,000 scholarship fund for gay and lesbian seminarians and urged wider acceptance of homosexuals by other denominations." (United Church Makes Gay Scholarship, CLEVELAND, Jun 16, 2000, AP Online via COMTEX).  Or "The supreme court of the United Methodist Church was asked to reconsider the denomination's ban on gay clergy.  (Church court of United Methodists asked to decide on gay clergy ban, NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Oct 25, 2001, AP WorldStream via COMTEX).  At some point the Alaska Moravian Church should take an official stand on where we stand on homosexuality and whether or not we would ordain gay clergy.  My belief is that homosexuality is wrong.  It is especially wrong if Churches support gay clergy in the pulpit.  This would be a sign of apostasy which Paul warns against.  If we accept homosexuality in the Church, we would be in open rebellion against God and His Word.  If so, it is not prudent and it is not biblical for us to be in fellowship with these groups.

As a Moravian Church our theology is more devotional in nature rather than being theological.  When I was in Seminary I was challenged to be theological too and even today we should always take our Church position as to what we feel the community of faith believes in as God speaks to us through His blessed Word.  True Christians serve the true and living God and we know Jesus in a personal and intimate way (1 Cor. 1:9). We have been redeemed by God himself.  Furthermore, we have the body of Scriptures which tell us the essentials of the faith, and deviating from these essentials means to be outside the camp of Christ.  It is the essential doctrines that we must know and unite in.

Why then, for all practical purposes, do we sometimes elevate the non-essential to the place of essentials?  I believe it is because of immaturity and pride in various Christians.  Should we not sacrifice our "perfect" opinion on a biblical matter for being gracious to another brother or sister in Christ?  Of course we should, but when that doesn't happen, we have church or denominational splits.  I cannot see how such a huge fragmentation in the Christian Church into denominations and sects glorifies God. 

The Christian church, as a whole, needs to repent.  We need to look at ourselves.  We need to look at our churches.  We need to look at one another and decide that we will stand on the essential doctrines of the faith and that we will be united against the enemy.  Those of us who are united by the blood of Christ are not enemies with one another, whether we are Presbyterians or Baptists or Lutherans or Moravians.  It may be difficult for many of us to look lovingly into the eyes of those of a different denomination without thinking in our hearts that they are wrong about this doctrine or that doctrine.  But, we need to be reminded that there is neither a Presbyterian nor a Baptist nor a Lutheran nor a Moravian on the throne of God.  All of us, I am sure, will have our theologies corrected when we stand before the throne of God.  Therefore, we need to seek to work together to further the Kingdom of God.

We need to look at our own hearts and our own minds and compare them to Jesus and the Scripture.  Wherever the two are not an agreement, it is we who need to change.  We need to pray that the Lord would provide opportunities to work with other Christians across denominational lines.  We need to recognize that we have differences of opinions and worship styles, and that that is okay.  But we need to lift each other up and be united in Christ.