I preached this sermon two weeks ago at the homecoming of First Presbyterian Church, Mt. Sterling, where I served from 1993-1999 in my first call. It was a special place for me and my family - all three girls were born there at Mary Chiles Hospital, just down the street from the church manse where we lived. The church and Mt. Sterling continue to have a special place in my heart. It was a treat to see some of the people and be part of the worship on thier homecoming week-end.
“On to AI” 2 Timothy FPC, Mt. Sterling, September 13, 2026
What a joy and privilege to be here in worship with on what is actually the anniversary to the day, September 13, of the chartering of this congregation,
I am a grateful for rev Powell’s gracious invitation,To preach here this morning
and the gracious hospitality of the congregation and Ellen and Edward for opening their home for the reception for the congregation and hosting Leslie and me
what a gift to be in this place and to see what a wonderful job rev Powell and this congregation is doing!
As I stand in this sanctuary leading worship, I am reminded of many sermons preached from this pulpit,
baptisms,
and funerals,
and weddings.
I remember many of the people and where they sat in worship s I looked out from the pulpit
some are no longer here,
but some of you are still here ( and sitting in the same pews!)
I also remember the first time I preached to some of this congregation
it was at a neutral pulpit in a Presbyterian church Lexington.
there was a youth on the committee, a young woman who I think had gone to the prom the night before
anyway, as I preached my sermon trying to impress the pastor nominating committee
I watched her sleep soundly in the pew with her head leaning up against another committee member’s shoulder.
she’ sitting here today, so I’m hoping 33 years later I can keep her awake!
2 Timothy: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Introduction: In 1995, here at First Presbyterian Church, Mt. Sterling, we began a year long celebration of the church’s Bicentennial.
Each month we had a Bicentennial event, which included a celebration of music one month,
a vespers service at the cemetery where Joseph Howe, the first minister is buried;
a play written about the church’s 200 year history;
all the previous ministers, who were still alive, coming back to lead worship and preach one one of those Sundays
it culminated with Marj Carpenter, the moderator of the General Assembly preaching in worship.
the theme of the Bicentennial celebration was “from saddlebags to satellites”
We had a logo designed and it adorned the cover of the bulletin each week for a year.
I think we even put it on the stationery (that was back when people actually wrote letters on stationery with letterhead).
In keeping with the theme, the Bicentennial committee even convinced me to ride on a horse with saddlebags,
something like Joseph Howe might have done in 1795 when he rode into Mt. Sterling for worship.
A year celebrating how God’s story had played out through the life of this congregation.
In 1995, I did not preach from an iPad;
9/11 had not happened;
and I daresay none of us had ever heard of artificial intelligence or even pondered what the use of AI might mean.
The world changes,
and as we move into the unknown future
God’s story gets another chapter
because God continues to be at work in our midst,
calling us to new life and new ways of engaging the world around us.
We may not know what the world will look like when this congregation gathers to celebrate its tricentennial,
or even it 250th
but we know the God who will still be writing God’s story through through this congregation.
So how do we live into that next chapter God is writing for this congregation,
or the Presbyterian Church, USA
or God’s people in the world?
I think Paul has some clues for us in his letter to Timothy.
Move 1: first of all, we see the importance of our faith community in shaping and forming us.
a. in his letter to Timothy, Paul mentions Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.
he lifts up the way in which he sees their faith being lived out in Timothy’s life.
Timothy did not arrive at his faith in the resurrected Christ on his own,
nor did he learn how to follow the resurrected Christ by himself.
he was shaped by the community of faith that gathered around him.
a reminder to us of the important role the generations who come before us have in shaping our faith,
and how we are shape the faith of those who follow us.
1. as I look out at the congregation, of course, this congregation seems to be following the model of Timothy’s family quite literally.
how wonderful to see three generations of the same family worshipping here this morning.
but, the role that Eunice and Lois played in Timothy’s life is the role the church is called to play in life of all those who gather.
not just those to whom we are connected by blood,
but those to whom we are connected to through Jesus Christ.
b. when Timothy reads Paul’s words about the impact his mother and grandmother had on him,
I wonder what stories came to mind about how his mother and grandmother had shaped him?
Maybe he remembers them reading Bible stories to him and learning about God’s steadfast faithfulness to God’s people.
Or, maybe he can recall watching his mother struggle with an issue and seeing her turn to God in prayer for guidance as he learned about the importance of prayer and God who engages us In our prayers.
or maybe he recognizes God’s unconditional love for him being lived out in the his grandmother’s love for him.
We do not know the specific stories Timothy would tell about the influence they had on him,
but we somehow know what the stories might have been because we have been shaped by those who have come before us
and we are working to be the church in ways that shape and mold the future generations.
c. As you celebrate your homecoming today,
as you live out this chapter of God’s story here in Mt. Sterling,
what stories are you living that shape the next generation and for the future God has for you?
1. As I reflect on my time in Mt. Sterling, I don’t remember a lot of facts or data
I can’t tell you how big the budget was in 1995
or what the average attendance was
or how much renovating the Post cost,
But I remember stories.
not the first stories lived out at FPC, Mt. Sterling
nor the last.
But Stories that in the moment reveal how God was at work in your midst in that moment
stories that shaped me as I learned so much about ministry here.
Move 2: there are so many stories I could tell about things I learned here
like Learning how to do a capital campaign,
or develop an endowment policy
or what to do when you run out communion elements in the middle of a worship service,
but let me share just a couple of stories of how I was shaped and formed by my time serving as the pastor here at FPC, Mt. Sterling.
An editorial note - It is always dangerous to tell stories when people who were actually there are listening! If I get some facts wrong, my apologies, but the impact of the story on me is beyond the facts at hand!
a. When I arrived here, I quickly learned the importance and value of Ecumenical work,
that is, working with other people of faith in the community.
1. My first week or so here, George Garrett, the long-tenured custodian at First Presbyterian, invited me to a Habitat for Humanity meeting, which my predecessor john Willingham had helped charter here in Montgomery County.
I went to the meeting to learn.a little bit about Habitat,
before I knew it, George had nominated me to be on the board.
Thus, began my work with Habitat, which led to working closely with several organizations and churches in Mt. Sterling,
but particularly Keas AME church and st Patrick Catholic church as we worked to build one Habitat house a year.
that work, and I suspect George Garrett, led me to developing relationships with the Keas church
which meant I regularly found myself in some type of worship service at that church
- maybe a church celebration,
or a regional gathering of their judicatory
or a funeral at their church.
The first time I was a guest there, i was surprised to learn that if you were a guest and a minister, they called on you to bring a word.
I also learned that the pianist can drown out the minister and shut you down if you have too many words to share!
2. We also did Vacation Bible school with the st pateick’s.
It was great to sort of overcome the historic church divide between Protestants and Catholics in the name of VBS
although I have to admit that when my oldest daughter did her prayers before bedtime one night during VBS and prayed to the Virgin Mary it caught me off guard.
“Why are you praying to the Virigin Mary?”
“that’s how my teacher taught me to pray tonight at VBS!”
3. I learned here that the witness of the church in the community is better when we lay claim to what we have in common and find ways to work with each other,
when we build bridges that connect us wit( others.
that may be even more true in today’s polarized world then it was then.
I suspect Rev. Powell in her role as the president of Montgomery County Ministerial Association is discovering the joy,
the challenges,
the opportunities of working with others as we God continues to write new chapters of God’s story.
b. I also in my My understanding of doing mission work.
I arrived here having discovered mission trips while in seminary and on my internship.
I thought that mission meant going somewhere to serve people.
In my own life, I had learned to wire electrical outlets and install insulation on mission trips to Mexico,
and I thought that the best thing we could do is invite people to go do mission somewhere and learn how to do new things.
in fact, some of you may remember that this congregation took on the job of roofing each new Habitat house being built
we’d buy the roofing material,
and then volunteers from the church would come and lay all the shingles.
to me, that was almost the perfect way to do mission - help someone out and learn how to do something i didn’t know how to do.
1. But one day, I was sitting in Dad’s having lunch with a member of the congregation, who was also a doctor.
as we talked about mission and I was sharing about how great it was to do mission projects and learn new skills,
he looked at me and said something like,
“Richard, what about someone who already has a skill that they want to use for mission work?
what if I would rather use the gifts I already have for mission instead of learning new skills?
is there a way for me to use my gifts as a doctor to do mission?
Pretty good question.
which changes the conversation.
which led us to looking out the window at the Presbyterian Post across the street,
a building God had led the congregation to buy a few years earlier;
a building waiting for a purpose
a building that could indeed become a place where those who already had the gift of medical training could share them with those who needed medical help in the community.
Maybe a Post clinic!
2. Fast forward about 6 or 7 years to when i was serving a congregation in OH.
a young woman comes into my office because she wants to serve others, but does not know what to she should do.
as we talk, she tells me she’s been a waitress and worked in restaurants and loves the food/hospitality world.
so we begin talking about how she can use that skill she already has to do mission,
and she led the congregation into starting a feeding ministry that is still going strong today.
3. My vision for how to do mission was shaped and formed in new and meaningful ways here in Mt. Sterling as this congregation lived out God’s story of serving those in need in this community.
c. The church is called to do lots of different kinds of ministry, but As each of us works to live out our calling as disciples of Christ,
the community shapes and forms us.
Timothy needed Eunice and Lois to grow into his faith.
We need each other to grow into who God is calling us to be.
Move 3: finally, we are reminded that the stories we live out are not our stories alone, but God’s story.
a. RecentlyI was in Vancouver, BC for a wedding
we hd a red-flight home and on the last day
so my wife and I were wandering down the seawalk watching the boats and seaplanes in the harbor.
as we walked along, there were periodically panels that told stories about the history of Vancouver.
we were actually reading the panels in reverse order as we had started at the last one,
they were really interesting,
and when we got to the first one, it explained the purpose of the series of panels.
They were true stories, it explained.
each story a piece of the working history of Vancouver,
some stories were connected by the role series;
others would be interpreted as pairs;
others we might interpret as standing alone
many different stories,
but it said, they all add up to one story.
b. That is true to the stories Timothy lived out;
the stories that were lived out by this congregation in 1795;
the stories that were lived out in 1995
the stories you live out today;
the stories that will be lived out in the future.
they are your stories
they are our stories,
but above all,
they are God’s story.
our calling is to listen to God who writes the stories so that we can live into the stories God has for us.
Conclusion: From saddle bags to satellites and now onto AI,
the stories are still being written,
because God is not done.
god is still writing the stories of life,
death,
resurrection
and new life.
Amen.
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