Sermon  February 3, 2019   “ Ministry Sunday” by Rev. June Fothergill    Matt. 25: 31-46; Mark 6: 31-44     Since we already talked some about hips, I had forgotten that I am in good company with my hip troubles.        One of the highlights of the past year for me was our banner project.   I love it when we do something at our church which brings together people from different worlds.  In this case we had teens from A3 and Springfield schools, members of Rotary and their families and folks from our church working together with a young artist who lives part of the time in Costa Rica.   The most obvious outcome of our collaboration was the mural which is now gracing the back of our education wing.  Yet, other outcomes and relationships are still unknown.  Will the high school artists remember the experience and have a soft spot in their hearts for the church?  Will our mural inspire our neighbors?  It is good to look at how God transforms lives through our ministries but much of the outcomes we have to place in God’s hands.     Jesus told his disciples not to worry about outcomes but to pay attention to the needs of people and how they can meet them.  He told them when they realized the crowd was hungry-  You feed them.  He told the tale of the last judgment when those who cared for the poor and outcast were actually offering care to him.  He realized that meeting human needs was part of building his kingdom.  He wanted to empower his disciples to do this and continues to empower us even today.  We  experience this every week when by the gift of God we always gather enough food to fed those who come in need.  Sometimes we only find out much later the impact of our ministries.        Recently we made a connection with the Youth Transition Program at the Springfield schools because the woman in charge of the program is an alumni of Ebbert’s youth programs.  She thought of us when looking for a good place for her developmentally different students to get work experience.  She apparently learned about how to care for all people as a youth in our church.   We see the impact of our past youth ministry today in her vocation and renewed connection with us.      I have found that we at Ebbert as fairly typical of our generations and culture in that we don’t easily talk about things like “ transformation,” or  ‘impact.”   Because we don’t tend to talk about dramatic transformations,  we may wonder what the Spirit is doing in our midst.  I think...