DANFORTH MENNONITE CHURCH
416-422-2406
We welcome all guests who have joined us.
Order of Service
Farewell Worship Service for
Tim and LaVerna Reimer
Willowgrove
June 27, 2021
Acknowledgment Sue
Introduction Sue
Call to Worship Sue, All
Opening Hymn: Praise the Lord, sing hallelujah
Sue, Roger, All
Presentation from Christian Education Becky
Poem Blessy
Greetings and blessings from guests
Pastor Ashenafi Fulase, Freedom Gospel Church
Pastor Michele Rizoli, Toronto United Mennonite Church
Al Rempel, MCEC
Hymn: Our lives flow on Sue, Roger, All
Offering and Prayer Sue
Scripture: Philippians 1:1-11 Sue
Meditation Muriel Bechtel
Blessing for Tim and LaVerna’s Departure All
Closing Hymn: God be with you till we meet again
Gift presentation Mike
Benediction Sue
Instructions for lunch
Grace: Praise God from whom all blessings flow (606) Sue, Bonnie, Roger, All
Worship at Home Service
Farewell Worship Service
for Tim and LaVerna Reimer
Willowgrove
June 27, 2021
Acknowledgment
As we worship together this morning, let me begin by sharing Willowgrove’s Land Acknowledgement. “Willowgrove acknowledges the original caretakers of the land it is settled on: the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat Peoples. In honour of the history and the treaties, we pledge to care for and use this land respectfully.”
Introduction
Today is a day of thanksgiving and also of joy and celebration, not least because we are finally able to worship together in person after such a long time. It is great to see everyone. And it is a day with a certain amount of sadness, as we say farewell to Tim and LaVerna, at least for a time.
Our theme for this morning is ‘We thank God for you’. In most of the letters from the Apostle Paul to the early churches, he begins with “I thank God for you”. We don’t know how the churches to whom these letters were written replied, but I imagine they would have replied in the same vein saying, “We thank God for you”. The phrase recognizes the role of the Spirit in our relationships. Last Sunday’s service opened with a video of the inside of a European cathedral with the organist playing the hymn I know as ‘Nun danket alle Gott’:
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, in whom the world rejoices.
Who from our mother’s arms hath blessed us on our way,
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Call to Worship
Leader: Our God, we gather to worship you, the One who creates all things.
People: For the gift of creation we give thanks.
Leader: We gather to worship you, the One who brings salvation through Jesus Christ.
People: For the give of redemption we give thanks.
Leader: We gather to worship you, the One who sustains us by the Spirit.
People: For the give of your presence, we give thanks.
ALL: We bring you our thanks and praise and worship you – our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,
AMEN
Opening Hymn: Praise the Lord, sing hallelujah (#50 HWB)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8w7SMNCwt0
Praise the Lord, sing hallelujah, from the heavens praise his name!
Praise the Lord, our great Creator; all his angels, praise proclaim.
All his hosts, together praise him, sun and moon and stars on high.
Praise the Lord, you heav’ns of heavens and you floods above the sky.
Chorus
Praise the Lord, sing hallelujah, for his name alone is high,
and his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted,
and his glory is exalted, far above the earth and sky.
Let them praise the Lord Creator; they were made at his command.
God established them forever, his decree shall ever stand.
From the earth O praise your Maker, raging seas, you creatures all,
fire and hail and snow and vapors, stormy winds that hear his call.
(Chorus)
All your fruitful trees and cedars, ev’ry hill and mountain high,
creeping things and beasts and cattle, birds that in the heavens fly,
kings of earth and all you people, rulers great, earth’s judges all;
praise his name, young men and women, aged ones and children small.
(Chorus)
Tim’s address to the congregation
Sunday s
ervice June20, 2021
Watching the slideshow
Sunday service June 20, 2021
Hymn: My life flows on
Our next hymn is ‘Our lives flow on’ which has been adapted from #580 in the blue hymnal. Here’s a lovely arrangement sung by the NYC Virtual Choir. The revised text used at Willowgrove is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLPP3XmYxXg
Our lives flow on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation.
We catch the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
Chorus
No storm can shake our inmost calm while to the rock we’re clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can we keep from singing?
Through all the tumult and the strife, we hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in our soul. How can we keep from singing?
(Chorus)
What though our joys and comforts die? The Lord our Saviour liveth.
What though the darkness gather ‘round? Songs in the night he giveth.
(Chorus)
The peace of Christ makes fresh our hearts, a fountain ever springing.
All things are ours, since we are His! How can we keep from singing?
(Chorus)
Congregational Prayer
It has been a difficult few weeks with the discovery of the unmarked children’s graves in Kamloops and Saskatchewan and the knowledge that there are more to come; the senseless killing of the Afzaal family in London and this week to collapse of the condo building in Miami. We grieve with those who have lost loved ones and we commit ourselves anew to work to bring healing to the world. Let us pray: (HWB #711)
Jesus taught us to speak of hope as the coming of God’s kingdom.
We believe that God is at work in our world,
turning hopeless and evil situations into good.
We believe that goodness and justice and love
will triumph in the end
and that tyranny and oppression cannot last forever.
One day all tears will be wiped away
the lamb will lie down with the lion,
and justice will roll down like a mighty stream.
True peace and true reconciliation are not only desired,
they are assured and guaranteed in Christ.
This is our faith.
This is our hope.
AMEN
Scripture
As I mentioned in my introduction, our theme for today is ‘We thank God for you, Tim and LaVerna’. In his letters to the early churches, Paul almost always included the phrase “I thank God for you” in some form or another. We don’t have a record of it, but I imagine it was reciprocated, that the churches also thanked God for Paul and his ministry. And so today we thank God for Tim and LaVerna, that we have been able to minister and worship and be church together for more than 20 years.
Our guest speaker today is Muriel Bechtel, someone who not only knows Tim very well, beginning with his time as Assistant Pastor at Warden Woods when Muriel was pastor, but also during her time with the conference. She has also made transitions several times in her own life journey. She has chosen Philippians 1:1-11 as her text today, which I will read now, after which she will bring her message.
Philippians 1:1-11
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons[a]:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Message:
How Do We Thank You? “Let Me Count the Ways”
Graduation Day!
TEXT: Philippians 1:1-11
Tim and Laverna, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Danforth Mennonite Church, with the Elders and Church Council and other leaders:
2 Grace to you and peace from God the Creator and our Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God every time I remember you,… and I am deeply honoured to be here on this special day.
It was a hot and steamy day in late May or early June, some 15 years ago. Way back when we could sit shoulder to shoulder to celebrate. We were gathered got a friend’s graduation in a large un-airconditioned room in Hart House at U. of T. No masks! Lots of smiles, warm hugs and eager anticipation. It was there that I first heard this poem by Denise Levertov:
A Certain Day
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me – a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over and
struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out metallic – or it was I, a bell
awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
- Denise Levertov, in Earth Prayers from Around the World, 344
With this condom, no sensation is lost, pfizer viagra generic Get More Information it is only men for men are suffering from impotency. In the little study incorporating only 10 young men with the ailment, spetadalafil soft tabs djpaulkom.tvts found that the famous medications levitra enhanced blood stream to the young men’s debilitated muscles. “Young men with Duchenne bulky dystrophy have a blood stream variation from the norm – conveyance of blood and oxygen to their muscles – that does not stimulate you for developing sexual intercourse but acts as a remedy to. Costs vary by market and the amount tadalafil generic india of add-on services provided, such as scalp massages, deep cleaning and topical treatments. Cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) in tobacco smoke damage important genes that control the growth of cells, causing viagra sales in uk them to experience significant challenges in their relationships.
Here we are, 15 years later, socially distanced, with a pleasant summer breeze, this time out in an open space with the sky for a ceiling. This is your graduation, Tim (and Laverna)! All around you are the friends and teachers who have supported, taught, and sometimes tolerated you as you learned how to be a pastor. After all, it is not the years of study and papers and workshops that make a pastor and pastor’s partner. It is a congregation that appreciates and demands, stretches and accepts, disappoints and forgives, challenges and encourages you to be more than you ever imagined you could be. It is friends and colleagues who lend a listening ear and speak wise words, who see (really see) when you are hurting and lend their hearts to share the pain. Those are the people who make us pastors.
Then one day you wake up to yourself – “an awakened bell” (to use Denise Levertov’s phrase), saying and singing with confidence what you have come to know deep inside: “I can!” I can be a pastor! I can be a pastor’s partner – fully myself in this dual role that we have been given. I heard over and over in the video tributes that the two of you have been and are a beloved and competent pastor and partner, and that tells me that the people of this congregation have been good teachers. That is what we are celebrating today. Celleebrating you; celebrating us!
In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he puts it this way:
- “I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.” Even though he is writing from prison, Paul’s heart is overflowing with joy at what God has been doing in this ordinary congregation of ordinary people who sometimes think of themselves more highly than they ought or don’t agree or get along (if you read on in the letter).
The biggest temptation for pastors and leaders is to think that it is up to us to build the Church and to measure our success by an upward-moving line on a graph. It’s easy in the busy-ness and messiness of congregational life to forget to say “thank you.” Thank you for the little things and not just the big. Thank you to the little people and not just those who are usually up front.
Paul is profuse in thanking the whole community for their “partnership in the gospel.” That is what today is about – saying “thank you” – in as more ways than we can count.
- The second point that Paul makes in his letter is that God is the one who will bring to completion the good work that has begun. As you move through this transition, there will be things left unfinished and incomplete. Things you hoped to accomplish but never got around to. Complicated relationships you hoped would be resolved. Conversations and “sorry’s” that you hoped would happen but never did.
I remember sitting in on the final evaluation of a chaplaincy student after a three-month training program in a long-term care facility. The student, eager to impress and end well, proudly said he was diligently writing thank you notes to everyone he had visited during his time there to thank them for being part of his learning. Imagine the student’s surprise when his supervisor deflated his balloon and said: “I hope you aren’t able to get those thank you notes done. As a pastor you need to learn to live with incomplete tasks and unfinished business in relationships, or you will burn yourself out trying to play God.”
What God has begun at Danforth is a communal project, not just the work of a pastor and spouse or a few leaders. It is God who will bring it to completion.
- A third theme is found in v. 9. Paul writes: “This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best.” Paul confronts the believers with a challenge – to be discerning in setting priorities, in sorting out what is important from what is trivial. Some things matter; others are inconsequential.
For the past 22 years, you have done much of that discerning together as pastor and congregation. With retirement, that will change.
Tim and Laverna, each morning when you awake, instead of looking at your calendar of meetings, you have a new freedom and responsibility to ask yourself: What will I do with this one day that I am given? I like the way e.e. cummings says it:
“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
What a great way to start the day! Wonderful and also a bit disorienting at times.
On this graduation day, as you transition formally into retirement and part ways as pastor and congregation, it will take time to discover that “awakened bell,” to know when to say “I can” and when to say “I can’t.”
Another quote from e.e. Cummings: ‘It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.’
Also: “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
This coming season will be a time of learning once again, Tim and Laverna and Danforth church, to “become who you really are” and to “believe in yourselves” without each other. It will take time and courage. It will be a time to lean into Paul’s promise and to trust that “the one who began a good work will bring it to completion.” May it be so.
Blessing for Tim and LaVerna’s Departure
Leader: For everything there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.
There’s a time to arrive, and a time to go.
A time to work, and a time to rest.
A time to be called, and a time to say good-bye.
There is a time for pastoral ministry:
a time to visit the sick and grieving,
a time to lead worship and preach sermons,
a time to officiate at funerals and weddings,
a time to gather people together in meetings,
a time to lead and shepherd in all circumstances,
in the hurly-burly of congregational life.
And there is a time to let this all go,
and to give these roles to a new leader.
This is the moment, this is the transition,
the poised point when Tim moves
from being the pastor here, to not being the pastor.
When LaVerna moves from being married to a pastor to not being married to a pastor. It’s a time to say thank you!
Congregation: We thank God for you, Tim,
For your guiding presence in our community,
And for the way you have cared for us in every season, even when sometimes we have been hard to love.
Thank you for your diligence in studying scripture and discerning God’s word for us in this time and place.
Thank you for leading our worship team and encouraging them.
Thank you for your commitment to fairness and inclusiveness.
Thank you for your wisdom and for being a role model for us.
Thank you for your careful attention to the background details that helped hold us together.
We are so thankful for your years of service
and that God called you to be our pastor!
We thank God for you, LaVerna.
For all your work with Christian education,
And for teaching and guiding our children.
We thank you, too, for your gifts of hospitality, and for making newcomers feel welcome.
And as we say good-bye after this ministry well-done, it is a time to bless you on your way.
May you find time for rest and relaxation after all this work!
May you find time to reflect on what this ministry has meant in your life.
May you find new opportunities for living out your faith that use your gifts and give you joy.
Amen.
(Copyright Carol Penner www.leadinginworship.com, adapted)
Closing Hymn: God be with you till we meet again
(HWB #430)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWIIpMDhRZw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXq3van1aOs
God be with you till we meet again;
Loving counsels guide, uphold you,
May the Shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.
God be with you till we meet again;
Unseen wings, protecting, hide you,
Daily manna still provide you;
God be with you till we meet again.
God be with you till we meet again;
When life’s perils thick confound you,
Put unfailing arms around you;
God be with you till we meet again.
God be with you till we meet again;
Keep love’s banner floating o’er you,
Smite death’s threat’ning wave before you;
God be with you till we meet again.
Tim & LaVerna’s response to the congregation
Sunday service June 20, 2021
No more Thursday evening sermon deadlines.
Benediction
Tim and LaVerna,
God has blessed your coming here,
God is blessing this good-bye
and God will bless you as you go from here.
Go in peace with the love and gratefulness
of our whole congregation. Amen.
(Copyright Carol Penner www.leadinginworship.com)
In addition to the service included above, we also had contributions from the following: Blessy R., who read a poem she and her sister Praisy had written; and greetings and best wishes from Pastor Ashenafi F. of the Freedom Gospel Church, Pastor Michele R. of the Toronto United Mennonite Church and Al R., Regional Minister, MCEC. Becky B. presented a lovely basket of seeds and cards to LaVerna from the Sunday School children and Mike D. presented a gift from the church to Tim and LaVerna.
DANFORTH ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dear church family,
Thank you so much for all your well wishes, caring comments, delicious food contributions and special treats.
Very much appreciated.
With love,
Jim and Kathy
To: Our DMC community
From: The Caring Network
It is our hope and prayer that everyone will enjoy a safe and healthy summer. As restrictions are lifted there will be new opportunities to be together and to care for each other. Our experience at Willowgrove this past Sunday was literally a ‘breath of fresh air’ and nicely set the stage for what we anticipate in the fall.
We, as a Caring Network will be available, and we encourage everyone to continue reaching out to one another in prayer and in random acts of kindness. If there is an occasion in the months ahead when your family has need to be in touch with a pastor, please do not hesitate to call. Our Church Council along with the Transition Team has made arrangements for coverage in the event that this ministry is required, and has asked Dalton as Caring Network Coordinator to receive and direct calls as needed.
Do you have a story that you wish to share with us? Please submit it to Bonnie. Our next issue comes out mid-May.
