Unity Church of Dallas - Rev. Debenport's Message


Rev. Ellen Debenport Senior Minister

A Message from
Rev. Ellen Debenport,
Senior Minister

Witness for God

About a year ago, our church instituted Friendship Sundays when everyone is encouraged to invite a friend to church. This week, Nov. 4, it’s Friendship Sunday again.

I’ll confess right now, I have some baggage about this. As a minister, of course, I hope congregants will find our church exciting enough that they want to tell their friends about it and encourage them to come. I know some of you do that all year, whether it’s Friendship Sunday or not.

But for me, it stirs up memories of the old days, in another church, when “witnessing” to people and twisting their arms to accept the Lord was encouraged, even in children. We were supposed to bring friends to church, as I understood it, because they were “lost” and needed to be “saved”. By me, apparently.

I never became good at witnessing. I couldn’t really give my “testimony” because I’d never had a dramatic conversion experience. Instead, I felt pressured to impose my understanding of Jesus on the lost, and I wasn’t so sure my beliefs were any better than theirs.

Now I think we were going at it backwards. Sharing spirituality is not about convincing people our particular set of beliefs is right. It’s about living out loud in front of them.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we attracted people by the way we live? If other people looked at us -- living in joy and serenity no matter what was happening around us -- and began to wonder what we’ve got? What we know that they don’t? How we view the world in a way that makes us grateful instead of miserable and scared?

I’d love it if people were tugging at my sleeve, asking why I’m so happy, or sidling up to me with clumsy questions about how I lead such a charmed life.

All we would have to do is walk through every day remembering and acting on what we know:

·    that we are expressions of God in human form

·    that everything in the world is God, and it’s all good, even when we can’t understand it

·    that we have the same Spirit in us that was in Jesus Christ and we can use that power for good

·    that we create our lives simply by our thoughts and feelings, so that the joy we feel today will be manifested in ever more abundance

·    that we are never separate from God and we can tap into divine wisdom, guidance, love and comfort any time we want

·    that what happens in our lives and in our world is up to us, beginning with our thoughts and stemming from our actions; we are never victims

·    that everything we think, feel or do will be multiplied and returned to us, so that every positive word or deed heightens the consciousness of the planet

Why aren’t we more excited about this? Why would we be shy about sharing that view with others? They can disagree, I suppose, but if we really believe and live from those universal principles, we’ll be so ridiculously happy that we won’t care about anyone else’s opinion!

What we’re sharing on Friendship Sundays is not just a shy introduction to a church that most people don’t know. It’s a way of living, based on universal spiritual principles taught for millennia, that can revolutionize the way our friends view their human experiences and spiritual journeys. Principles that can free them from self-negation and let them live fearlessly within an ocean of divine intelligence and light.

What we’re sharing are teachings that can change the way they relate to themselves, other people and the world, so that they become more loving, as well as more confident that they are living in a world of abundance.

And on top of that, we’ve got cake in Fellowship Hall! Bring your friends.

Message date: November 1, 2007