Can you remember the first time you heard that song?

For some of you, it might be right here, today. For others, it might go way back.

My first memory of church is First Baptist Church in San Jose, California as a kid. And, at least in my memory, we sang the Doxology every single Sunday. I’m sure that today it’s being sung in many, many churches around the world.

We chose to sing it today for two reasons. It points our attention in the right direction. Our gathering for worship is directed at God! Praise GOD from whom all blessings flow! And the second reason we chose to sing it today is that it is a connecting point with other churches around the world.

We are part of one body of Christ.

Today, we want to remind ourselves of that. We want to celebrate it. We want to pray that Christ’s church, which is much bigger than just Newberg Friends, will be who Jesus wants us to be in the world.

Last Sunday, Phil Smith reminded us of our unity with many diverse Christians around the world. His words were the highlight of the morning for me, and I knew as I listened to them that I would steal his words for today, because they fit so well.

On the way to church last week, Phil was listening on the radio to the installation of Pope Benedict XVI. He thought of that service, full of pomp and ceremony, spoken in Latin and Italian, full of ancient words and tradition, huge in its splendor.

Then he reminded us of Christians gathering in Scotland, in a simple worship service with a few sturdy hymns and an intellectual sermon. His mind traveled to Africa, to believers in Jesus dancing joyously in their worship of God.

Then across the Atlantic to South America, where people gathered to worship God in Spanish and in other unknown languages, because they are from a Pentecostal tradition.

Which brought him to Newberg, Oregon, where a bunch of Quakers gathered to worship in the silence of open worship.

What moved me in Phil’s vivid description of the wild diversity of the people of God, was his reminder that it is Jesus who brings us together.

We’re connected, beautifully and wonderfully, with believers all over the globe. And one day, as we will hear in bible verses read later in the service, one day all his followers across time and around the world, will gather around Jesus to honor him and give him praise.

If we love God, we love the family he’s gathered in Jesus. Our love of God, and our love for each other, are completely intertwined.

Throughout 1 John, that’s been the message, and today is no exception. If we love God, we must love others, as we’ve celebrated for the past couple of weeks.

Today, in a bit of circular reasoning, John brings loving each other back to loving God. They can’t be separated! [READ 1 John 5: 1-5]

Part of loving God is loving the people in God’s family.

Today we want to stretch our vision, and recognize that we join with churches around the world to bring God’s love to everyone. We join churches in Newberg to make Jesus Christ known in our community.

Sometimes, I think we make the mistake of thinking we’re competing with other churches in town for people. When I think of competing with other churches, the example that always comes to mind is a day that happens every fall at George Fox during freshman orientation.

It’s a great idea: have all the churches in town come to campus so that students can meet the pastors and get information about local churches. But when we first started going in the mid-90’s, it had a really weird feel.

You felt like you were some kind of circus show, some kind of market vendor, trying to shout and get the attention of students coming by, at the expense of the other vendor next to you. I know that wasn’t the intent of those who planned it, but it just felt weird.

And it got worse. Some churches started bringing candy to give out. Then the next year it was pencils and other trinkets. Then the next year, somebody brought in…a full fledged coffee cart. I mean, come on; how can you compete with a free latte?

It was competition at its worst.

But something different has been happening lately, something beautiful…something I think is definitely from God.

We’re breaking down those barriers and that competitiveness because God is helping people and pastors from different churches build relationships.

Love INC, which we talked about two weeks ago, is a tangible ministry that unifies churches. I love that!

Part of what’s happening is that we’re realizing the need is WAY bigger than what any one church can do. Newberg is growing by leaps and bounds, and the majority of people who move here don’t have any connection with Jesus at all.

Part of what’s happening is we’re realizing it’s not about somehow hooking these new people into our churches to help our churches grow and be healthy. It’s about helping people who are struggling (sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly) to make it through life without Jesus.

Even with as many churches as we have in Newberg, if everybody who lives here wanted to come, we couldn’t fit them all… even if we filled every seat in every church.

The needs are HUGE, and we’ve got to come together as churches to serve our community in love. And, I really think God’s doing that!

I’ve mentioned before that I meet each Wednesday with Tim Clark and Shaun McNay, pastors of the Foursquare Church and Northside Community Church.

When Shaun and Tim and I started meeting last year, we had a clear sense that God wanted to start a sort of “grass roots” unity movement for churches in Newberg. And God kept giving us experiences that confirmed that sense.

Shaun spent 10 days last summer in England, being mentored by a pastor there. It was an amazing experience for him, and one of the things he experienced was an amazing experience for us, too.

Shaun had a man come to him in England, and give a sort of prophetic word from God. It was about being the “tap root” of a plant, the one that goes down first, burrowing into the hard ground to get to the depths of the rich soil for the good of the whole plant.

The man said, “God’s using you to be a taproot in Newberg. And it’s for the good of the whole church in Newberg.” Then came the line that stood out to me: “There’s only one church in Newberg- it just meets in different buildings.”

There’s one church in Newberg-it just meets in different buildings! That picture has changed my perspective and my prayers and my relationships in this community.

Each church has a God-defined mission that is their own.

We have ours, and the other churches have theirs. We’re not competing with any other church, because God is the one in charge. God has people for us to love and connect with, and God has different people for the other churches to connect with.

So we can celebrate the good things God is doing in other churches, because we’re with them! We can and should pray for other churches in our community, because it helps our common goal, to bring Jesus’ love and truth to Newberg and the surrounding community.

And let me tell you, God is at work in other churches in ways that are definitely worth celebrating!

In January, I was at the Ministerial Association meeting at the hospital.

Dave Benson, pastor at the First Assembly of God church, shared a story that moved me tremendously. Dave’s been at the Assembly of God church for a little over a year. Before he came, there was some tension and division in their church.

Ron and Heidi Thomason, who had been worship leaders at the Assembly of God, had been removed from their position. People were divided about the circumstances. Several years after the Thomason’s were asked to leave, they started a new church called GodSong here in town. Some people from First Assembly joined GodSong, and the tension was high.

Dave Benson, as new pastor, came into that situation and knew there needed to be healing. He and his wife built a relationship with the Thomasons, and over time, as they prayed together, they felt clear it was time to heal any bad feelings. Each went back to their churches, and the result was amazing.

One Sunday night, leaders and members from the First Assembly of God went to join GodSong for worship. In the service, they asked for and received forgiveness. Then, the next Sunday night, the reverse happened. Folks from GodSong came to First Assembly, and they asked for and received forgiveness.

It’s been a huge movement of healing in their churches!

God helped these two groups break the barriers between them, and be able to bless and encourage each other to follow God’s leading.

When Dave shared this story at the Ministerial Association, many of the pastors were moved. In fact, some of the other churches, which were born out of church splits years ago, began to talk about how they might follow this example to reconcile and bring healing.

God’s up to something!

It’s happening with pastors, who are asking forgiveness from each other. It’s happening with church members, restoring relationships and praying for each other.

Dave and Ron are now meeting with Shaun and Tim and I each week. We go to one of our churches each week, and we pray together for God to move. We bless each other. We pray for each other.

And I can honestly say that I now want those churches to succeed as much as I want Newberg Friends to succeed.

We’re on the same team! When we love God, we love his family. We love our brothers and sisters, and we recognize that with all of our diversity and different ways of doing things, we are brought together by our love for Jesus Christ.

So today, we’re going to celebrate and pray for what God is doing in other churches in Newberg.

We’ll love God today, we’ll love others today, by worshipping him and by praying for other churches.

In your worship folder, you’ll see prayer requests from four other churches in Newberg. In each service today, people from one or two of these churches are joining us, and later in the service we’ll pray for them and their churches.

What a joy to have them with us, as a tangible sign of how we are connected as one family!

Let’s worship God together, knowing that people around Newberg and the world are gathering right now to worship God also.