Covenant
of Hope Ministries Sunday Sermon_6_22_2014
Good
afternoon, and welcome to this Sunday Sermon for Covenant of Hope Ministries. I
am Rev. Laura A. Neff. The ministry knows me as the Rainbow Minister. Find us
posted on Sundays and studies on Wednesday. Our locations are online only:
We
have email (instant messenger if you need me) through Facebook every day. These
are now extremely variable. We’re still working this out between the two of us
as to what will happen, our Elder, Cal Jennings and I. I will inform you
further regarding changes. These changes were made due to health reasons. The
sermon length has shortened dramatically. We are unsure as to when there might
be video presentations.
Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list has grown from last week. This is our current prayer list for this week.
- Please keep Elder Cal Jennings in your prayers as he is very
sick, having been in the ER and more this week. His healing pathways continue
to be a mystery.
- Continue your prayers for Brother Wayne Bartosh’s family in
the loss of his father as they mourn him and pick up the pieces once more.
- Please pray for my friend Teresa’s sister who is in stage four
cancer.
- Please keep others known by any of us up in prayer for
whatever they might need.
- Please keep my friend Heather in prayer for patience and safe
haven.
- Please keep my whole family in prayer for the pain, suffering,
and chaos we are going through. We’ve had a few triumphs, and a few failures in
the past two weeks. Keep your prayers going that we’ll manage two more steps
forward.
- Pray that the adversity and the pain we have seen around the
world would be relieved, and swept away. May we find common ground in many
ways, even if we start with just one step.
- Remember those who have been lost either violently or
peacefully this week.
- Keep the ministry in your thoughts, each member, no matter
their location, their circumstances, because a group of friends, a ministry,
should support one another.
- There are many in our ministry who are searching for more in
regard to our presence with my health, and with the health of others. We pray
that there would be health found once more, and that we have answers to all and
for all.
- Add prayers of blessing for my eldest son, whose birthday is
tomorrow. He will be twenty-one.
Prayer:
Father in heaven, we thank You for this day and for these who
are here to share it with us. We praise You for every blessing brought in black
and white and every drop of color. We praise You for the faith You bring out of
each of us. We pray that Your blessings will reach the hearts and spirits of
those who need them, want them, and even those who don’t realize they would. We
pray for those who are in pain and sorrow, suffering, oppressed, or imprisoned.
We pray they have strength, faith, hope, and are able to share those gifts
through the power of Your love, the ultimate gift. We pray these things in Your
Holy Name through the Savior Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen and so
it shall be.
Sermon:
Our
elder, Cal Jennings and I were talking earlier this week. As a result of our
discussion I’m going to share the beginning, my beginnings in ministry. There
are many reasons this path was laid out as it is. There are just as many
reasons for the path, as the name Rainbow Minister. I could go back many more
years than I will for now. When I was fresh out of high school, only eighteen,
I was off to university, a very small Christian university, in Oklahoma. There
was a lot of freedom in just going out that far. It was the first time I’d been
all on my own, far more than five hundred miles from home. I was in a new place
with new faces, none of whom I had ever even met. The first week of school
changed my life, forever.
That
week I met several people who would change my life forever. Their names were
Bubbles, Faith, Vea, Corinth, Angel, Smiley, Hope, and Trinity. There were one
or two others, but the names escape me. It was the moment, the event, where I
got the name Rainbow. We were a unique sort of ministry, a clown ministry. We
dressed in outrageous clothes, wore clown makeup, and preached the gospel. It
was 1988, and I was still so very young.
Though
I was only able to stay with that group for three semesters, they were enough
to make me realize there was more than one reason for me to be part of this
world. Life became financially, physically, and emotionally difficult after the
third semester. I ended up going home and trying to pick up the pieces. Rainbow
had to fade into the background, though not too far back. I never realized that
experience would carry such an impact even five years into the future, much
less twenty.
In
2005, sixteen years after leaving Clown Alley behind, I again started pursuing
ministry with the encouragement of ten other people. One of them, surprisingly
enough, was my grandmother, who also was a minister. She found her calling
later in life, becoming a minister shortly before I was a teenager. When I was
ordained, my grandmother was in her last few months of life. I first adopted
the name Rainbow Minister when I was ordained. Grandma laughed when she read
that moniker after my name. She picked up the phone and called me, asking me
why. I told her quite simply this.
Genesis 9:16 NIV – Whenever the rainbow appears
in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God
and all the living creatures of every kind on earth.
It
was this verse that jumped off the page after I had dropped my bible on the
floor. It was just after we were asked to choose the name God gave us to have.
Inspiration would indeed prove true more than once. Poetry had been one of my outlets
long before ministry, but, were I to have every piece of poetry I had created
in the last near thirty years perhaps more than one inkling could be seen as to
what would happen with His ministry as my guide.
My
mother told me that, on the day I was born, it was pouring down rain. The day I
was being driven home for the first time, a huge rainbow spread across the sky.
Did this have any significance in the choice of the name? He only knows. I
didn’t know that particular piece of information until I’d been a minister for
almost five years.
A
short while ago my mentor, one of them anyway, passed away. Her name was Rev.
Teresa Piercey. When we were on the best of terms she considered some things
God winks. Those moments when something catches your attention and makes you
automatically feel as though your faith is reaffirmed. She called them God
winks. When I used the term rainbow hugs, she asked me why. I laughed, of
course. Rainbows hug the earth. Didn’t you ever notice how they go from one
horizon to the next? Wouldn’t you want to send a worldwide hug if you could?
That’s where the term comes from.
There
is a child’s song, Jesus Love the Little Children. Here are the lyrics for the
chorus.
Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
The
beauty of these lyrics would be simple. Colors are everywhere and we should
embrace them all. A rainbow of colors, we see and hear so much about color in
Scripture. There is a second song, one I learned as a Girl Scout years ago.
That song is A Rainbow Made of Children.
We’re
a Rainbow Made of children
We’re an army Just singin our song
There’s no weapons That can stop us
Rainbow love is Much to strong
I was born in, Mississippi
Saying yes sir to all the men
But I found that it got me nowhere
So I’ll never say it again
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
I was taught that black was evil
I was taught that white was good
But when you become a rainbow
All the colors are understood
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
I’m a girl scout with many sisters
There are girl guides all over the world
We have fun and lots of laughter
Come and join us anytime
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
Rainbow love it much to strong
We’re an army Just singin our song
There’s no weapons That can stop us
Rainbow love is Much to strong
I was born in, Mississippi
Saying yes sir to all the men
But I found that it got me nowhere
So I’ll never say it again
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
I was taught that black was evil
I was taught that white was good
But when you become a rainbow
All the colors are understood
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
I’m a girl scout with many sisters
There are girl guides all over the world
We have fun and lots of laughter
Come and join us anytime
We’re a rainbow made of children
We’re an army just singin our song
Theres no weapons that can stop us
Rainbow love is much to strong
Rainbow love it much to strong
It
doesn’t matter who we are. Life can be lived anywhere. All of us are part of
God’s rainbow. Each of us are, for one reason alone, God made a promise, and
He’s kept it. His promise started with a rainbow over the earth. That led to a
rainbow spread across the earth through Jesus and His love stretching near and
far through the Apostles and His ministry. All thanks to the fact that He
reminded us to follow Him with the heart of a child, carefree, and willing to
embrace the people, no matter who they would be or where they would live.
That’s the way it should be. That is also the reason for our mission statement,
a rainbow in the darkness. No matter where we live, day or night, there is a
rainbow somewhere.
We
have them shared in the beginning of Scripture. We have a second shown to be in
the middle. Here that one is in
Ezekiel 1:28 NIV – Like the appearance of
a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around
him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Notice
how it’s just a bit over halfway through Scripture when you get to the second
one? Yet, though there are several mentioning the rainbow in and around Genesis
9:13 you’ll only find the word rainbow in three books of Scripture. The last,
as the first, Alpha, and Omega, Genesis and Revelation. Here are the final two
verses as shared in the NIV.
Revelation 4:3 NIV – And the one who sat there had
the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald
encircled the throne.
Revelation 10:1 NIV – Then I saw another mighty
angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above
his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.
Rainbows
scientifically are the refraction of light off water droplets in the
atmosphere. Yet, spiritually they are so very much more. They are a seal, a promise,
from God, that water would never again cover the earth. Think about things this
way. When God first created earth, he had to move the waters away to bring out
the dry land. He had the waters cover that land over again in the days of Noah,
and since then has done everything to keep the water from swallowing all the
land up again causing all life to perish. What does He bring instead? He brings
us a pathway to heaven. That pathway is the rainbow, shared by Jesus, carrying
us like a stairway to heaven, in a bow full of colors. That’s a hug I’m waiting
for. I’d be certain you would be as well. Now that’s something to think about
as we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us saying: After
this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy
name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13 KJV)
~Shalom~
Covenant
of Hope Ministries
Scripture
Excerpts: The New Open Bible Study Edition:Copyright © 1990: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, Inc.
Scripture
Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © 1982: E. E. Gaddy and Associates, Inc.
Scripture
Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © circa 1890-1910: International Bible
Press,The John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, PA., USA
Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries and
Poetic-Expressions is not to exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all
that is created through fear together as the rainbow in the darkness.
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