June 14th, 2026 - "For Such a Time as This" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at fumcbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: Amen.

Welcome again to worship.

My name's Michelle Morris.

I'm the lead pastor here.

And today is a State of the Church Address, and it is both a end of year

and midyear State of the Church Address.

It's the end of our fiscal year, middle of a calendar year.

So hopefully you'll find this helpful and centering.

And so to get us in that frame of mind, we're gonna hear this

passage from the Book of Esther.

"In reply, Esther ordered Hathach to tell Mordecai, 'All the king's officials and

the people in his provinces know that there's a single law in a case like this.

Any man or woman who comes to the king in the inner courtyard without

being called is to be put to death.

Only the person to whom the king holds out the gold scepter may live.

In my case, I haven't been called to come to the king for the past 30 days.'

When they told Mordecai Esther's words, he had them respond to Esther, 'Don't

think for one minute that unlike all the other Jews, you'll come out of this alive

simply because you are in the palace.

In fact, if you don't speak up at this very important time, relief and rescue

will appear for the Jews from another place, but you and your family will die.

But who knows?

Maybe it was for a moment like this that you came to be part of the royal

family.' Esther sent back this word to Mordecai: 'Go, gather all the

Jews who are in Susa and tell them to give up eating to help me be brave.

They aren't to eat or drink anything for three whole days, and I myself will do

the same, along with my female servants.

Then, even though it's against the law, I will go to the king, and if I am

to die, then die I will.' So Mordecai left where he was and did exactly what

Esther had ordered him." This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In Your holy name we pray.

Amen.

The Book of Esther, I think you can gather, is a book of great tension.

And it's a really, like, compelling plot.

And we kind of hit the crux moment in the story, is what I read to you.

So I'm gonna give you the fuller story.

The story opens up with a king and a queen, Queen Vashti and King Ahasuerus.

And Queen Vashti does something that upsets the king, so

he dismisses her as queen.

And so they have to find another queen.

So they identify some women in the kingdom to come and be kind of in

a beauty contest, in all honesty, to see who will be the queen.

And Esther is one of those who is chosen.

Esther is a Jewish woman.

She is an orphan.

She has been raised by her cousin, Mordecai.

Esther and the other women that are brought into this place get a year-long

spa treatment basically to get them all good and ready to go meet the king.

And in the course of that time, Esther does get chosen.

She's chosen to be the queen for Ahasuerus.

Now, at the same time, there's this man named Haman who is risen

up in the ranks, and he is now in a very prominent position, and

Haman is very full of himself.

So he's decided to make it an order that everyone should bow before him

every time they come across him, and Mordecai refuses to do that.

And he says, "I refuse to do this because I'm a Jew, and Jews only bow before

God, never before a man." So Haman gets mad and convinces the king to make an

order to condemn and kill all the Jews.

Now, the king does not know that Esther is a Jew.

So this is where Mordecai then challenges Esther that she needs

to stand up for her people.

She needs to go before the king and advocate for them and save them.

And Esther, who is terrified of losing her life, says, "No.

Absolutely not." To which he says, "You think you're going

to be safe in all of this?

No.

So instead, stand up for your people." And that's the challenge he gives her, but he

also gives her this con- encouragement.

"Perhaps it was for such a time as this that you were brought into the palace."

So Esther does, with the support of her people, become brave enough to go

before the king, and in the course of the events that she orchestrates, she

convinces the king not to kill the people.

As for Haman, let's just say he impales in comparison.

And as a result, Mordecai gets his job, and the people are saved.

For such a time as this.

That is the most famous line from the Book of Esther

And I think it's famous because it's very catchy, but I think it's

also famous because it actually contains within it the theology that

is at work in the Book of Esther.

Esther is unusual in that in the entire book, God is never mentioned.

Strange book to be in the Bible, to have a book that never mentions

God, but Esther is that book.

However, what people point out is that it seems that God is present working

behind the scenes, moving the pieces into place so that the people, when they

encounter this threat, will be saved.

However, as God is honoring free will, still relies on people to

make the choices that matter.

Like Mordecai, who encourages and urges Esther to stand up for the people.

And Esther, who decides to be brave and risk her own life on behalf of others.

You know, you could say that this church has been going through

years-long spa treatments.

We peeled some things off with the pandemic.

We burned off the cellulite of our debt.

We got a makeover in Heinz.

We went through a very painful waxing in the tornado.

And we're about to get a facelift for our steeple and exterior.

In addition, we've done quite a bit of strength training, building

our faith and building our community over the past few years.

And I want us to stop and reflect on what we look like now.

There's a pile of papers up here.

I'll go over them at the end of the worship service.

But one of the pieces of paper is a copy of our budget for this

year, as well as a summary of where our budget stands as of the 11th

month of our budget for this year.

So I want to share with you some details from those budgets and to say that

with one month to go on our current budget, our expenses are currently $318

under what we projected.

I mean, like seriously, we cut it close.

It's technically a 0%.

Technically, we hit it basically exactly.

However, our income is $137,245 over what we budgeted.

That's an 11% overage, y'all.

That's amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you to all of you that have been giving continuously

for years and years and years.

And thank you to the new folks that have joined us, who have seen

something worth investing in in this church and have stepped forward

to make that difference as well.

So with that reality, our 2026, 2027 budget, which runs from July 1,

2026 to June 30, 2027, shows growth.

We're getting to grow the budget this year by 6.7%.

Now, I gave you a challenge in the spring that we could grow the budget

by 4%, 6%, or 8%, and you landed between the 6 and 8%, you all.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

Yes.

So what do we do with that growth?

Well, the two places where we grew the most, one is in the trustees budget.

Shocker.

Just like your utilities are going up, the church's utilities are going up.

Just like your insurance is going up, the church's insurance is going up.

So we made some growth happen there.

But our biggest growth was actually in our budget for worship and for

family ministries, for our children and our youth, which combined will

get to grow by 26.6% this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What an investment in our kids, right?

Now, we are submitting a deficit budget, which may seem strange in a year where

we grew things, um, to have a deficit budget, and you'll see it on there.

It's about $16,000.

What that deficit is, is we do see growth, and especially in our family ministries.

That's where the greatest amount of pressure has gone.

So we need to really look at the time of adding another staff member.

So that amount is almost exactly the amount of adding a part-time staff

member in January, which staff parish is anticipating if growth continues.

If growth does not, we don't have to add that position

So if we don't add that position, we basically end with a flat budget.

But I wanted you to be aware of what that is.

That's making space if the growth continues to grow.

I also want to, as we're taking a look at where we sit right now,

put us in the broader picture.

We're currently the third largest United Methodist Church

in the Northwest District.

Only the Centrals are larger than us, Central Rogers and Central Fayetteville.

That makes us the fifth largest United Methodist Church in the state.

We are growing in giving.

We are growing in attendance.

And most importantly for me, we are growing in discipleship because the

amount of mission and ministry that you all do within and outside of this church

constantly amazes me, whether it's our work with schools, or the nonprofits

that have come out of this place, or the fact that we're taking time to take

care of creation, the ways that we're engaging in our community in significant

levels, and the depth of our faith in Jesus Christ for such a time as this.

Because in the midst of us stopping and taking this moment of congratulations,

we also need to recognize that there are still significant threats all around us.

The pantry continues to grow.

It doubled in need two years ago.

It grew again in 2025.

It's up 17% from 2025 just in the half part of 2026.

There's still need, basic needs in our community that have to be met.

If you come to the Land Learning Lunch, the one that's after this service, or

the one in the coming month that is ahead of us, you will learn more specifics.

But I wanna share with you that if you look at the percentage of income that

goes to housing and transportation, it's more expensive to live here than to live

in Nashville, or Austin, or Manhattan

And then of course, we all are facing inflation, right?

And we feel this palpable sense of pressure on our community of what we've

known and how safe we have felt, and all of those are very real worries.

And we feel those worries in this building too.

And yet in the midst of that, there is that prophetic knock on our door

That reminder, these are your people, First United

Methodist Church of Bentonville.

This is your community.

What happens to them happens to you

We are not in isolation from the people around us, nor would I ever want us to be.

So we may feel all dolled up and in a pretty good position,

but it's not for our own vanity.

It's a position with purpose It is a call on our lives.

It is a call on our church.

And so we are moving into this season of prayer and fasting and

reflection and seeking guidance.

As we move into this conversation about what we could potentially

do with the land to the west.

I will share with you another piece of paper that's up here, is a land

discernment covenant that's been put together by your leadership and agreed to.

And there's copies if you wanna take a copy.

There's also a copy on our website.

But I wanna share with you, as we decide what we're going to do, and

no decision has been made, none.

As we decide what we're going to do, this is what we are

committed to through the process.

Transparency first.

If you ever wanna see, know what's going on, like I said,

it's already on the website.

Lots of things are already available.

We're having these lunches, all of this, making everything available.

Every voice matters.

Every voice.

Even if you're shy about sharing it, we've created ways for you

to share your thoughts online or to leave anonymous comments.

We will seek mission alignment over financial optimization.

And that does not mean that we will be reckless with our resources.

It means that we're not a for-profit entity.

We're not a business.

We're God's church.

So the decisions we make are with that spirit, not a spirit

of trying to generate profit.

We acknowledge that decisions are reversible until they aren't.

That faithful stewardship means asking hard questions, and we will

remain open to the Holy Spirit.

I encourage you to come to one of these land learning lunches.

There's one this afternoon, like right after this worship service.

There is one June 28th that also provides childcare.

And there's one July 12th, right after these services.

But if you can't make any of those, we're recording it and

we'll make it available online.

It's gonna be that we're all gonna share the same information.

This one today is not a question and answer space.

It is just getting the information.

Once we move past the land learning lunches, we will move into small

group conversations where we'll start collecting everyone's thoughts,

opinions, questions, all of that.

Okay?

Please be part of this.

You matter.

You're helping us discern what we are supposed to do for God in this moment.

How do we know this is the season to do this?

Well first, because the threats are significant.

No one is called to do great things for God in an easy time.

But we also know because God has been moving the pieces into place.

God has laid on your hearts this passion to care for the vulnerable

among us, which I know because I've been having conversations with

you about it in the Four Questions conversation for five years.

Mm-hmm.

And that's consistently what you say.

That's from God.

We were able to participate in the Faithful Foundations program, which

teaches churches about land development.

We were able to be in the inaugural class for that so that we could

even know if it was possible for us to do something like this.

Bentonville's in the middle of rezoning itself, and in the course

of that, we've been able to advocate for zoning for our church that makes

it very flexible on what we could do.

We had a consultant, Jennifer Cork, who has joined our congregation and has helped

design this process of discernment for us, and is doing so as a gift to her church

And, and we're gonna be quiet about this one, y'all, the conference has

left your pastoral leadership in place.

Shh, I said be quiet.

I said be quiet.

This is about to be my sixth year.

The advantage of being in a place for six years is that the connections

within the community now are pretty deep, and I was just elected as a

founding member of the board of the Northwest Arkansas Housing Coalition.

That gives me contact with a lot of people and a lot of resources as

we help discern what we need to do.

It also helps me advocate for people in this community.

So no matter what we do with this land, we'll continue to

be a voice for those in need.

God has moved a lot of pieces into place.

God is at work.

But now it's up to us.

Now we have to respond.

Now we have to do the hard work.

Now we have to ask the questions.

Now we have to seek God's will and then be brave enough to do it, whatever it is.

It's okay for us to acknowledge our fears.

It's okay for us to acknowledge our worries

And it is good that we take seriously the threats around us.

But in the midst of that, as the people of faith, we move through them

with God's strength and guidance.

It's what we've been prepared to do.

It's who we are prepared to be.

We are this people of faith for such a time as this.

Thanks be to God.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you would like to let us know you were here, follow the link below to connect.

To participate in worship through giving, you can give

online at fumcbentonville.org.

FUMC Bentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table, we invite

everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach, aspiring to follow Jesus' example of

radical hospitality, love, and grace as a transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM, 10:10 AM, and 11:00

AM, live and on our YouTube channel.

Grace and peace.