This year, for the 114^th time, people from Friends churches all over Washington, Idaho, and Oregon are gathering in Newberg for Yearly Meeting.

Here’s a picture of this room at the second Yearly Meeting session, in 1894. [SLIDE] Wait a minute…look at that guy at the table. We need a closer look at that. [SLIDE] Yeah! That’s…that’s…[SLIDE] COLIN SAXTON, OUR SUPERINTENDENT! I had no idea he was so old…

We today are all part of this gathering of Friends, this community of believers in Jesus Christ. We are all part of a movement of God, partners with a rich history, a group of people that has brought change to countless lives.

It doesn’t always feel that way, does it? I can admit to feeling many times as though we spend too much time on things of no importance, as a church and as a Yearly Meeting. I can admit to thinking many times that we are irrelevant to our culture, focused on all the wrong things.

But I want so much more.

I hope this isn’t a mid-life crisis yet, but I’ve been thinking and praying lots lately about who I am, what I’m doing, and whether it’s really making a bit of difference in the things that matter.

Personally–and I’m guessing many if not all of you could agree–I have times when I so passionately want my life to be used by God in ways that matter and make a difference…and I have many more times when I’m consumed by the mundane “urgencies” of each day, getting caught up in things that neither I nor anyone else will remember in 20 years.

I want what I do with my life to make a difference in our world; I want my life to demonstrate to others that God is alive, that his son Jesus has courageously embraced us, that God’s Spirit empowers us to live a life of power and meaning.

I don’t want to get caught up in my own vanity, either. I want to learn how to let Jesus Christ so live in my life, that I and everyone else recognize that Christ is the source, not me.

When I broaden out to Newberg Friends and to our Yearly Meeting, I could say exactly the same thing.

At times, we are so passionately focused on wanting God to use us, wanting to make a difference in the lives of the people we encounter…and many more times we get caught up in mundane routine, doing things that no one will remember in 20 years.

But we want more! We want to change the communities in the Northwest where we all live and work and play. We want to make a difference in places around the world that don’t know about God’s love for them, we want to work for justice and life in places where there is oppression and death.

Not so that we can pat ourselves on the back for having a good Yearly Meeting. We want to learn how to let Jesus Christ live in and through us, so that the whole world can see Jesus can live in them, too.

I’m most happy with who I am when I am intently listening to Jesus and joyfully acting in obedience.

And we are most effective when we are intently listening to Jesus and joyfully acting in obedience. This is who we were meant to be!

One of the joys I’ve had in the past few years is reading about and learning the history of Newberg Friends and our Yearly Meeting. I didn’t grow up among Friends, and discovering our beginnings, discovering the incredible passion and obedience and world-changing vision that birthed Northwest Yearly Meeting has been inspiring.

[SHOW SLIDE] William Hobson is the man most responsible for our Yearly Meeting. Deeply committed to God and traditional, unprogrammed Quaker worship, he felt God’s call late in life to come live here in Newberg as a missionary. He wanted to build a “Garden of the Lord”, a community where people listened to Jesus and obeyed him.

At that time, in the 1870’s, there were no Yearly Meetings west of the Mississippi.

Religious revivals had swept over our country in powerful ways…but had left Quakers largely untouched and spiritually stunted.

[SLIDE] John Henry Douglas was just about the polar opposite of William Hobson, with one exception: he, like Hobson, had a burning passion to follow God and help others do the same. He was a fiery revivalist preacher who brought many innovations to Quakers: programmed meetings, released pastors, and a strong emphasis on the bible.

God’s hand was on his life, and literally hundreds of people came to follow Jesus Christ in the Northwest because of Douglas.

Near the end of Douglas’ life, Oregon Yearly Meeting, as we were then called, celebrated its 25^th anniversary.

Over in the archives at George Fox’s library, I found this letter [SLIDE] that Douglas wrote to be read on that occasion. It’s a powerful acknowledgement of what God had done in our Yearly Meeting. Douglas [SLIDE], as an old man, issued a strong call to keep Jesus at the forefront.

His letter [SLIDE] celebrated the way hundreds of people had come to know Jesus. 30 churches had been planted. The power of God was evident in mighty ways, as our Yearly Meeting worked hard to attend to God in all areas of life: evangelism, social justice, missions, and education.

These were scattered people, pioneers, lonely and diverse people that God brought together and used mightily.

Listen to the hope and the calling in Douglas’ words, words almost 100 years old which speak to us still today [SLIDE]:

It has been my privilege to see the church rise from stagnation, to a living aggressive body. I have seen six Yearly Meetings established, and seven colleges built. I have seen the beginnings of our missionary work and its progress, also the Evangelistic and Church extension interest, and the great Christian Endeavor [a powerful youth] movement, so that we can exclaim, “What hath God brought in the church since 1860!”

If God can have a blood washed and Spirit filled church, the future may be made greatly to prosper, souls will be saved and added to the church, many will be called specifically to labor in word and doctrine, [SLIDE] and the great Northwest will feel the effects of your faithfulness… and great joy and peace will be yours. GO FORWARD!

[SLIDE] Go forward!

Those words are still ours now. It’s my heart’s desire, not to move back to the good old days, but to follow the voices from the good old days and GO FORWARD to what God has for us!

But is it even possible? Are we too scattered, too different? What is it that will help us to move forward?

Please turn with me to 1 Peter, chapter 1.

[READ 1 Peter 1:1-2]

If we think we’re scattered and isolated all over the Northwest, we have company in the people this letter is addressed to. These were provinces spread out over a huge area covering more than modern day Turkey, people who felt neglected and alone, who were suffering persecution.

1 Peter says from the very beginning, though, who they really are: they are chosen by God, made holy by God’s Holy Spirit, obedient to Jesus and kept safe by him.

My guess is, when this was read to some of those people, they did the equivalent of our modern day eye-rolling. “Yeah, right! We’re forgotten, not chosen. We’re not Antioch, or Jerusalem, or Rome. We’re not the big-wigs. God barely notices us, let alone uses us.”

But all through the letter of 1 Peter, there is one consistent theme: God is at work, building together followers of Jesus.

Jesus is the center of it all, the foundation and the reason and the power. God is at work, and everyone is invited to be a part. No one is forgotten, not even in the forgotten places of the world.

It’s been good for me to read 1 Peter this week, to be reminded that Jesus is the supreme center of all of life.

Sometimes we feel like we want to be the center of attention, but we’re always forgotten and passed over. Sometimes we think we are all that, the ones in the know and with the power. But inferiority and arrogance both miss what 1 Peter wants to remind us: WE are not the center, GOD is. [READ 1 Peter 1: 24-25]

And here comes the theme again in chapter 2, the theme that Jesus is the center and we are valued and welcomed in, no matter who we are. [READ 2: 4-5]

GOD is building us together. Even those in the hinterlands of Asia, away from the bustling centers of Jerusalem and Rome. Even those in the scattered communities of the Northwest, far away from New York and Beijing.

We are God’s!

We are Christ’s! We…Northwest Yearly Meeting and all of Christ’s followers around the world…are being built together on Jesus, the chief cornerstone. [READ 2:9-10]

This longing I have, this longing we have….this longing to do something significant, to be changed, to make a difference…it’s realized by our connection with God through Jesus Christ.

God makes us a people, God uses us as priests for each other, speaking God’s truth and forgiveness…we are God’s people! And he has called us “out of darkness into his wonderful light!”

This is the center that re-orients us out of the mundane of life, out of the frustration of feeling we are living in futility. We are part of what God is doing in the world! We participate with God as priest in the world. We declare to the world what God has done in us, and what God is able to do in all people!

This is what God’s people have known from the beginning.

Those first century Christians in modern-day Turkey experienced it. The early Quakers experienced. William Hobson and John Henry Douglas and many others lived it in our Yearly Meeting.

And this is our center today. We can “Go Forward” as God’s people, not just look back. 1 Peter itself reminds us that life with God is about going forward, about action. [READ 1: 13-16]

May this be a time where we choose to go forward.

May we choose to prepare our minds for action; to discipline ourselves; to set all our hope on the grace that Jesus will bring us!

I will find significance, you and I will find meaning in life, as we no longer conform ourselves to evil desires. Let us center on Jesus: “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”

We are the people of God!