Rev Ivan Clark was inducted as a minister of the Word at Noranda Uniting Church on Sunday 19 February.
Prior to induction at Noranda, Ivan has been serving as a minister of the Word at Melville Uniting Church, and has been the chair of the Strategy Mission and Planning Committee. He had also been involved with Youth Council when it was operating.
Rev Margaret Tyrer preached at the service, opening with an anecdote about her grandparents and parents building houses, and describing the hard work they put into it. Tying into the reading of 1 Corinthians 3:10-23, Margaret said that the Apostle Paul used vocabulary around building, and he identified with the application to provide for the family.
“But Paul was not writing about anything physical,” she said. “He was using words about physical things to refer to something spiritual. He was using metaphor.
“When he called himself ‘a skilled master builder,’ he was not referring to digging trenches. He was referring to his apostolic preaching, to his sustained application of focus and skill in calling forth this fledgling Christian congregation in Corinth.
“Ultimately, God is the ‘skilled master builder,’ and the foundation God has chosen to use for this build, the church, is Jesus Christ, who took this world so seriously it crucified him, and this the church is called to proclaim,” Margaret said.
“Our true participation in God’s build, our building one another up, cannot by-pass our following the crucified Christ, for only a house with foundations remains standing.”
Ivan responded to his induction saying that he was looking forward to what might be built and that he was excited knowing that God is with them on the journey.
Click here to download and read Margaret’s full sermon.
