The Good News

Well, now I’m excited! A year or so ago, our Vision & Leadership Team asked whether now (then) might be the time to enter a Strategic Planning Process. We all looked at each other, knowing the work that goes into such an effort and decided: no. We just didn’t have the capacity to do that work well. And more time passed.

This afternoon we confirmed 21 of our young people. Yesterday we hosted our annual Fall Festival and trunk or treat which was the busiest yet. Our Sunday School students are working on learning songs for the Christmas pageant. The choir sang what I would say was a difficult song beautifully done at the 8:00 worship service. Confirmands talked about what makes a space sacred and kids during the 10:30 service built a temple with their imaginations and became the priests who were sent out to do God’s work. Then they surprised everyone by coming back to the sanctuary through the door by the organ. Adults gathered to learn and support one another. People shared their favorite Halloween costume with someone they didn’t know well at the beginning of worship. We welcomed new members. We built community. We served our neighbors. On and on the stories go of life at First this weekend. And I stood and watched and wondered at the place God called me to nearly 14 years ago.

In church work, we are always working ahead, so this Christmas carol has been in my head for days. I think mostly because the idea of a still and hushed world feels like a dream. It is two weeks before the election, our lives are inundated with political ads that tell us only the worst of the world, and tension lives even among people who are voting for the same people.

There is no end to the possibilities of what we, as a church, could do to participate in the love, mercy and kindness of God. There are hundreds of local institutions, charities and ministries that feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the diseased and support those in real need. There are thousands of such groups statewide, nationally and some that even make it their work to help people across the globe. With so much need and so many deserving groups, many churches can become overwhelmed by their options. Instead of cultivating significant partnerships or offering a meaningful amount of support to any one, churches can aimlessly scatter their concern everywhere, which is only better than thoughtlessly offering their concern nowhere at all—except unto themselves.

In church work, we are always working ahead, so this Christmas carol has been in my head for days. I think mostly because the idea of a still and hushed world feels like a dream. It is two weeks before the election, our lives are inundated with political ads that tell us only the worst of the world, and tension lives even among people who are voting for the same people.