It can be difficult to describe art. The colors in a painting, the ingredients in food or the shapes in architecture can just be listed (boring). But what do they mean? What feelings do they evoke? Good art uses everyday stuff to create fascinating layers of complexity. The trick for anyone who tries to describe art is to identify what ‘stands out’ from the canvas? What is the ‘star’ of the dish? Where do the lines of the shapes draw your attention?
I have been known to watch a cooking show or two. And for whatever reason, I like reading about architecture, music and creativity in general. Something I’ve noticed about people who try to capture the ‘soul’ of whatever art they are trying to describe is that they will use the word “forward” like a suffix. “Oooh, that song is very blues forward.” Or, “that dessert is extremely chocolate forward.” They have a LOT more they could say, but as a way of quickly summarizing their experience of a song or a piece of cake, they name the most essential element or trait at the heart of the thing… and then add “forward”. This communicates the most important thing to know about that art, while also alluding to the fact that there’s way more to it. There’s nuance and complexity and a lot to say… but of all the things, “that cake is ‘chocolate forward.’”
First Lutheran is “Faith Forward.” There’s a lot more to say about our church, but the most essential element at the heart of our fellowship is faith: the relationship God initiates at baptism. In 2026, we are, with great intentionality, moving Forward in our faith. Last spring, after a year or so of conversation and discernment, we announced three ‘aims’ First Lutheran decided to focus on in the near future:
Connect more deeply with God and each other. Over and over, mental health was named as the greatest challenge of our times. Well, the church has always had a gift to offer human mental health: community. Expanding small groups so that every age, every stage and every gender has multiple options to be in Christian community is our top priority. Instead of asking, “Are you in a small group?” The culture of our church could be to ask, “what small group are you in?”
Make a deeper community impact. Pick one community organization to partner with so that we can make a significant ongoing impact. Every age and stage will be able to support this partnership with their time, talents and dollars. As we join in such an effort together, we can share the joys that come with service.
Maximize the potential of our resources, including our facility, our staff and systems.
“Faith Forward” describes how we do Church together. It is also how we will refer to those three aims we identified through the Strategic Planning process. Instead of taking three paragraphs to remind everyone why we have moved all our database information to a new platform, Church Center, we will simply refer to it as, “part of how we are Faith Forward at First Lutheran.” When we announce the local partner we’ve chosen through whom we will seek to address the mental health of our community, we won’t mention the long winded “make a deeper community impact” aim. It’s another way we are living into “Faith Forward at First Lutheran.”
We have a LOT to celebrate in the coming months because of how much good work we’re doing both inside our walls and outside in the community. First Lutheran is truly living “Faith Forward.”
In Faith,
