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2/18/2021 0 Comments

Lent is meant to be a season to prepare us for Easter...

Beloved of God,
If you have any interest in joining our Lenten book study, it isn’t too late. You can join our class at this link. We will be meeting online together beginning next Wednesday.

We have a congregational meeting a week from Sunday (2/28). As we continue to evaluate proposed changes to our bylaws, I hope you will spend some time reviewing the proposed changes and engaging with the church council’s basis for these proposals. Please review these documents prayerfully and carefully.

I wanted to speak a little bit about the Lenten season we have entered as of yesterday. The background of traditions within this church is broad enough that we all have likely had different levels of exposure to Lenten practice.

Lent is meant to be a season in which we prepare our hearts for Easter by learning to rely more fully on God’s provision. The forty days of Lent are modeled on Christ’s forty days in the wilderness during which he was tempted. It is meant to be an exercise in taking an honest measure of anything that might be keeping us from trusting God fully, and finding a way to leave it behind. Perhaps there is something, likely even a good thing, that you have come to rely on. Would the absence of it remind you to pray, to turn to God, to be grateful or thankful? Perhaps you recognize that you might be able to grow in discipleship if you adopted a habit or a practice for these forty days. Maybe journaling your prayers, or reading through Amos, or memorizing some of the Psalms would serve to ground you more deeply in Christ.
But whatever you might choose to do, I hope you remember that Lent is about redirecting our own attention and intention. It is about clearing enough space in our hearts and minds so that when Christ goes to the cross on Good Friday, and rises from the grave on Easter Sunday, that we can receive that truth and celebrate it as fully as we may. You don’t have to pick up any extra Lenten practice at all. We’re free church people who claim priesthood for all believers, and you have enough wisdom to know if such a practice will help you. But if you do, I hope that you are blessed, that you learn, and that you grow.

Please join me this week in praying for:

An end to this pandemic.
Those who are needing medical care and attention in such a hectic time.
Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local level.
Those locally and elsewhere for whom winter weather is far more dangerous than just inconvenience or discomfort.
Doctors, nurses, PA’s and paramedics as they continue to work to keep us all well.
Our congregation as we consider multiple changes to our bylaws in the coming weeks
Those among us who are traveling in the coming days.
Students, teachers, school staff and administration as they jointly pursue education for those in our community.
Moments of joy, peace, and comfort as we seek after our Savior and learn to listen for His voice.
Each other ( please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list).

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall

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2/4/2021 0 Comments

There is so much you can learn by listening...

Beloved of God,

I cannot remember a time when a month went by as quickly as January of 2021.
In just a few weeks’ time we will be beginning our Lenten study of N.T. Wright’s Lent for Everyone. There will be daily readings mainly from the gospel of Mark. We’ll check in together once a week to see what new things we have learned and where we are hearing God’s voice. If you’d like to sign up for that study a link is available here.

I also want you to be thinking about ways that you might use your gifts to lead our congregation in worship. One thing we have learned as this pandemic has dragged on is that coordinating a worship service with fewer people able to serve conforming to the prescribed restrictions can prove very difficult. We began to wonder if there might be space for folks to offer testimony, to tell a story, to write a responsive reading, or to record worship music played and sung at home. If you are reading this and feel like you’re hearing your name called, I hope you’ll email me so we can talk further about it.

One of our alternate readings for this week is from 1 Corinthians 9 where Paul talks about being “all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” I have to admit that I spend a good bit of time thinking about this as it pertains to our community. Many of you will have a deeper sense of the secularity in our little community than I have, but it is significant. I often wonder what obstacles exist in coming to faith for these folks. Is it their own past experience? Is it a Christian co-worker who they just can’t manage to get along with? Is it politics? Is it a deep sense of shame, or unbelonging, real or imagined?

I have to tell you that I have always found talking about faith with non-religious folks to be something deeply challenging, and interesting. There is so much you can learn by listening. Someday this pandemic will be over, and we will have an opportunity to hash it out as a broader community. I wonder if some of those folks will have questions where we have answers. I wonder if they will have learned things about themselves that lead them to you, their Christian friends. I hope that when that moment arrives we’ll be ready to speak kindly, and truthfully, but above all that we’ll be ready to listen. I’m certain that if we can, it will be worth it, and we might just save some.

Please join me this week in praying for:

An end to this pandemic.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, PA’s and other healthcare professionals working to keep us all well.
Wisdom for those in positions of public trust at the federal, state and local level.
Those seeking various kinds of medical treatment in these difficult days.
Families, that moments of joy will be present even amidst and among moments of stress and strain.
Students, teachers, administrators and others trying to do the good work of education .
Those who are grieving, or lonely, or hurting at a time when it’s difficult to as “together” as we would wish.
Open eyes and ears to see and hear those around us who need our care, comfort and help.
Each other ( please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer ministry).