May God surround us all with grace and compassion as walk through yet again another new season. May we have grace with each other, with our children (o Lord especially with my own children) and with ourselves.

Friends let us support one another. We can do this…Lord may we have faith that we can!

As a young adult female, for a long time, I felt the need to keep a million balls in the air, to be able to handle everything at once, to keep the kids happy, work happy, and really everyone happy—with me coming in last. But as I have aged a little and gained some much needed experience, I am seeing that the world keeps turning and that I need to slow down and just live in the moment.

The moment is now, enjoy it!

I reposted a post this week on my personal page. It went like this:

“Don’t just invite people to church.

Invite them to lunch.

Invite them to your table or patio.

Invite them into your life!

BE THERE FOR THEM.

We—not our building—are the church!”

Can I get an AMEN! One thing I have learned—the most valued thing I have learned-since taking a step back from the ‘traditional’ church structure, is how much wider CHURCH is, how much bigger and fuller being a Christian is than what we experience within the narrow domain of a brick and mortar building on Sunday morning.

Church should not just be the place you go for an hour a week. Church should not just be your congregation in your small corner of the world. Church should not be limited to the confines of your congregation nor your denomination. God is bigger, so much bigger, than that!

Church should be the way that we live our life out everyday…as followers of Christ.

We should ‘be church’ in the way we interact with our neighbor, with our friends, with our family, with strangers. We should ‘be church’ in the way we share love and compassion, the way we deal with trails and tribulations, the way that we walk through the world. We should ‘be church’ in our hospitality and our grace. We should ‘be church’ in our best and in our worst as we stand with others in their best and their worst. in this is the wholeness of Christ. In our broken, in our best, in our Sunday best and in our yoga pants, we are the church when show the love of Christ through our actions to all those we are in contact with.

Church is not just a building, or a congregation, or one denomination, CHURCH is a way of walking through the world as followers of Christ.

Let us be church!

God of renewal, we are approaching summer. These last weeks of school are always full of thing to do and places to be. These weeks in May bring change in weather and busy schedules for all. Help us to find the energy to face these days with joy. May we find moments to pause a take in the glory of moments before us. Help us to trust in you in the midst of transitions and change. Let us find the energy from the longer the days and warmer weather that we may enjoy this time and draw near to you.

Amen

God of love and grace, each new day we rise to what lies ahead.

Each new moment presents us with new opportunities.

Help us to step forward into the new hope that given with each dawn. Use us to bring your kingdom to light, in big and small ways.

Restore us.

Revive us.

Fill us.

Your glory is unending and your love everlasting.

Let us live into the new day as your children of hope.

Amen

Clergy Support for COVID-19 Vaccine

We are pastors and clergy who have received the COVID-19 vaccine, believing it is effective and trusting in its safety.

We did so as a way of living out our Christian calling to love our neighbor in word and deed, which is affirmed in scriptures such as : "... since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us (1 John 4:11-12)" and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:9-17).

While we understand that the COVID-19 vaccine may not be a viable choice for everyone, we would like to invite you to talk to your primary care physician to determine if you are a good candidate, and if so, we invite you to join us in this step of love and care. Thank you.

I hope that one day we can all gather again in public without masks and without worrying if those around us have been vaccinated. I cannot wait for the day that my family can sit down in a restaurant and enjoy a meal that was not prepared or eaten at home! But the number of cases that we are seeing does not lead me to believe that we are there yet. My call, as a Christian, to care for the least of those among us does not lead me to believe that we are there yet. We are close, but if we all give up on that call, if we throw caution to the wind for the sake of our own personal comfort that point will only move further down the road. We will only suffer more pain and loss. We will continue to be stuck here in the middle.

Yesterdays glimpse of normal left me with joy and hope of a return to ‘normal’. It also left me with many questions of how to move forward into a better life than one before.

Constant God, so much in our world is unsteady. We stand on rocky ground and cross treacherous paths if we know it or not…Let us cling to you.