Lent: The Season of Transitions

As we once again enter the church’s season of reflection and introspection, Union Church will have important and special work to do.
Ten years ago we entered a spring of reflection and discernment to discover how could we serve and what resources would we need to serve well.
That process resulted in core values and mission statement we that is still guide us. It also resulted in a 3-5 year action plan that included renovating our facility and increasing our staffing so we could serve Bereans of all walks better. We took on board structures that weren’t serving well and reworked them. We rededicated ourselves to being a proactive, anti-racist witness in the community, and to proclaiming the welcome of ALL persons. It was a big deal.
Significantly, the work and prayer then made possible the dream of an associate pastor position and a church administrator. We hired Dave Kobersmith in 2011 and the Rev. Rachel Small Stokes followed in the fall of 2012. These two servants of that mission vision are an important part of how we have been able to reach to the world with worship, work, and grace over these last years.
Now Rev. Rachel must move on. I say “must” because in every servant’s life there is a master who calls and invites. She’s been called to serve a church who needs her like we needed her. She’s been invited to unite her growing family in one city where they will all work and live. While we will miss her, we will never forget what she has brought to us, or how she taught us to be who needed to become. And we would never keep her from the work that God needs her to do to keep her family whole and to grow her gifts for leadership in the next right place.
I rejoice to have been partners with Rev. Rachel, and to have grown because of all she has brought. I will miss our daily camaraderie, her good humor and caring intelligent response to every situations. And I wouldn’t hold her back for all the world. If we love her and love her ministry, we must know and trust that God is a part of the next chapter as much as God was evident in the writing of this one.
And so we come back to us. We have important tasks this Lent, this time of reflection and discernment. I cannot do it alone, neither as pastor or caring member. But with you, and together, we can move forward in ways that will make a difference. I wonder if you could keep the following in your hearts and minds as we enter our Lenten Journey:

• What have you or we learned from these last years that we never want to lose? What has Rachel brought to us that we hope always to share with others? What could you do personally to embody that learning and how could you share it with someone else?
• When we hired our associate, we knew we wanted to reach into the community and to deepen our spirituality. How has this mission or need changed? What would you say is needed for truly good, truly faithful people to put their efforts towards? What’s electrifying and important enough to engage, and work, and struggle for? What kind of staffing could we dream about to advance that kind of work?
• What about you? Are you connected to the things that matter most to you? Are you feeling connected to a purpose that inspires you, perhaps scares you? Are you connected to enough people to help hold that vision? What could your church do to help you get connected, get equipped, get excited about a purpose like that? For what vision would you drop your nets, gather friends, get organized, make sacrifices and show love?

If these aren’t the questions keeping you up at night, I understand. There is so much static in the needs around us. But that’s why stopping to ask matters. These are the questions that enliven and nurture, connect and inspire.
And you deserve to be connected and inspired. Our work as a community of faith needs us to be connected and inspired. The world, hurting and fractured, cannot know a loving God or transforming love if we are worn out with dull labors.
So here is our Lenten call: to find out what matters and who cares and how to love well this world God places at our door. Martin Luther King, Jr famously said “Our lives begin to end when we cease to speak of things that matter.” God is not done with Union Church, and though we enter a season of transition, never doubt this: being connected and inspired about things that truly matter is the very life of any church. No pastor, or pastoral absence, can make or break that vision or mission. When we center, we grow. And so we will. Magnificently.
Rev. Rachel taught me that. To her: Godspeed, my friend, go swiftly to all that matters and inspires. You will always be written into the work of our hearts in this place. To all of us: There is yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s holy, living word. Let us seek it together!