Good morning…
“Merry Christmas,” she wrote after yesterday’s post, A Nifty Poem. “I love this poem. Our special retreat in Blue Ridge is like an outdoor church for me with a beautiful open field and surrounding woods. I love to take long quiet walks. I can listen to the Bobolink and his bird friends sing their songs and absorb God’s beauty. My ‘Dome’ are the trees and the glimpses of the mountain tops. I can talk to God and my precious loved ones and try to find stillness. I do miss my church community and connecting with others through music and sermons, but nature’s church has its own magic and messages too. The beauty of the recent snow added a little extra sparkle. Thank you for sharing.”
Nature’s church has its own magic and messages, I totally agree, and I too miss our church community and connecting with others through music and sermons, worship and mission opportunities, life-giving conversations and weekly classes in our living room, special prayer gatherings in our tiny chapel and hugging people of all ages, seeing babies baptized, teens confirmed, and sharing communion together regularly.
In mid December, as Steve and I hosted our small group from church for an evening of homemade chili and turkey/vegetable soup, together we unpacked this question: “When in your life have you felt the most vibrantly connected to a church community?” Each of us told stories of various worshipping communities, but a common thread was interesting to me. We all felt most connected to church when our children were young. When our families were active in Sunday School and Wednesday night suppers, when our kids enjoyed choir and youth group, and when we volunteered our time regularly to serve in needed ways, we each thrived as we lived out the old adage, “The more you put in, the more you get out.”
Then the next question came: “How can we make the second half of our life as church-goers as vibrant as the first half?” This question was harder. With COVID-related concerns keep many of us from the habit of physically going to church each week, it seems collectively we are slowly living into new, creative answers. Might our definition of “church-goers” be expanding as we speak? With online and in-person options, the church is forced to embrace another old adage, “Variety is the spice of life!”
And so the church enjoyed a period of peace and growth throughout the regions of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. The disciples lived in deep reverence for the Lord, they experienced the strong comfort of the Holy Spirit, and their numbers increased (Acts 9:31, VOICE). Please read with me a footnote from the Passion Translation connected to this passage. “The ‘church’ in a region is mentioned here, ‘Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.’ Even though great cultural distinctions existed between them, the Holy Spirit had made them one church.”
I guess this verse helps to form my prayers as I head into the second half of my life as a church-goer. First and foremost, I pray that we as disciples live in deep reverence for the Lord, experiencing the strong comfort of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, though great distinctions exist between us (those worshipping in nature, those worshipping at home, and those worshipping in person), I pray that the Holy Spirit makes us one vibrant church, multiplying the love of God in expansive new ways. Finally, I pray that the one church of the living Christ enjoys a period of peace as our numbers increase to reach all of the regions of God’s gigantic globe.
…Sue…
