Greetings From Pastor Lyn
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Dear People,
I love the month of July! Growing up in the mid-west, July began with a bang – literal and figurative. There were firecracker stands everywhere (the real ones were legal and lethal, I might add), the danger exciting us as much as the color and noise. There were 4th of July parades, baseball and fireworks, picnics & class reunions, long afternoons beside or on the lakes, gardens producing like crazy and my grandmother’s aprons filled with beans and peas, hot days and humid nights, and so much more. The month of July continues to evoke the sounds and smells and sweet memories of summer when the world felt less complicated.
If only one could go back to the “way things used to be,” when life did seem easier and everything was indeed possible. How often have you heard the lament, “if only we could…”? Even the Psalmist, every now and then, lamented the way things used to be. In today’s church, we realize there is no going back to the way things were, to the glory days of the 1950’s, 60’s or even the 70’s. However, if we look back, and we will do some of that as we celebrate 90 years of ministry, we realize that change has been part of the church’s reality all along. Yet, we continue to experience no small amount of angst when we wonder how we will ever live into whatever is meant by a new way of doing church. Perhaps we’re afraid we won’t understand the “new” church, or it will feel too foreign, or it just won’t fit our preferences any longer. How will we ever navigate that uncertain reality, and will it change or challenge our faith?
God is always about doing a new thing with us and in the world and that truly is good news. Our call as a community of faith is to discern what God is doing in us and to ponder what we think God needs us to do as a congregation in the wider community. One new thing God is doing at Emanuel is to send us an Intern for a year. We are so blessed! And do you know what? At the end of the internship, our church will be different as will all of us to include Vicar
I love the month of July! Growing up in the mid-west, July began with a bang – literal and figurative. There were firecracker stands everywhere (the real ones were legal and lethal, I might add), the danger exciting us as much as the color and noise. There were 4th of July parades, baseball and fireworks, picnics & class reunions, long afternoons beside or on the lakes, gardens producing like crazy and my grandmother’s aprons filled with beans and peas, hot days and humid nights, and so much more. The month of July continues to evoke the sounds and smells and sweet memories of summer when the world felt less complicated.
If only one could go back to the “way things used to be,” when life did seem easier and everything was indeed possible. How often have you heard the lament, “if only we could…”? Even the Psalmist, every now and then, lamented the way things used to be. In today’s church, we realize there is no going back to the way things were, to the glory days of the 1950’s, 60’s or even the 70’s. However, if we look back, and we will do some of that as we celebrate 90 years of ministry, we realize that change has been part of the church’s reality all along. Yet, we continue to experience no small amount of angst when we wonder how we will ever live into whatever is meant by a new way of doing church. Perhaps we’re afraid we won’t understand the “new” church, or it will feel too foreign, or it just won’t fit our preferences any longer. How will we ever navigate that uncertain reality, and will it change or challenge our faith?
God is always about doing a new thing with us and in the world and that truly is good news. Our call as a community of faith is to discern what God is doing in us and to ponder what we think God needs us to do as a congregation in the wider community. One new thing God is doing at Emanuel is to send us an Intern for a year. We are so blessed! And do you know what? At the end of the internship, our church will be different as will all of us to include Vicar