150th Anniversary

So tomorrow night we are celebrating our 150th anniversary here at the Church. I have had trouble getting any energy to focus on this event because I want to be sure we will actually make it to our 155th. Being a new church start in an old church has been a hard sell lately in the Diocese. I think people have generally forgotten that we are trying to do something new here at the Church, not renew the old standards and practices of a time long gone.

In the midst of the work of the BCMS, the Bishop's Commission on Mission Strategy, I am finding it more and more important that we try to keep the focus on doing a new thing here at the Church, creating a community that recognizes God has a mission for God's people, and we are privileged to participate with God in that mission. That we are a people sent by God, and not sending God to others. We have uncovered behaviors and values that we hold as a Diocese that prevent us from seeing ourselves as a sent and missional people as a people who must witness to God's salvific and redemptive work in the world.

I say that now, with the utmost confidence, because, God has done that work, Jesus died on the cross once and for all, not over and over, we are a healed and forgiven people, not an unclean and dirty people. God has created us and declared to the entire creation that we are VERY GOOD. Now we must go into the world, not remain in our pews, we must witness, not keep silent, we must prepare God's way into our hearts so that others will see the light of the world shining through the communities that live into this missional thinking and activity we are discovering anew.
May God Bless you,
A+

Comments

Anonymous said…
I read an article today that archeologists' at the Vatican may have found the remains of Paul. Even though he was never call Bishop, he had all the characteristics of one as he went from region to region, church home to synagogue to temple, etc. So, what he had was the encouragement of the spirit to ignite the hearts and souls of many to know the Jesus Christ he knew. He formed religious settlements, later called communities, to establish a new order of worship and religious practice that is still called Christian but not well imitated. Today, we face a critical juncture as Christians to renew, renovate, and recreate the most flattering part of being mission, to be sent in the same spirit that drove Paul to his ends of the earth...we just have to reach across the street, hallway or yard.
5:16 PM
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