MESSAGE FROM PASTOR EMILY

Dear Friends,

  During the summer, our Sunday gospel stories turn to the everyday work of Jesus: teaching and forming disciples, healing and feeding those around him. While our public and official pace slows down for the summer (even if our own lives really don’t!), we turn our attention, as a church, to the ordinary routine – but the ordinary routine of the mission of God.

  Teaching, healing and feeding isn’t always spectacular work. More often, the kind of miracles and learning that come in our lives are slow and messy; sometimes painful, sometimes funny. Healing – whether it’s a knee or a relationship, comes in awkward stages, and can feel like being broken all over again. Teaching and learning is often invisible – until knowledge and character awake in unexpected places. Feeding people – family or strangers – isn’t over in an afternoon; it’s a never ending task, especially in times when more and more people are being forced to the food pantries.

But all of it happens – all of these miracles of the kingdom of God keep happening. And the gospel of our ordinary miracles and ministry doesn’t get heard if we aren’t telling the story. So this summer, pay attention to the messy, ongoing, ordinary work of Jesus.

  Buy an extra can of veggies, bring it to the church, and remember to tell people about the miracles of local food banks multiplying our limited resources. Spend an hour or two in conversation or service with someone you want to learn from – and then tell the story of how you were formed, so others may learn from you. When looking forward is too painful, look back and remember the unnoticed joys of health – and remind yourself and others that it is those joys God works to restore to you, in the messy, long, awkward journey of healing.

  Let’s make ordinary miracles this summer, and share that news with all in need.

Blessings,