"Renewing Our Life Together" by Jason Edwards
I pray God has ministered to you in a particular way as we’ve worshipped together this Fall. Our current series has been aimed at a deep, collective longing many of us will acknowledge, even when it’s difficult to articulate. Each of us goes through days, weeks, and seasons where we experience a rumbling ache for restoration and rejuvenation. At some point over the past twenty months, challenges from this pandemic have put us all there. Our hearts are humming with hope for renewal.
In response, we’ve been exploring a variety of ways renewal might be nurtured. Our chancel continues to accumulate symbols of this exploration. The fountain represents the living water Jesus offers to bring forth from our soul. The cairn rock formation symbolizes spaces and places that seem to ignite unmistakable encounters with God’s Spirit. The circular friendship sculpture reminds us that as social beings, created for community, we often experience sacred strengthening through key relationships. Likewise, the block calls us to consider where withheld forgiveness might be creating spiritual and emotional blockages in our life. There is also a trellis calling us toward intentionality. A rule of life is a plan we shape with the aim of growing in a certain direction, much like a trellis can create a particular pathway for garden vines. That level of transformational intentionality requires the level of commitment called for in Psalm 1, where we’re invited to root ourselves in places and practices that nourish flourishing. The plant positioned by the flowing fountain prompts us to consider making these kinds of renewing commitments.
Our overarching hope in offering this series is that God might use it as a resource to revive us as individuals and as a community. We are praying for God to meet each of you at the point of your deepest ache. We are asking for God’s living Spirit to minister to you in personal and powerful ways. Our fall series will continue to offer resources for just that kind of renewal. We are also praying for God to engage, enliven, and empower our entire faith community in ways and for purposes beyond what any of us could envision, ask, or imagine. God has great plans in store for us and none of us was ever meant to go at those alone. God created, redeemed, calls, and equips us to participate in God’s plan in community and as community. Our prayer is for God to do more than renew us individually. We are asking for God to renew our life together.
Each of us can begin to participate in God’s answer to that prayer right now, by choosing to renew our commitments to Jesus Christ and Christ’s church. Please consider the opportunities you’ll read and hear about for worship, spiritual growth, giving, serving, and sharing faith in the days ahead as more than information, but invitation. With the season of Advent now on the horizon, may these days mark the advent of a new season of vibrance and vitality in our life together.
With gratitude and growing expectation,
Jason Edwards, Senior Pastor