The Christian Hope and Our Future

Grace and Peace be with you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

This week brought meetings with our Vestry, our school’s Board of Directors, both finance committees and our staff meeting.  Through it all (even with the eye fatigue that comes from Zoom meetings), I have been encouraged to see the Christian optimism and care at work in our leadership.  Everyone is onboard praying, thinking, imagining, and double-checking the details that will be involved with the gradual process of moving back to worshipping together in person.  Hopefully, you received the survey yesterday that will help us get a better sense of your feelings about such a transition. 

I have become aware in this process that in the beginning, church will not feel the same.  It will be different, and we are discerning how different.  I want to say, though, that this is a temporary place in which we find ourselves.   I just edited out of this article a long list of things I can’t wait to see return.  I’m sure you have your own list and can guess at much of mine.  But, just because we don’t have a full choir when we return does not mean we won’t ever again have a full choir. 

Jesus has been with Christians through the most difficult things that have ever happened for the last 2000 years.  God will be with us as we move forward.  We will move through this next phase whenever the Diocese is confident that we can do so safely.  May we remember that there is often a period of transition in God’s time.  Parts of this coming time will be hard or strange, but we can do hard things, and if we are honest, some of the things we have always done are a bit strange.  Ultimately, may we remember that our God has done the hardest and strangest thing of all for us on the cross and because of that, we have the assurance of deliverance and hope. 

May God hold us all close as we do this together.  May we discern how best to care for others in this time.  Finally, may we remember that our hope is that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God as we have come to know it in Jesus Christ.

See you in virtual church