From the Pastor - "Gift" December 2015

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

What is the church?  Throughout the year, I’ve been exploring the church in terms of our location, nature, redemption, shape, ministry, mission, inclusivity, strength, and our challenge.  According to Everist and Nessan in Transforming Leadership, we may also describe the church in terms of gift. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that a faith community is a concrete unity.  Our center of attention is not with each member, but in all the members together.  Of course, our life together is not always easy.  We can be demanding of each other.  We sometimes fail to listen to one another.  We wear each other out.  

Yet Jesus calls us to repentance and turn to a new reality rooted in love.  God’s Spirit nudges us to be aware of ways we are alienated from one another and to realize our need of Christ’s forgiveness.  God’s grace heals us and restores our relationship with one another. 

In becoming a community of love and forgiveness in Christ, we learn to see one another no longer as a means to an end in order to meet our personal demands, but as a gift in Christ.  We become a sign to the world of the living reality of God’s love.  

1.  How is the Spirit transforming our faith community into a living reality of love?

2.  How can we move beyond making demands to seeing each other as a gift in Christ?

As individuals, each person is created in God’s image.  Yet only in our life together are we the whole body of Christ.  My wholeness depends on your wholeness (and vice versa).  Our purpose is to compliment one another.  Together we are complete.  That’s a gift!  That’s church.

Yours in Christ,

  

Rev. Brian C. Smith