Year in Review
One year ago, on Aug. 20, 2017, I started as the Senior Pastor of First Church of Christ in Longmeadow. So much has happened in this year!
My first service was outside in the garden. The weather was nice and the Search team provided us a picnic lunch. I preached about how to build a community. My stomach was
nervous but my heart was excited. I had already felt the wonder of accepting God’s call to be your new Senior Pastor. Now I was ready to fall in love with the church and all of you.
I was primed to love you. When I read the church profile and saw that you lived boldly—serving and witnessing outside your building, caring for the broken, marching for justice—I was intrigued. I believe that church cannot be church just sitting inside our own building trying to please each other. Jesus showed us how to be church by taking to the streets to heal, feed and stand up for the oppressed. Churches that focus on “pleasing” everyone in worship are usually dying churches. And besides, preaching to “please” is the opposite of preaching a prophetic word. As pastors, our job is said to be “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”
I loved your commitment to growing your community in Longmeadow and surrounding areas. The church’s role in interfaith and ecumenical partnering made my heart glad. We can learn so much from the faith of others. We can be stretched to we see the world and our lives in new ways. Interfaith and Ecumenical work models Jesus claim that the Kingdom of God is now. In God’s kin-dom, we love our neighbors and live in peace.
I loved your desire to grow ever more lay-led. Your new government system of teams within circles offered a flexible way to grow as a permission giving place. A “yes church,” where members are inspired to hear God’s call and act—joining teams, bringing new ideas or reaching out past our walls.
This last year has been a time of new beginnings for me and for our church. Together we have found new ways to partner and I hope you have found some new things to love about our church. I certainly have.