Dear Harbor Friends,
Grace and peace to you! We are in a new year which feels a bit like we’ve been here before. In January, I ask to meet with each pastor to check in and find out how s/he is doing overall, to reflect on ministry over the past few months to a year, and to gaze alongside with him/her into the future. These consultation times serve a purpose for appointment – making and yet I am finding them a great source of encouragement these days. The connection with my clergy colleagues has felt wonderful after a long season of isolation and zoom/phone call style meetings. My spirit feels buoyant, refreshed, simply from some one-on-one conversations. And the positivity and possibilities coming from these conversations!
Our congregations continue to re-organize and make new plans in this new year. We are carefully attending church and staying home while planning for upcoming events, perhaps moving them outdoors or making arrangements to stay safe. This has become the norm in many ways: being flexible and malleable even in our planning. And our congregations are finding this is the way! Our clergy are reporting good attendance when combining online and in person numbers week to week. Folks are coming out for special events and for specially designed events to gather safely. In this moment, many churches are scaling back any plans as we get through this Omicron variant and yet, overall, we seem to be a hopeful bunch. I am grateful for the ways in which you, our clergy and laity, continue to lead as ones who are living into God’s future for us.
Earlier this week I was scanning ahead in the lectionary and was drawn into next week’s OT text from Jeremiah. I could not help but think how amazing the word of God is to speak to us in our present time, our present need. Jeremiah 1:4-10 shares the story of how Jeremiah’s call from God went down. The call comes in sort of grand way, perhaps so Jeremiah can’t refuse or wriggle his way out of it. If God knew him before he was born, how can he say “but I’m just a boy” when this call comes through? And God proceeds to appoint him as one who will speak for God and to build up and plant. I don’t think Jeremiah or any of us know how God is calling us – or if God is calling us – until, well, we do. When God reveals that call, we are overwhelmed and wonder if we are ready. And yet, God meets us and equips us so we may partner with God.
We are all serving in ways we had not expected to over the past year and even now the needs of our context is changing; and, as some of you have shared with me, God is calling you to fresh, new ministry. Many of us are in building and planting mode, re-establishing ministry, reconnecting congregations, going out into the community so that all may join and know all are welcome. One church is honing their tech skills so that the worship services are more interactive online, with prayer requests coming through in real time, offerings given during worship online, and comments shared as we do while in one room. Another church has found ways to take small numbers and multiply them: make worship interactive in real time, maybe outdoors, offering praise to God through a play where children and adults play roles. These churches are reaching for low-hanging fruit AND saying yes to God’s call. Rather than dodging the loss of something from the past, they are committed to what is before them.
There is a hope and a future beyond these difficult times! God is offering us a way, perhaps even calling us to a new way – and this is exciting! I’m thankful to our leaders, lay and clergy, who are grasping onto this call and drawing in the community around them. Jeremiah saw the rebirth of a community and a people after disastrous and turbulent times, even experiencing turmoil and rejection himself. I know that we can share stories of how hard this time has been. My great hope is for our focus to turn on what God is about within and around us, even now! God is doing a new thing – in you, in your community, in your neighbor – and calling us to join in, to spread hope and to choose God’s joy as we move forward together!
How are you being called into an amazing future with God? Share your stories with me, with one another – I’d love to hear them! May God’s power and hope sustain you and may God’s wisdom ungird and guide you.
Join me as we “rejoice always, pray continually, and give thank in all circumstances . . .” (1Thess. 5:16-18)
Tara
If you would like to view past editions of Time with Tara, follow this link:
https://harbordistrictnc.org/category/from-the-ds/