Dear friends,

As my children will be happy to tell you, we are on the downhill side of summer. Yes, the 90 degree days are continuing on, but with the kids back in school we find ourselves getting back into a normal rhythm of life. This morning, as I was hosing down the porch, I even felt a cool breeze signaling that the change of season is on the way. This time of year, after all, is a time of new beginnings, a time when the kids get to start anew in a new class, and many of the programs that we have come to love in our church get started anew as well.

Change is, of course, never easy. We come to love our routines, the ways we have done things in the past, and now new folks show up and want to do things differently. “Can’t they get with the program and conform to our expectations?” we say to ourselves, knowing that we need to embrace these new folks, but falling prey to the temptation of comfort and certainty. And yet, we all know that to change is to grow, to be transformed, and to experience new ways of doing things that often have a life of their own. To be alive is to experience change.

What’s funny is to me is that the church of all places should be a place that embraces new things. After all, Jesus himself came among us proclaiming a new Kingdom of God, a new way of understanding God’s love, a new covenant that gives us hope and fills us with joy. Jesus was centered in transformation, being made new again and again, and he calls all who would walk in his footsteps to likewise be transformed.

And yet, very often the church is often the place that is most resistant to change. It becomes a place of comfort and stability, offering us roots but often never growing very far beyond the surface. Roots are important, for they allow us to stand, but roots have no purpose apart from growth. In fact, roots ultimately rot and die when the tree fails to grow and thrive and become something new.

During the coming season we will be experiencing some changes together. We’ve already experienced some as this new preacher “messes with” the worship service and the bulletin. We’re going to see some with the creation of our revived youth group every Sunday afternoon (with 7 teens as our starting place!). I’m sure that there will be moments as I teach and preach and lead that you will want to throw up your hands in the air and shout “What does he think he’s doing!!!” Trust me that there will be times that I will probably do the same thing as well.

What all this is leading to is a reminder that we are on a journey of growth, and that probably means change along the way. Our task is to love one another through that change, remembering that yes it is hard, but that God will see us through. He has in the past, and I have no doubt he will in the future.

May God be with us all in the days ahead as we seek to do His will.

In Christ,
Jay