Dear Church,  

February is a season of many cultures. The Lunar New Year is celebrated by many Asian cultures this week, beginning last Saturday, February 10. The year 2024 is the Year of the Dragon, with rituals, food, and symbols rich with the desire for a new life, ushering in good luck, and creating a prosperous future.  It is Black History Month in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, reminding all of us, regardless of race, of the unique experience of the African diaspora, the Middle Passage of the Slave trade to the Americas, and the post-slavery experience of Emancipation, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights.  On top of those cultural and historic celebrations, Lent comes early to the church this year, with Shrove Tuesday/Madri Gras on February 13 (I hope you had your fasnachts!), and Ash Wednesday on February 14. 

It is a time, after the joys of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, to reflect, repent, and recalibrate, not with morbid sadness, but in joyous hope.  The thread running through the celebrations of Lunar New Year, Black History Month, and Lent is the desire for a new life.  Transformation is the theme of these next weeks.  The steadfast, unshakable conviction that God is doing a new thing is at the heart of this season which we are now embarking upon.   

Here at Blooming Glen, we continue to engage in transformation.  Multi-voiced preaching and well-curated worship with an intergenerational choir continues to grow in us a new identity in Christ.  Community care, through catechism, formation, and visitation seek to meet the developmental needs of belonging to the Household of Faith. Cooperative mission through efforts in neighborhood engagement, peacebuilding, and global connections unite us in the shared purpose of reaching out to neighbors near and far with the gospel of Jesus.   

These efforts of cooperative mission include neighborhood engagements through games, Easter celebrations, back to school bashes, and harvest festivals invite people to experience us as a church.  We embrace peacebuilding efforts of reforestation and teaching peaceful practices to offer new ways to apply the Jesus story to everyday life.  We engage in global connections through projects like Healthy Niños (in partnership with Mosaic Conference) and the International Visitor Exchange Program (in partnership with Mennonite Central Committee) that embolden us to see the world in more holistic ways and bring healing and hope to those in need. 

It’s a season of transformation at Blooming Glen Mennonite Church.  It’s a new year of creating a prosperous spirit. It’s a time to remember the past and move on to the future.  It’s a time for fired dough, powered sugar, and the power of mutual forgiveness.  Blooming Glen is, in our curating worship, community care, and cooperative mission, becoming a church that beholds God’s beautiful and broken world, and with joy, rolls up its sleeves, and gets busy with healing and hope.  Thank you for the privilege of sharing in such an experience.  In this season of Lent, let us joyfully surrender that which ensnares and binds us, run with joyful perseverance the new race of answering the call of Jesus to follow Him. 

Grateful for each of you!
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net 

PS - IMPORTANT NEWS! It’s Debbie’s birthday this week.  We are skipping town, Thursday-Saturday, February 15-17.  That means I won’t be at the Broad Street Grind on Friday, February 16, but plan be back at the A&N Diner on Monday, February 19, 7:30-8:45 am (even though it is President’s Day).  I’m also planning to be back at the Broad Street Grind on Friday, February 23, 3:30-4:45 pm.