Dear Blooming Glen Friends, 

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” – John Ruskin 

Microclimates take some getting used to for me. 

It rains so seldom in Southern California that when it does, it is usually a (big) storm front blowing in from the Gulf of Alaska, off the Pacific Ocean.  Everybody gets rain when a Pacific storm hits. 

But here, in Southeast Pennsylvania, it can pour buckets of rain in Quakertown, and be dry in Lansdale.  That’s a bit disconcerting.  

But it is also instructive.  Microclimates exist not only in the atmosphere – they also exist in the church.  The church faces an increasing reality that we experience a similar event or activity in many ways.  Some experiences are positive.  Some are negative.  The people we sit next to in worship can experience an event in worship quite differently.  How are we the church when microclimates of experience and relationship exist? 

First, we need to realize that there is no bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.  Today, on my Spotify account, I listened to a men’s a Capella quartet, a bluegrass band, a soprano soloist, a classical symphony…and John Denver.  It was all good. God’s good creation – to be able to hear and feel music – is always a gift. How can anything God created be bad? I may have preferences, but that which God has created – weather, music, your neighbor – they are all good.  Enjoy their microclimate. 

Second, go chase their stormy weather.  One of the things I miss about being from the Central Plains is the turbulent atmosphere.  A whole cottage industry of “storm chasers” roam the Great Plains in the spring and summer looking for the evidence of storm and wind, cyclone, and rain.  At first, I thought such a behavior was just an expression of being an adrenaline junkie.  But when you talk to these storm chasers, you find many of them are not out for some kind of fix.  They instead want to commune with nature at its most rambunctious.  Could it be that those we experience having a different experience are not wrong…they are just on a different quest to discover the same things we all want to experience? 

Blooming Glen, like all other churches, is a collection of microclimates of relationships and experiences.  I pray we can learn to enjoy one another’s weather and settle into one another’s experiences with a joyful trust that is mutual, caring, and celebrative of the different ways we enter the goodness of God and all that He has created. 

Love you church!
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net

 PS – Sometimes it comes to my attention that people wonder what goes on at the Monday morning breakfast and Friday afternoon coffee.  Well, the answer is – whatever you want.  I’m there to listen to whatever is on your mind.  Do you have a concern?  Come talk to me.  Do you have an idea?  I’m ready to listen.  Do you have a prayer concern?  We’ll intercede. Disagree with Sunday’s sermon?  Come set me straight. You want to talk baseball? Wonderful. You want to ask questions about Blooming Glen and Mosaic Mennonite Conference?  OK. The Monday morning and Friday afternoon gatherings are bookend moments to the week to provide the congregation with an opportunity to have conversations – to form and enjoy another microclimate.  Come join us.  Mondays at the A&N Diner in Sellersville, 7:30-8:45 am.  Fridays at the Broad Street Grind, 3:30-4:45 pm.  See you there!