Dear Church,

How do we keep memory alive?

Twenty-three years ago today, I woke up to a National Public Radio news broadcast that an airplane had collided with one of the World Trade Center towers. I took my kids to marching band practice, and then I was going to finish packing for my first trip to London, to meet with UK Anabaptists. Instead, I saw a second passenger jet collide with the World Trade Center. I saw the towers fall. I heard the sky go quiet over Southern California as air travel was grounded. And I knew I wasn’t going to London on September 12, 2001, and I knew that the world had changed.

Today in the USA, we observe, “Patriot Day” – a day in the calendar for remembering, a day for keeping alive what we experienced in the past, and a day to reflect on ways to shape our present and future.

The problem with any annual observation of a historical event is that it only becomes meaningful in the commemoration itself. What we need are habits of memory. Regular expressions of our story that form our lives more deeply than an annual remembrance can do for us.

That is exactly why we gather to worship every seven days. By establishing a spiritual rhythm consistent with the creative love of God, we remember more frequently to allow that love to permeate every area of our life.

So, we order our lives to remember God’s creative love. We extend our praise and thanksgiving to God in worship. We rehearse the true evangelical faith announced in scriptures. We pray – offering God our lives together.

And then, following the rhythm of worship in praise, proclamation, and prayer, we remain gathered for a more modern invention called Sunday school. Originally, Sunday schools were tools of evangelism, created to teach literacy by teaching the Bible to children who were captured by the labor market at the dawn of the Industrial Age. Over time, we made Sunday School a more insular program of the church – a space to provide a lifetime of developing Christian habits and practices, while also providing face-to-face care and support for one another in smaller groups. We gather in these venues – Worship and Sunday School – to remember Jesus and to practice together how to know him as Savior and follow him as Lord.

This last Sunday, our younger adult classes (Young Adults – the “deluxe” version, Koinonia, Becomers, and Gemeinschaft) met together in the Welcome Center, and together made some decisions. First, our Young Adult class expressed a strong need to remain together as a smaller group, and we affirmed that direction. Second, we recognized our Becomers and Gemeinschaft classes were already in a state of increasing collaboration, and we affirmed that direction. Third, our Koinonia class was invited to participate in that increasing collaboration already underway, and we affirmed that direction. Fourth, we agreed that all four classes need space to retain their individual unique identities by means of a designated class shepherd(s), a regularly updated class roster, and more regularly group planned social gatherings. Finally, we agreed that we should revisit the need to consolidate adult Sunday School classes on a quaternity basis. Oh, and we agreed that Goldfish and Hot Wheels ought to be part of our Sunday School experience! 😊

As a congregation becoming Church Together means increasing the opportunities for face-to-face practice of the habits of following Jesus. So, we are seeking to enrich and strengthen our capacity for meeting together. Our older adult classes – Fellowship of Friends, Christianaires, Ambassadors, and Crusaders/Glen Adults are doing this work together well, and we are all blessed by their ministry.

The English word “patriot” comes from the Greek word, “patrios,” meaning, “of one’s father.” May our adult formational gatherings become “patriotic” – not so much in terms of bunting, fireworks, and nationalism, but in terms of remembering well Our Father.

Let’s go (to Sunday School), Church!

Pastor Jeff

jeff@bgmc.net

Dear Church,

Part of the Church Together plan that you have called me to implement is to increase our capacity to reach out to our neighborhoods. To help fulfill that responsibility, the Wages and Benefits Committee and the CLB have reviewed and approved a proposal to hire two, 10-hour per week Ministry Coaches on our church staff.

I’m pleased to announce that Denny Gross and Ezekiel Otieno have accepted invitations to serve with Blooming Glen as part of our Neighborhood Engagement Team, effective September 1, 2024.

Denny Gross will serve as Outreach Events Coach. His primary role is to recruit, equip, deploy, and support persons who will lead efforts to invite our neighbors to get to know us. Denny is strategically placed to do this ministry. His games ministry is well known across Upper Bucks County, and he has already formed important partnerships with other local churches. I look forward to the teams he will form to take the games ministry to events like Perkasie First Friday, and I look forward to his coaching the teams that will implement events that attract the neighborhood to our campus, like Fall Festival.

Denny’s role also includes building relationships with the unchurched and the dechurched in the Pennridge communities. This is a big role, and it could look overwhelming. But Denny has a heart to reach people for Jesus, and the unchurched and dechurched seek Denny out for faith conversations. Denny’s work on the church staff isn’t to run a bunch of programs – it’s to build teams of people with calling and capacity to serve in outreach to our neighbors, and I am so excited to work alongside Denny in this opportunity.

Ezekiel “Zeke” Otieno will serve as Small Groups Coach. His primary role will be to recruit, equip, deploy, and support persons who will lead small groups of people interested in following Jesus here at Blooming Glen. These small groups will help form a greater reliance on the scriptures, a deeper practice of compassionate candor, and project generosity and hospitality as Jesus-centered virtues. While our Sunday School program remains the primary way the long-term community at Blooming Glen work at fostering these discipleship values, Ezekiel will be launching new efforts with those who are unchurched and dechurched, with skeptics and exiles who feel alienated from church as usual.

Zeke has already been doing this sort of ministry – leading small group Bible studies of young adults, and so we look forward to providing him with a platform to learn and grow in a ministry of evangelism through small groups. He is also going to be an active pastoral intern this next year, beginning a process of discerning God’s call on his life.

I urge y’all to pray for and encourage Ezekiel and Denny as they begin this new chapter of their walk with Jesus. We still have two coaching positions to fill. One is in Children’s Ministry, and the other is in Family Engagement Ministry. Pray that God will raise up the right individuals to serve as part of the Blooming Glen team, helping to manage core ministries of curating worship, community care, and common mission in collaboration with our Elders.

God has got a plan for us. I don’t know all the details of that plan. I do know it involves building teams of people with a passion for constructing authentic relationships with the unchurched and the dechurched that are expressed in worship, through mutual care, and in generosity and hospitality. I know God’s desire for us is a Blooming Glen Mennonite Church reliant on the scriptures as God’s story by which we live. A church committed to healthy, peaceful practices grounded in caring deeply for one another and challenging one another directly. A church that is generous and full of grace because that’s who Jesus is. Denny and Zeke are joining Michael, Michelle, Gretchen, Conrad, the two Jens – Hunsberger and Yoder, and me, to help make real the vision of church unleashed by the good news of Jesus in the neighborhoods of Upper Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

How ‘bout it? Are you game for what God wants to do?

Let’s go, Church!

Pastor Jeff

jeff@bgmc.net