Dear Church,

A briefer post than usual this week…

What’s urgent for you right now? Maybe it is a doctor’s appointment. Maybe it is an exam. Maybe it is figuring out what to feed the family tonight.

What’s important for you right now? Maybe it is completing financial goals for retirement. Maybe it is completing a degree. Maybe it is making sure our kids are doing well in school.

Our best life is lived at the intersection of the important defining the urgent. When the things that require our immediate attention connect us with the things that matter most deeply to us, we find a wellspring of growth and potential for coming alive.

Too often, the urgency in our life is disconnected from the important things in our life. That generally happens because the urgencies of our everyday experience are often somebody else’s urgency, and their agendas can get in the way of the things we see to be important.

We need reframe our priorities – focusing first on the important things, and then responding to that which may have a sense of urgency. This is not some sort of self-centeredness; it is one of the several steps toward healthy discipleship.

It is said that the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte did not open his mail until it had sat on his desk for six weeks. Only then did he know what was truly at the intersection of important and urgent. Now I’m not suggesting we stop communicating for six weeks, but I am suggesting that we need to embrace ways that allow that which we say is of ultimate importance to shape our sense of urgency in completing our daily to-do lists.

So, an invitation: What is important for you right now at Blooming Glen Church? What is urgent for you right now at Blooming Glen Church? What are the things about being church together that are ultimately important to you? And then, what ought to be our priorities going forward?

Now, I’m serious. I’d like to hear from you. I’m truly curious. Send me text, shoot me an email, give me a phone call, have a conversation with me over coffee or a meal. What is important to you for Blooming Glen’s future and what urgencies does that create for you? Let me know.

Let’s go, Church (from defining the important to managing the urgent – because vice versa never happens)!

Pastor Jeff

jeff@bgmc.net

PS | I’m at the Broad Street Grind on Fridays from 3:30pm-4:45pm, and I’m at the A&N Diner on Mondays from 7:30am-8:45am. I’m there to listen to you.

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