During Lent, I will be preaching from the readings from the Psalms. Psalms is the prayer book of Israel, the prayer book of Jesus and his disciples. My hope is that we will learn that prayer is God’s gift of expressing honestly to God our true spiritual condition, our frustrations with our lives we’d often rather gloss over, our struggles with our enemies, and our hope for transformation. This series of sermons is entitled, “Praying Our Way Toward Easter.”
Please consider joining the Five Cups of Coffee groups forming for Lent on Sunday mornings. This series of conversations have the possibility of helping us reconnect to one another and to our faith. They also have the possibility of helping us identify the gifts God has given us to make a difference in the world.
Finally, our work of following Christ out into our broken world continues. You may recall that during the pandemic a small group has spent considerable time discerning a Jesus size dream for our congregation. That dream is that “Richmond will be a city where people thrive and have access to nutritious food and learning opportunities.”
Pursuing such a dream is daunting, but what God invites us to do. We have a small, faithful group going through a process of training in Asset Based Community Development. I’ve always believed that this approach is foundational to urban ministry. This approach to mission and service is based on listening to our neighbors to discern what their gifts, strengths, and hopes for our community look like, as well as how they themselves can be part of the solution to problems we face. This approach looks at a community’s assets rather than its deficits. We want to reconnect with our community as we are hopefully moving beyond Covid. We especially want to renew and deepen our connections with people who live in a one-mile radius of our church which includes entities as diverse as Gilpin Court and VCU, Carver Elementary and Thomas Jefferson High School, many businesses, restaurants, hotels, not to mention the State Capitol. Over the next 5-6 weeks I know this training will help us develop new skills for building lasting relationships with our downtown Community. You’ll hear a lot more about this in weeks to come and learn how you can be part of the renewal of our downtown mission, but for now please pray for this small group of folks who are investing time in learning on our behalf so that they might teach us how to live out our faith more effectively here in downtown Richmond.
We identify ourselves as a Reconciling Congregation. The world needs nothing more than God’s reconciling love at this time. And we have the challenge, duty, and privilege of being part of what God wants to do for the healing and salvation of our world.
Let’s continue to love one another, be patient and kind to one another, forgiving one another when that is necessary. Let’s keep pressing forward in serving God here in downtown Richmond and beyond. It can all make a difference!
Peace,
Matt
