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Dear Friends,
What a journey we have been on together! For months, the spirit of engagement,
collaboration and creativity has moved through the congregation — and soon we will cross an
exciting threshold into a future of unimaginable possibilities, when our new settled pastor
arrives. None of this adventure would be possible without your enthusiastic involvement and God’s consistent encouragement.
Admittedly, some days have felt like a soap opera! However, some days, the divine
intervention has actually been tangible, whether the surprise availability of Rev. Álvaro to guide
our Latino Ministry, or unexpected donations toward the shortfall, or simply a wise and precious
comment just when needed.
As last week’s sermon title urged, “Open Your Eyes.” If you missed the service, click the
link below to enjoy the music of John Denver, meet some of our children by name, and question the “cultural Christianity” to which we have become accustomed. Most importantly, say aloud
Dave Olson’s prayer for us. As co-chair of the search committee, he knows what CCSM has
been through and shares our hope for an “exciting future” as we cross that threshold into a
new ministry together.
Dear God. Help us to be grateful for the past fifteen months. For the uncertainty and the
hopefulness and the patience (or not). For the challenges and the successes and the
failures. For everyone who led. For everyone who expressed their opinions. For everyone
who wished we might communicate with one another a little better than we did or who
wished that everyone else might have the same opinion that we had. We’re not always
perfect, but we learn from our experiences as best we can and we move on together.
Dear God. Help us to prepare for an exciting future. A future of love and joy and of
spiritual and personal growth. A future that we know will bring its own challenges and
successes and failures. Help us to know that it is a future of our own making and help us
to build it using the best of the tools available to us: optimism and hope and a
welcoming spirit. The best is yet to come, I think.
Dear God. Help us to understand that we are on this journey together. Creating a
community that means something to each of us and has room for all of us. A community
that works through the challenges and experiences, the successes and the failures
together. We don’t know what the future will bring, but I expect the future to be bright
and for it to shine with the beauty that is within each of us to share in the months and
the years to come.
“Amen” means “so be it” or “let it be so.”
Amen and Amen—with love, Kibbie
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