Today is the last day of June, and what a month it’s been! We bid farewell and Godspeed to members of our Holy Apostles community, and we welcomed new people; both on staff and in the congregation. We baptized a new Christian and heard a fresh voice speak from our pulpit. We have mourned with those who are grieving. We have celebrated service and ministry among us, and rejoiced in the welcome and inclusion that has marked our common life over many years. We completed the first half of a building project that strengthens the foundation from which we offer all the beautiful activity that happens in our beloved church. We have shifted to “summer mode” in our liturgy, simplifying some aspects of our worship until our programming returns in the fall.
Much of this activity involves change—that aspect of life that is constant, and that we can be tempted to resist at every turn! The loss we experience with any change has the potential to unsettle us (and often does). We are built to resist discomfort. Even if we understand the inevitability of change in our heads, our hearts cry out for what’s familiar.
Not only does Jesus have something to say about this (see His conversation with Nicodemus, among others), Jesus embodies change. Jesus is on the move throughout His earthly life. His teaching enlightens. His healings restore. Stasis is not an option. Again and again in the Gospels, encountering Jesus means moving with Him. And for those who do, nothing remains the same.
That same thriving is happening here, at Holy Apostles. We are in motion, too. And in our experience of change comes the experience of the new life in which we all take part. New life that is messy and beautiful; connected and brimming with hope. In Christ, we are all in this holy process, and we are in it together.
Summer blessings,
