Pastor's Message, March 2014

Local Mission, anniversaries
and a new lease on life

When our church council met earlier in February, we took some time to consider what God is doing in the communities where we live and work, to think about local mission. Local mission is the way our congregational mission to proclaim the good news of God in Christ in word and deed sends us to witness to Christ in love and to serve the people we come in contact with everyday.

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One visible way we carry out God's mission locally is through the building on Old Post Road. In that building, children are cared for and taught; people struggling with addiction find life-saving support and new life; five congregations worship, make disciples and baptize; more than 500 people and their families find supplemental food assistance through our food pantry; and God is doing so much more in and through these ministries than we can ever fully know. Thanks be to God! Yet, while we recognize God's presence and the holy work God does here, we have to admit most of this work is done by others, some valued partners who share God's commitment to the very young and very old, to the worker, the people on the margins, the poor, the disabled and the stranger.

Congregations, like people, have a life cycle, passing through various life stages from its conception to its death. In one of these stages -- at the beginning stages of its decline -- a congregation becomes disconnected from its community and it's mission. Like aristocrats, the congregation uses its investments, buildings and programs to support its way of life. The congregation stops living and giving for God’s mission and start to extract and consume for the sake of itself. For human beings, death is inevitable, but not congregations. Congregations can rejuvenate by rediscovering, redefining and reconnecting with God's mission, it's reason for being.

We exist as a congregation to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed. Every member, every friend, every fund, every program, every event, every resource works together in Christ for this purpose. That's what we are saying when hand a candle to the newly baptized and commission, saying, "Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Because we are in Christ, we are the light of the world.

This year, we celebrate our 60th anniversary. It gives us the chance to remember our missionary past and to recover our missionary edge. In the year ahead, Christ will lead us back into our local communities and among everyday networks the sake of the Gospel. Christ will lead new people into our community, and send us out to meet them in theirs. God is already at work, preparing, churning, promising. All we need do is trust and follow where God is leading, in Jesus' name.