Stewardship Letter… but also about sweeping Church change

Dear Friends,
A week ago today I watched my fourth child be born. My children are born by C-section – call them lazy, call them wise (I’m still convinced Warren heard a rumor he could just hold on and wait till we came and got him and chose this as the better route), the fact is our kids come out through surgery. In the OR here in Boise, they don’t have a high separation between where the doctor is working and where I sit at Caroline’s head so I literally watched Danielle get pulled out into this crazy, bright, loud, chaotic world she was created to enter… kicking and screaming all the way!

How much of our lives is that the case? That we are kicking and screaming about not wanting to change when the change, while scary, opens us up to an amazing new world. I think that is the kind of precipice that most faith communities are staring at right now. They know they need to change, and they are scared to relinquish the control and just flow with it… flow with the Spirit. 
I get struck by another image. An image of the top of the ski hill when people stand there staring at just how steep the hill is and they psyche themselves out. They stand there, scarred, trying to work up the courage to go down. 

I used to love to whip by those people, young and dumb, willing my life away to the whim of a mountain I cannot control. And I had a blast. And maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t so young and dumb after all… Jesus, it seems, thinks the Kingdom of God belongs to the children. Those who aren’t so caught up in fear but are willing to push ahead and go where life leads.

First Pres Boise is sitting at the top of that hill. We are staring down and we know we need to go, but we aren’t sure if we can do it. We aren’t sure if we won’t get hurt. We aren’t sure if we have the energy or the passion or the desire to navigate the bumps and the falls, the ice and trees, the stops and the starts. We aren’t sure if we want to plunge ahead. I feel it… I too fear it. Then I hear these words… again!

“Look I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

God is whipping by us at the top of that hill. God wants us to plunge down it as well and is inviting us to join in the fun. God wants us to dream big, to dare boldly, to fall and to get up, to risk newness and experience the awe of participating in the birthing of new life. 

In two days we will have a Pledge Sunday to commit our money, but more importantly our energy and lives, to God’s dream. We will have a congregational and corporate meeting to elect the leaders who will help us to see and pursue it. And we will have a meal, Harvest Dinner, to celebrate with the people who share that journey with us. I hope to see you there. I hope you are ready to commit yourself – not just your money, but your life, to falling into the newness God has in store for us with me. It is a journey I, for one, wouldn’t miss.

Grace and Peace,
Andrew