This was one of those weekends where it all just comes together. The weather was as good as it gets in May in Missouri. Green everywhere, flowers blooming, highs of 70, low humidity, skies bluer than you usually perceive, and the sun shining. After 13 weeks of study and a weekend retreat, 15 confirmands shared their faith with the congregation on Sunday and became members of the church. 6 of them were baptized...what fun, what joy! God is alive and at work in these young people. One of them was my daughter, who shed tears of joy, much to my surprise. We had record crowds in all the church services, graduating seniors and returning college students filled out the pews. So I could/should sit still and be happy....
But I have to share these thoughts...in a smaller church about 8 years ago, the pastor asked the members of the church council to select one committee in the church to be a part of and go to their meetings and help to lead them into ministry in the community. There was feet dragging and procrastination until the pastor finally asked the chairperson what was taking people so long to respond to his request. The chairperson said, "Well, you're asking us for a comittment!"
WHo knew the "c" word would be met with such opposition in the church? I recently sent out a survey asking about summer study possibilities because I had heard from some folks that they were interested in pursuing their spiritual life and the summer was a good time for them. It has been a long time since there were summer studies in the church and I wasn't real optimistic actually. But to my surprise there were 22 people who responded that they were interested!
So the next step was to finalize dates and times and leaders...and now I have only 8 that are willing to commit to a study. (That is about 3 people to a study) And I hear that exasperated voice that is saying, "well you're asking us for a committment!" God is asking for the committment - I'm somewhere in the middle trying to get the details worked out - but our faith life doesn't grow without some attention to it. And God is more than willing, more than ready to meet you wherever you are if you will take the step toward him.
The same expectation is in place for those confirmands - this past Sunday can't be the last time we see them...God is also asking them to grow in their faithfulness and in their service to God in the world.
So c'mon y'all - lets get to it!
No comments:
Post a Comment