The Church is Open!

There is a lot going on in our lives these days, a lot of challenges AND a lot of blessings.

In this mix, occasionally, someone will ask me, “When will the church be open again?” I get it – the question comes from a place of challenge, change, and a craving for things to be back to what they were about six months ago; I call this reactive position “the 3 c’s”.

The reality is that we will never be fully back to where we were six months ago. Navigating this pandemic, an awakening to the deeply entrenched racial injustices in our society, a contentious electoral season, etc. has already changed us.

That is the reality, but the deeper truth is that the Church is open, always has been open, and always will be open. The Church is the Body of Christ, the faithful who are learning, influencing, and serving in creative new ways that will lead us into God’s preferred future. Perhaps these challenges and the changes we are experiencing can be become a fulcrum point that will incline us to crave, not the past, but the fulness of what God is leading us toward while filling our lives with new understandings (learnings) as we serve.

Let me say it again friends, The Church is open and is alive and well – I believe this with all my heart. This world needs your continued witness to the Good News.

I would like to close by offering a simple and sincere thank you to all our clergy and laity on the WInchester District. Your ministry in this hard season is profoundly inspiring. I appreciate your sacrificial dedication to the cause of Christ. The Glory of the Lord is shining brightly through your ministry, and lives are being changed; the Church is open, always has been, and always will be!

In Christ’s Service,

Steve

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NIV)

(Photo: Burnt Factory United Methodist Church in Stephenson, Virginia. 16 August 2020)

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