February 16, 2018
IDENTIFY...
The first word in our 2018 INVITE Challenge (see below) is IDENTIFY. In short, before we can invite others to join us in a conversation about faith or to come to church with us, we have to IDENTIFY what it is that inspires us about our faith and about Calvary. Hopefully, this is an easy question for us to answer?
Here are just a few things that inspire me about Calvary:
- People who come to services like Ash Wednesday and Healing & Wholeness...who are open to struggling with suffering, death, and darkness in community...because as we come together to share our pain and our journeys...we become the very Light we seek so deeply.
- Our church school teachers (children, youth, and adult) and small group leaders...who spend energy and time thinking about scripture and faith and how to make it come alive for all of us
- Our commitment to serving those who are in seasons of transition...whether that be through outreach ministries like Family Promise and Bootstraps and Blessings or pastoral care ministries like Stephen Ministry and VIP/Lifelines
- Our youth...their honesty about faith, their desire to connect with one another, their critical thinking skills, their eagerness to serve, their ability to let loose and have fun. (If you were at the Dinner Dance, last Friday...you know what I mean! I am so proud of our youth, and our youth leaders, and Pastor Morgan...they inspire me....when I see our youth collectively together, I think, this is Calvary at its best: Open to All. Closed to None and excited about life and faith and community and connection).
- What about you? What can you IDENTIFY what inspires you about Calvary? Take a moment and list a few things. Perhaps post them to your Facebook page with a link to Calvary's page or share them with your family around the dinner table tonight or tell your small group or class this week about what you love about this church.
The more we identify what is working well, what inspires us, and what matters most in our church family, the easier it will be for those things to be the first things we say to others when we tell them about the mission of Christ through this church.
~ Pastor Anne