Reflect, Reconnect, Renew 2025

Today is a beautiful fall day – the clouds are grey, there are still pumpkins on porches and a bit of color on the trees here and there. We are in a season of gratitude as Thanksgiving approaches, at least it was at the time of my writing, and in a season of preparation: Advent will have begun by the time you read this, the season in the church we prepare our hearts and homes to welcome Jesus once again. We have also seen another United States presidential election, and a general election that saw Indiana consider candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and more – all the way down to our town councils and school boards. I’m admittedly still processing the outcomes and what they say about the state of our nation, what the role of the Church and we as Jesus followers play in all this. It’s the end of 2024; 2025 is fast approaching. In the past year we said goodbye to one senior pastor and hello to a new, we had lots of staff shuffles and even more are on the way with the retirement of our youth pastor next summer. Our General Conference of the UMC met last spring and opened the way for gay clergy to be ordained and gay couples to be married by our pastors in our places of worship. We received a new bishop in Indiana! I got married and moved farther away from you than I wish I was. Via the Worship Annex, we are launching something new this month – the beginning of what I am certain will birth incredible ministry and sharing the love of God with others. There is a lot I could say about any of these moments, these decisions and how they impact us and will continue to impact, inform and guide us in the days, weeks and months to come.

But what I want to share with you is encouragement, some reminders, some challenges to take up for the year ahead. I am convinced, now more than ever, our institutions are not going to save us, that our stuff is not going to save us, nor our money or our health or anything. We have Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, we have ourselves, we have each other and this beautiful Earth. How, in 2025, can you connect more deeply with these four areas – your own Self, Creation, your fellow human beings and God? What do you need to cut out of your life or give up or take up in order to connect, to reconnect? What do you need to dive into? Ease into? What must you walk away from? Who must you listen to? Don’t forget – trees are people, too!

I mean this seriously: it matters how we live. And we can talk all day about ideas over coffee, but I wonder what practices can help us stay connected. What can we do to stay grounded, to heal, to create more capacity to love and forgive ourselves and others? So we can ask ourselves: Are we worshiping God with every part of our lives? Where else do we need to surrender to God? Where else can we serve some aspect of the Earth or other humans who are not us and our immediate household? How can we live more joyfully and peacefully with ourselves, each other and God? These are good reflection questions to ask so when 2025 arrives we are ready to live, at least a bit more fully, the lifestyle Jesus modeled when he was alive and the one he calls us to live yet today. One that bears life-giving fruit.

Dallas Goldtooth, a Native American environmental activist and performance artist recently shared ways people can organize themselves in their community. He listed things like:

• Create a local group where you can share ideas and create support for people who need help
• Get together with crafty people to craft and learn to craft and be in fellowship
• Join a radical read book club where you read books often banned or that push you into new territory for thinking and serving in the community
• Make art – radical art – like public art, theater, and zines. Make music! Play it! Read poetry in public!
• Join or start a community garden
• Start a community fridge or a clothing pickup point, or a sanitary products giveaway
• Volunteer with a cause you care about
• Get to know your neighbors

As the church, we are great at coming up with these kinds of efforts but if you’re like me, maybe you need a fresh start. I hope we can be about even more intentional connection this year – the kind of efforts and connections that don’t burn us out, but instead fill us up with the love and assurance that we are loved by God and empowered to make a real difference in the world around us by the way we live, by the way we speak and forgive and love. It’s going to be OK in 2025. God is already making a way for us – I’ll see you there!