As we enter the month of April, we welcome beautiful signs of spring. We emerge from out of our homes without hats and gloves to hear a new bird song and witness the budding of flowers and trees. No one is as relieved to find warming temperatures as Louie, our family terrier mix. The rumor is that his owner was reluctant to give him long walks in subzero temperatures, so he has been storing up his energy and enthusiasm for a spring time explosion of exercise. Now, with so much outdoor movement of kids on scooters and fellow dogs taking hikes, Louie is barking out his spring time anthem wanting to join the parade.

There are moments when his seasonal madness can become irritating, when it’s impossible for any human to match his energy, when his loud conversation makes it difficult to focus, when he tugs at your arm turning a morning sprint into a jolting fitness experiment. Even at four-years-old he abounds with puppy energy and we wonder if he will ever grow up. (Training from his owners might help!)

But we can also acknowledge and celebrate Louie’s signs of growth. He will sit and stay for an evening treat. He has stopped from nipping at your fingers in playful bouts. He does find ways to slow down and snooze at your side during an evening movie. He can find his way to the safety of his crate rather than hiding when we plan to leave the house. He will not develop any further from his tiny stature and strapping twelve-pound frame, but he is growing up.

The Christian experience is one of continuous growth. Regardless of age or years of church membership, we all find ourselves as students or travelers along a way of new discoveries in grace, maturing in our understanding of Christ, and growing in our practice of obedience to God’s Word. In preaching to new Christians across Asia Minor, Paul says, “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

Each moment is an opportunity to practice maturity, to test out our faith, and to place reliance on the spirit of Christ as it instructs, guides, replenishes, and protects. We draw upon the modeling of Jesus to approach situations in a new way. We bring greater assurance to arenas of fear. We embrace new opportunities with the confidence of God’s provision. We release impulses of anger to implement mercy. We opt against holding grudges and find instances to practice forgiveness. More than adopting new words, our actions do the talking as we grow up in service to Christ and one another. We find ourselves more mature when we unsurprisingly see God at work in all the places where we reside and in all the things we are doing, as we are moved by and moving with God’s momentum in the world.

There are prevalent signs of the spring season, newness and beauty emerging, activity returning, God’s wonderful companions and creatures bouncing and bounding. There is also the humbling of foot washing at the Last Supper in this season. There is commitment to remain at the cross when others have distanced themselves from the hardship of suffering. There is humility, self-giving, sacrifice, and brokenness in this season. There is grief, wrestling with the experience of the disappearance of the holy. These too are part of our seasonal story presenting a challenge for our growth in the Spirit. In the loveliness and the harrowing, in brightness and the dark, in the celebration and tears, God invites us to grow into a new way of life.

PUMC 2025 – A Vision for Doing Life Together as those on the Way of Jesus

As we move through this year, growing in our faith, learning the way of Jesus, and aligning with God for the transformation of the world, I invite us to do so with the vision of four priorities for our ministry together.

• Belonging: We are creating spaces where people are at home in the love of God with themselves and one another.
• Growing: We are encouraging and developing pathways for individuals and groups to take steps forward in their practice of faith.
• Leading: We are equipping and empowering individuals to step into the serving and leadership opportunities before them.
• Celebrating: We are telling the stories of God’s faithfulness and the fruitfulness of our ministry together.

In a lower desk drawer in my church office is a stash of mid-afternoon snacks. In bags and wrappers are an assortment of salty and sweet treats to help tide my hunger from a lite lunch. Yes, there is little redeeming nutritional value in my snack collection, but sometimes it’s flavor satisfaction that I’m craving.

I might do well to read Wendy Shah’s illustrated book “Is this Stomach, Mouth or Heart Hunger?” After all, sometimes our eating has to do with physical needs, other times to fulfill cravings of our senses, or because we’ve created a habit of eating when we are stressed or afraid. Food becomes one of a variety of items we hope will fill us when we feel empty. Peeling open a Reese’s cup takes far less investment than deeper reflection on an emotional need. Yet, as delicious as the chocolate and peanut butter may be, they may not answer the question for that which we truly hunger.

Are you hungry? A significant number of people struggle with food insecurity and physical hunger. Some of those same individuals and others experience heart hunger as well. Loneliness, bitterness, unworthiness, and shame are only a few of the feelings we seek to satisfying with any number of fillers. Jesus reveals deep attention and compassion for both the stomach and the heart.

The good news of Jesus often begins with resourcing the community for mealtime. Around the table, Jesus provided bread with equity so that everyone had enough to eat and leftovers to share. Equally, Jesus responded to the spiritual starvation of the people, feeding them with company, acceptance, forgiveness, and love. His act of breaking bread with humanity reveals God’s attention to every hunger.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Follow the bread and it will lead you to the source of all life.” Perhaps she is suggesting that as we follow Jesus, who is dispersing sustaining appetizers to all, we will find the fullness of grace and provision. Or maybe she is describing the search of scripture for bread basket stories and there we will find God’s spirit of life. Or is she pointing out that as we gather for bread we receive life in the fellowship around the table? After all, the word companion literally means to “share bread with.” Certainly, there is deep meaning dining from all of the above.

You are invited to reflect on hunger and God’s nourishment in our worship series “Bread for the Journey,” which began Sunday March 9th as the first Sunday in Lent. In both Classic and NewDay worship we will explore bible stories about bread to discuss its rich significance in the narrative of the people of God. We will be fed with God’s sustenance, the intimacy of the Spirit as we grow in understanding and faithfulness. We will move through this season of Lent, in spiritual preparation for Easter, turning with commitment to the things of God that fulfill our cravings. We will find belonging and fellowship as we experience bread through our senses, even some taste testing after services. We will be reminded that as we follow the bread we do experience life in the one who answers every hunger.

Excited and apprehensive, I moved along the red brick walkway past Pitts Library to my first series of classes at the Candler School of Theology. A year removed from undergraduate studies, I was anxious in my return to the rhythm of campus. The thought of reading and writing about religion and its expression in the world caused my heart to flutter and I could not wait for this opportunity to explore and extend my faith.

After my first class, I made my way to the fellowship commons, a large gathering space where students enjoyed their lunch-from-home while striking up engaging conversation. The faces were all new and names unknown. Quiet and detached, I surveyed the space. One table was deep in conversation about the ethics of Christian writers of which I had never heard. Another group was debating different theories of soteriology and ecclesiology, terms outside my vocabulary at the time. Another group was deep in the details of church structure and organization. Was there anyone around who wanted to discuss the football game on TV last night?

I had a deep love for Christ. I attended youth group, retreats and mission trips. I had played in a youth handbell choir. I had even participated in a student version of Disciple Bible Study. I was confident in God’s call to serve and lead in the church. But the students sitting around those rectangular wooden tables were deep in religious conversation where I had nothing to contribute, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. I began asking myself, “Do I belong here?”

I count it as a blessing and privilege that I have no memory of anyone telling me, “We don’t want you; you don’t belong.” But I have experienced situations where I questioned if I was wanted, or where I wondered if my presence was noticed at all. Sometimes the priorities and practices of a certain group cause discomfort and communicate clearly that we are uninvited. Sometimes belonging is intentionally thwarted. Often welcome is withheld through negligence, apathy, and a lack of attention.

Yet Jesus’s ministry exemplifies the priority of belonging, as he made his way into crowds interacting with and forming relationship with those who were regularly excluded. He made space to hear stories, make conversation, and equip for leadership those whose situation or status left them on the outside. His departing instruction was for those who follow him to extend love as he had displayed, to follow in his way of inclusive welcome and extravagant grace. Faithfully, the earliest small groups of Christians created communities of belonging as they lived and shared their faith together.

As a pillar of our life at PUMC we commit to continuing the precedence of Jesus by committing to the cause of belonging. We will make way for people to feel at home with the Spirit of God moving in their life and in their relationship with other people. However you may engage with the life of this congregation, whether it be through worship, music ministry, missions, learning small groups, mowing the grass, or breading fish, I encourage you to ask how you do faith while helping others feel like they belong. May the wider community come to know that when they encounter PUMC, they will find welcome and joy, a place to be heard and known, and the space to be who they are and grow into the person God is calling them to be. Whoever they are, wherever they are from, and whatever kind of faith they have, they belong.

At my yearly eye examination, the optometrist inquired whether I had noticed any change in my ability to read small print. “No doctor, all is looking clear,” I replied. Then enter the busy season of Christmas preparations and I found myself squinting into my tablet trying to make out the fuzzy characters. “How much must I zoom in this screen to make this thing legible?!?” Wrapping and labeling presents, I wasn’t sure whose name I was scribbling on the tags. I have lived with severe nearsightedness since my teenage years but this struggle with close vision was a new, uninvited obstacle. But nothing to be alarmed by says the eye doctor when evaluating my aging eyes. Some of you perusing this article through your readers know the experience. While incredible technology through laser surgery has proven effective to remedy many types of visual refractive errors, not all blurry vision can be fixed.

“Fixing my eyes” is a practice I wish to pursue in this New Year. No, I have not committed to Lasik surgery. But I do endeavor to reorient my focus on the revealing and revelation of Jesus. How might we experience this year differently if we wake up each morning to fix our eyes upon Jesus?

One opening to seeing differently is accomplished by identifying experiences of new life and restoration. Rather than focusing on our litany of problems, we can reinterpret our experiences to see where the Spirit is healing, reuniting, and presenting new opportunities. Perhaps you and I can begin a journal where we record these glimpses of heaven meeting earth, where God is at work amidst the mess that threatens to discourage.

Fixing our eyes also takes the intentional effort of naming areas in our life where the Spirit of Christ seeks growth. Perhaps we should be asking what spiritual practices, routines and roles needs to be reworked this year to stretch our adherence and witness to God. How might our priorities and investment of energy and resources shift to better align with our passion to follow Jesus?

Fixing your eyes upon Jesus is a practice of altering the atmosphere around you. What rhythms of breathing, prayer, reading, or making of music might move you from an environment of nervousness to peace? How can we see the day with gladness and joy as a blank slate for exciting interactions, opportunities to speak encouragement, and occurrences for love?

While I need to find myself a nice pair of reading glasses, I will also be praying to the Lord of all direction and comfort, “Be thou my vision!” And I’m praying for your beautiful new year in which you may see all things with the eyes of Christ.