February 2012
Dear Friends,
The time has arrived in which I will be leaving you for several months to step into the waters of motherhood. I do so with a light and peaceful heart, confident that our journey toward a more profound and lived faith in God will continue with Rev. Estelle through meaningful, vibrant worship services and the strong pastoral presence that she brings to this position.
Though I will not be with you physically in the coming months, I will be with you in prayer. Since the beginning of Advent, a group of us from the congregation spent six weeks reading about, contemplating, and discussing the subject of prayer. Around our shared table circled many questions about prayer, reflections on prayer, and testimonies of prayer. What I found most intriguing about our discussions is that whether or not we agree or disagree about the purpose or efficacy of the activity of prayer and its desired outcome, it nevertheless has the power to connect us to God and to one another. Through articulating our deepest longings, joys, and concerns in the form of prayer, we are able to reach new understandings about who we are, who God is, and how we relate to others. The exercise of prayer can serve as a muscle to shift our perspective and increase our awareness of realities beyond our own personal experience.
As I will be stepping away from the day-to-day life of the church, I will have the opportunity to reflect upon our work as a body of Christ. I will do this through prayer, praying for each of you individually and for First Congregational Church as a community of disciples in the world. In Philip Yancey’s book on prayer, he writes that,
The act of prayer emboldens us to join the work of transforming the world into
a place where the Father’s will is indeed done as it is in heaven. We are Christ’s
body on earth, after all; he has no hands but ours. And yet to act as Christ’s
body we need an unbroken connection to the Head. We pray in order to see the
world with God’s eyes, and to join the stream of power as it breaks loose.
~ From Prayer, by Philip Yancey, page 124
I will pray in order to connect with the head of Christ and to see our church with God’s eyes so as to join the stream of power as it continues to break loose among us.
Coming off our recent annual meeting I would say that with the best of intentions, for those engaged in the “ins and outs” of church operations and business, it is incredibly easy to become so consumed by what we are doing for God that we miss the experience of being with God. May these twelve weeks of worship with Rev. Estelle will allow each of you to be with God.
My prayerful blessing to all,
Rev. Leanne
