Keep the Change
Dear Church,
Welp, here we are. Lent 2021. These last 12 months were a wild ride! It seems as though each week, if not each day, brought about a need for us to make adjustments to our lives—both macro and micro. And, while few of us are flourishing right now, we are still here. We are still making our way through each week, each day, and we are still focusing on our mission to make a love-spreading difference in this valley and beyond. Lent, though, is a home-team, hometown season. It’s an intentional time to pause our outward reach and go inward to care for and seek deeper connection and understanding of our own hearts. Lent is an exhalation, not an inhalation.
This year, our work together during the season of Lent is focused upon accommodating CHANGE, embracing, rather than shrinking from life’s ups and downs and lefts and rights. Given the events over the course of the last 12 months, we have a fitness for examining and shedding light on this reality in the human experience.
So, our theme this year is KEEP THE CHANGE.
We’re approaching this work with the full understanding that the flexibility required over the course of the last 12 months has caused some of us to crack or snap or flat-out breakdown, and in the same beat, we acknowledge that CHANGE is just a part of life. Our need to or desire for accommodating a measure of CHANGE keeps us nimble and growing. We know that CHANGE, CHANGE of heart and mind, is essential in order to embody the faith that is important to us.
Enclosed with this letter is a symbol of our work together as a community to KEEP THE CHANGE. I would ask that you carry it with you for the next 40 days, and some Sundays, during this season of Lent. Put it in your pocket, on your dashboard, next to the kitchen or bathroom sink. Let this token remind us of our common work and need for flexibility and accommodation for one another, the curve balls life throws, and God’s sometimes counter-intuitive, always loving plans that almost never fail to take us by surprise.
And, join us. Brian, Mary and I will host a series of conversations between the three of us virtually, posted every Wednesday through Lent on all our platforms. Our conversations will focus on Courage, Humility, Angels, Now, Grace, and Embrace. Yup, you see it. C.H.A.N.G.E.—hokie, but catchy!
Love,
Jimmy
