Kindred in Christ,

As we head toward our special yearly Brunch Church gathering this Sunday, coming together with friends around tables, good food, and creative spiritual reflection, I find myself deeply grateful for the community we are and the community we are becoming. These past few weeks, we have been reflecting on our roots and branches as a people shaped by God’s grace.

We have remembered our deep roots in the Methodist revival movement, a movement that centered marginal voices, sought personal and social holiness, and held piety and works of justice together. We have also stretched our imagination toward the branches, the many ways God may be calling us into new forms of ministry, new partnerships, and new ways of living the gospel in our time.

Last week we explored how, throughout early Methodist history, every step forward came with both openness to the new thing God was doing and resistance to it, sometimes from the very same people who had welcomed change only a few years before. Yet again and again, the Spirit challenged and expanded the early Methodists as the revival movement spread across England and the United States. God kept bringing new people from new contexts: the Wesley brothers in England, Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury in America, Richard Allen- the first Black minister in our tradition, and Jarena Lee- the first Black woman preacher in Methodism. Each time God raised up new leaders with new experiences and perspectives, there was resistance to that newer thing God was doing, even from those who once championed the movement’s earlier transformation.

Both of our congregations know something about change. We, too, have been stretched, challenged, and invited to grow in ways we never expected. And like those early Methodists, we continue to welcome new people, explore fresh possibilities, and listen for where the Spirit may be nudging us next.

As we extend and gather around the table this Sunday, may we glimpse a small sign of God’s new creation unfolding in our midst. Every shared dish, every conversation, and every moment of connection becomes a reminder that God is still weaving us together into a community of grace and possibility.

Alongside you,

Rev. Paul Ortiz