“Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there’s one, there’s always the other. …Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a feeling of poverty.”  -Pema Chodron.

Friends,

I write to you today at the beginning of a new month and in a moment of transition for our church. Summer is winding down. Kids will be getting ready to go back to school soon and programming will pick up at a steadier pace.  We have just come off of a month collaborating with Acts on Stage and Townsend School of Music in a worship “experiment” that was a welcome collaboration by some and others may have felt a little hesitant. Looking back on the month and the experience, I think we learned a lot as a congregation. Some of you may be wondering where we go from here. What happens next?

I imagine there are hopes of what a changing worship style might look like but as the quote by Pema Chodron says, if there is hope there will also be fear. I have found in my own life, that in moments of transition and change, I have often felt the feeling of hope and excitement for what could be but also the fear of the unknown. As Chodron says, “Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a feeling of poverty.” ‘What are we lacking?’ you may be asking yourself. As we move through these moments of transition, Pastor Paul and I will be preaching and teaching on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral suggests that we are most fully alive when we are equally informed by scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. As congregations and individuals, we may lean more heavily on one or two parts of the quadrilateral and be lacking in other areas. Join us, in person or online, the next four Sundays as we learn how we can use all parts of the quadrilateral to inform our spiritual lives as individuals and a church community. Having a balance in all four areas will help us as we move forward as a church, into the changes God is calling us to.

In Christ,

Molly Collier