Author: Church Office

The Well Among Us

There is a great deal of life stirring at Holy Spirit right now.

We are in the midst of our capital campaign, and the response has been deeply encouraging. People have stepped forward with generosity, hope, and a real commitment to the future of this congregation. At the same time, we are preparing for fall activities and several meaningful service projects. New people are finding us, often first through worship online and then eventually making their way through the doors. Many are people from the neighborhood who have been looking for a church community and have found something here that makes them want to stay. Several are already asking about becoming members.

All of this is exciting. But what has moved me most lately is not simply that the church is active or growing. It is the way people are caring for one another.

Again and again, I see members noticing when someone needs help and quietly stepping in. When family members are unavailable, someone from the congregation offers a ride, makes a phone call, brings a meal, checks in, or simply sits beside someone who should not have to face a difficult moment alone. Much of this care happens without announcement or recognition. It is simply what people do because they have learned to belong to one another.

Earlier this week I was struck by an overwhelming wave of emotion during prayer, My internal response to this experience was, “Gosh, I love these people.”

That love also comes with vulnerability. When we truly allow ourselves to belong to one another, we know that eventually we will also have to grieve one another. I was reminded of that recently as we celebrated the life of Jean. She was part of the fabric of this congregation for many years, and it was a privilege to gather, remember her, and entrust her once again to the love of God.

There is no way to love a community without sometimes feeling the ache of loss. Perhaps that is part of what makes church such a sacred thing. We do not merely attend worship together. We share life. We witness one another’s joys, illnesses, changes, celebrations, disappointments, and losses. We become woven into one another’s stories. The grief is real because the love is real.

Alongside all of this, I have also been deeply encouraged by the growth of our contemplative prayer and meditation group. Around twenty people have been participating, which is no small number in a congregation where our average worship attendance is around sixty-five to seventy. Some have been practicing together for more than a year, while others are just beginning. Together, they are learning to become more attentive to their bodies, their spirits, one another, and the presence of God.

This feels especially important right now.

There is a great deal of anxiety in the world. People are weary, frightened, angry, and overwhelmed. Many seem to be living with their nervous systems constantly braced for the next terrible headline, conflict, crisis, or loss. Even when nothing is immediately wrong, there is a sense that something might be. We carry that tension into our homes, our relationships, our work, and sometimes into the church.

In anxious times, we naturally look for places and people that feel steady. We gravitate toward those whose breathing is slower than ours, whose feet seem planted, and whose presence reassures us that the world has not entirely come apart. Sometimes we need to borrow another person’s calm for a little while. That is not weakness. It is one of the ways human beings help one another survive.

This may be one of the gifts of Christian community. We lend one another hope until hope begins to rise again within us. We hold faith for one another when faith feels thin. We sit beside one another until breathing slows and the ground feels solid again.

But the goal is not to remain dependent upon someone else’s peace.

Something beautiful happens when we begin to realize that the same Spirit we sense in another person also dwells within us. The peace of God is not possessed by a fortunate few. It is not rationed out in small portions. There is an abundant well of grace, courage, wisdom, and love within and among us, waiting to be remembered and received.

People may first come to contemplative prayer because they see others drawing from that well. They may come weary, curious, restless, or simply hoping to feel a little better. Over time, though, they begin to discover their own capacity for stillness. They learn that they, too, can become grounded in the presence of God.

And eventually, the person who once needed to borrow peace becomes a peaceful presence for someone else.

This is how steadiness spreads through a community. Not because any one person has enough strength to carry everyone, but because we help one another discover the deep source from which we all draw. We practice returning to that source together, again and again.

Perhaps that is what is happening throughout our congregation right now.

We are raising funds and caring for a building, but we are also strengthening something less visible. We are building trust. We are deepening relationships. We are learning to notice our neighbors. We are making room for new people. We are practicing how to remain loving and grounded in an anxious world. We are learning how to grieve without surrendering hope and how to serve without needing recognition.

The church is not called to pretend that everything is fine. We are called to become a people who know where the well is.

We gather, pray, worship, serve, repair, welcome, grieve, and care for one another until we remember that the peace of Christ is not a scarce resource. There is enough for us. There is enough for our neighbors. There is enough to share.

For all the uncertainty in the world, I remain deeply hopeful about what God is doing here. I see it in the new faces entering our doors. I see it in the generosity surrounding our campaign. I see it in those preparing to serve this fall. I see it in people learning to become still before God. Most of all, I see it in the quiet, faithful ways you continue to show up for one another.

What a gift it is to be part of this life together.

Turn Your Good Idea into Action! 

Thrivent Action Teams help people bring together volunteers for service projects, fundraisers, and educational events. Eligible Thrivent members may apply for up to $250 in seed money to help purchase supplies and get a project started.

Current Thrivent members can begin by signing into their account at Thrivent.com/actionteam and completing the online application. Applications should be submitted at least 14 days before the planned project.

Not already a Thrivent member? You may become an associate member for $20 per year. Associate membership includes the opportunity to lead one $250 Action Team project each year and receive $25 in Thrivent Choice Dollars to direct to an eligible nonprofit organization.

Looking for ideas? Several Action Team projects are already making a difference in our congregation and community. This spring, one grant helped purchase socks and underwear for children at Hambright Elementary School. An educational grant provided SBL Study Bibles for our Bible study class. Another grant is purchasing the bags needed for our Lutheran World Relief care kits, while another will provide first-aid kits for our church, the school, and neighboring congregations.

These projects began with someone noticing a need and imagining a way to help. What need do you see in our church or community?

To get started, talk with Pr. Gretchen or visit the Action Team section of the ministry bulletin board to find others who can help with the application process. Together, we can turn good ideas into meaningful ministry!

There is something about summer that reveals how tired people really are.

Not just physically tired, though many of us are that too. Spiritually tired. Emotionally tired. Nervous-system tired. The kind of tiredness that settles deep into the bones after years of rushing, worrying, striving, reacting, producing, and carrying more than a human being was ever meant to carry alone.

And yet, when summer arrives, many of us do not actually know how to rest.

We may slow down for a moment, sit on a porch for an evening, or take a brief vacation, but internally the machinery often keeps running. The mind keeps scanning. The body stays braced. The soul forgets how to unclench.

Our culture treats rest like a reward for productivity. Something earned after everything is completed. But the trouble is, everything is never completed. There is always another email, another bill, another responsibility, another crisis, another demand for our attention.

The scriptures offer a different vision.

In Genesis, God rests. Not because God is exhausted, but because rest is part of the rhythm of creation itself. The Sabbath becomes holy not because nothing happens, but because life was never meant to be endless production.

Jesus repeatedly invites weary people into rest. He slips away from the crowds. He naps in boats during storms. He leaves urgency unfinished in order to remain present to people. Again and again, he refuses to treat human worth as something measured by output.

Rest, then, is not laziness. It is trust.

It is the quiet and courageous act of believing that the world can continue spinning without our constant striving. It is allowing ourselves to be human instead of machines.

And maybe we need that reminder more than we realize.

We are living in loud times. Outrage is monetized. Fear spreads quickly. Our attention is constantly pulled apart by devices and headlines that train our nervous systems to stay alert at all times. Many people no longer remember what it feels like to be still long enough to hear their own soul.

Summer can become an invitation to remember.

· To sit outside and notice the wind moving through trees.

· To share a meal slowly.

· To watch children play without multitasking.

· To put bare feet in the grass.

· To pray without hurrying.

· To laugh deeply.

· To nap unapologetically.

· To remember that joy is holy too.

Rest is not withdrawal from the world. True rest restores us so that we can return to the world more grounded, more compassionate, more awake, and more capable of love.

Perhaps this summer, God is not asking us to do more.

Perhaps God is inviting us to breathe again.

An Invitation to Gather for Peace
Interfaith Peace Vigil, May 10 at 5:00 p.m.

There are moments in the life of a community when it becomes clear that we cannot do this work alone.

The world feels tangled right now. There is grief we can name, and grief we do not yet have words for. There is division that runs deep, and a longing, sometimes just beneath the surface, for something more whole, more human, more rooted in love.

On Saturday, May 10 at 5:00 p.m., we will host an Interfaith Peace Vigil here at Holy Spirit. This gathering is part of an ongoing rhythm among faith communities in our area, as we rotate from one place of worship to another, showing up for one another and for the shared work of peace.

What makes this gathering meaningful is not that we all believe the same things. We do not, and we do not need to. Instead, we come bringing the depth of our own traditions, the prayers, practices, and wisdom that have shaped us, and we make space for one another to do the same.

In our Lutheran tradition, we are shaped by practices that invite us to be present, to listen deeply, and to trust that God is already at work within us and among us. At this vigil, we will lean into that spirit. Together, we will engage a simple, contemplative practice shaped around poetry, words that echo the heartbeat of scripture, allowing them to move through us slowly, gently, and honestly. Not rushing past the tension of the world as it is, but also not losing sight of the world as it could be.

Because part of what we are doing in gatherings like this is practicing hope.

We are learning how to sit in the middle of what feels knotted and unresolved while still orienting ourselves toward a future shaped by love, grace, and justice. A love that is strong enough to hold difference. A grace deep enough to meet us where we are. A justice wide enough to lift all of us without leaving anyone behind.

This is how bridges are built.

Not all at once, and not through grand gestures alone, but through simple, faithful acts of showing up. Through listening. Through praying side by side. Through allowing our lives to be shaped, little by little, by the presence of our neighbors.

In a time when it is easy to retreat into what is familiar, this is an invitation to step toward one another instead.

Come as you are.
Come with your questions, your hopes, your weariness, your prayers.
Come ready to stand alongside others who are also seeking peace, not as an abstract idea, but as something we are called to live into together.

We hope you will join us.