If you want to touch the past TOUCH A ROCK.  If you want to touch the present TOUCH A FLOWER.  If you want to touch the future TOUCH A LIFE.

If you’ve been at church for the last month you have seen this on the bulletin board. We have been spending time in worship thinking about the past and the present and will spend time with the future as well. 

This is a time of listening for God to speak. As we peek into different parts and times of our life, as we allow the curtain to be drawn back (revelation) we listen for God’s voice. Sometimes we feel like God is silent and that may be true, but sometimes it is because we are not hearing what we want to hear or not trusting what we hear.

I know someone who for part of their college course had to go and teach in a foreign country. They were a youth leader and hoped to fulfill that season before having to go on the trip. Two opportunities presented themselves. One meant leaving youth early and one was exactly what was prayed for. Easy decision? Sometimes we make the answer harder than it needs to be.

Someone else I knew said they never prayed for life path or job because they were scared that God might ask them to do something they didn’t want to do. Sometimes I think if we do pray for direction we won’t hear God until our direction is chosen (subconsciously of course).

Here we are looking at how God has blessed Edmonton Moravian in the past and how the church has blessed God and those around us. It feels good to remember the good. But there have been many ups and downs and difficult decisions to make. Some changed the course of the church (location) and some affirmed the current way. Today we see that families are smaller, children grow and leave home and church. Numbers fall and our elders begin to step into the nearer presence of God. Much has changed (size) and much has remained (a deep sense of community and belonging).

The focus for most of the time I have been here is discerning the future God has for Edmonton Moravian. We are listening, the question is are we hearing? There is a gathering sense of God’s future vision. May you continue your journey together making the best decisions you can, knowing that God IS in your midst and IS leading your hearts and minds. “Well done, good and faithful servant[s]! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21).

Go boldly and trust God to direct.    

Love to all my sisters and brothers, Pastor Trina

P.S.  September 8 will be my final Sunday worshiping with you. On the 9th Ken and I fly off to Nepal for our fifth trip together (we return the end of November). It has been two years and we have greatly missed our friends and the work that is going on there. Thank you for welcoming us into your community: it has been a pleasure walking with you during these months. Please keep us in your prayers and we will keep you in ours. Thank you for all the financial support you have given for us and for the ministry in Nepal. We will let you know all about our time and work there.  We go with joy feeling blessed by you and by God.

John 12:24  (NLT)  I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.

Change is never easy. I have lived in more places than you can count on your fingers and toes combined. Each one brought stress both good and bad. There are always positives and negatives to every decision we make and many emotions that go with each option. I have noticed that when I let God lead and plant me that there are a lot of good things that happen: Meeting people, supporting them in time of need, building friendships, answering or simply talking about some of those tough questions. Sometimes I feel as though I had done nothing but then someone says something and I realize that a small difference can bring about greater things. I have grown because of other people and places as well. I am a very different person than I was 20 or 30 years ago.

Refusing a change sometimes seems like a good idea. We hope the need for the change will pass – things can and do get better – sometimes.  While other times we know there will come a day when the choice is made for us when we wait too long. Vehicles sometimes decide for us. You have a great car and you want to keep it forever. You do everything to keep it going but sometimes there is no more repair to be done and the choice of another vehicle is thrust upon you while you are unprepared. It’s like throwing out a bunch of kernels and whichever one sprouts first that’s the one you grab (good or bad).

Some things we do not control such as the seasons. We learn to grumble but adapt. There are things to be enjoyed in each season and so we move on. We live into the good of each season. Enjoying it and bidding it adieu as we travel to the next.

Choices like moving to seniors’ homes can feel like a seed falling and dying but God can use you wherever you are. We often see these kinds of changes as bad and lash out as we see our independence ebb away. When it is our choice it goes a little easier than when others are forced to make the choice for us.

Letting go is so difficult especially when we are comfortable with whatever it is. Let the seed of independence or your desire die and see what harvest God might bring forward in the new kernels. Ecclesiastes reminds us that everything has a season and all seasons are filled with opportunities for new and bountiful life. Blessings to others can be given and new life started.

Our community prayer has been “Infuse your hope and love in us, O God, as we face the challenges of this time in our ministry. Make YOUR way clear to us as we set our intentions towards the faithful action of discernment and decision. Amen.” What seeds do we need to allow to die in order for a new harvest to come forward?  Change can be scary, but it does not mean an end because as the kernel dies new life can then spring up. What might a new harvest look like? I’m afraid you say – I’m unsure at the moment. That’s okay, but know “Jesus said, ‘But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid.’” Luke 12:7 (The Daily Text for June 26)

P.S. A change is happening in September. The eighth will be my last Sunday worshiping with you as Ken and I will once again be journeying to Nepal to help our friends plant seeds in the school and be a part of the three churches there.  Please keep us in your prayers as we raise funds and make changes, planting and being planted for God. Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow.

Most of us have probably asked this question; or at least we have been asked it via a child.

What’s the answer? 

It’s blue just because it is, because God made it that way.

Why do we always have to give answers?

I think most of us would say it takes too much time to help someone think about the question or help them find answers. Maybe we aren’t sure of the answer and we are afraid to admit it. Maybe…

If God created us to be in relationship with one another couldn’t the exploration of possible answers be a means of spending time together? We live in a world with so many conveniences that save time – still we don’t have time to sit together with questions. When Ken asks me a question and I have no answer I enjoy looking on the internet and finding the answer. Sometimes it means stopping what we are doing to take the time to read the whole answer and maybe a little trivia as well. I like finding answers and as a pastor sometimes I find myself sharing the answers without helping people to sit with and explore the question. I enjoy when we stop during worship to share thoughts, feelings, etc. I feel closer to you. I feel like we are walking and learning together.

May 19 following worship we chose to spend time together and ask some questions. So often we rattle off what we think or what we feel and we don’t stop to listen to each other. This day we stopped. We ate together, we shared some important questions to help us to hear one another and to think intentionally about Edmonton Moravian.

We worked at not giving answers and we worked at listening to each other for the sake of listening. I believe events like this draw us closer. They can also show where our hearts are. What do we feel about this place and this space. What is God saying and are we willing to listen. Is there a direction that God is leading and who is God able to get to listen and share.

Talk, ask questions, listen, share. Together God will reveal answers.

Why is the sky blue?

Peace,

Pastor Trina

I came across this recently (April 26, 2019 reading) in my “Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation” email, which was looking at Jesus’ Resurrection. It made me stop and think about my life. I hope it gives you some perspective on your life and happenings as it did mine.

Death Transformed

Christianity—as well as Buddhism, other religions, and natural systems—suggests that the pattern of transformation, the pattern that connects, the life that Reality offers us is not death avoided, but death transformed. In other words, the only trustworthy pattern of spiritual transformation is death and resurrection. Christians learn to submit to trials because Jesus told us that we must “carry the cross” with him…

Death and life are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other. Each time you surrender, each time you trust the dying, your faith is led to a deeper level and you discover a Larger Self underneath. You decide not to push yourself to the front of the line, and something much better happens in the back of the line. You let go of your narcissistic anger, and you find that you start feeling much happier. You surrender your need to control your partner, and finally the relationship blossoms or ends. Yet each time it is a choice—and each time it is a kind of dying. It seems we only know what life is when we know what death is.

The mystics and great saints were those who had learned to trust and allow this pattern, and often said in effect, “What did I ever lose by dying?” Or try Paul’s famous one-liner: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Now even scientific studies, including those of near-death experiences, reveal the same universal pattern. Things change and grow by dying to their present state, but each time it is a risk. We always wonder, “Will it work this time?” So many academic disciplines are coming together, each in their own way, to say that there’s a constant movement of loss and renewal at work in this world at every level. It seems to be the pattern of all growth and evolution. To be alive means to surrender to this inevitable flow. It’s the same pattern in every atom, in every human relationship, and in every galaxy. Indigenous peoples, Hindu gurus, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus all saw it clearly in human history and named it as a kind of “necessary dying.”

If this pattern is true, it has been true all the time and everywhere. Such seeing did not just start two thousand years ago. All of us have to eventually learn to let go of something smaller so something bigger can happen. But that’s not a religion—it’s highly visible truth. It is the Way Reality Works.

Yes, I am saying that the way things work and Christ are one and the same. This is not a religion to be either fervently joined or angrily rejected. It is a train ride already in motion. The tracks are visible everywhere. You can be a willing and happy traveler. Or not.

Happy Easter all may we all continue to be transformed.

New Life in following the Lamb, Pastor Trina

In the Moravian Baptism liturgy the pastor asks, “Those of you baptized into Christ Jesus, how were you baptized?”  The congregation responds, “Into his death. We were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glorious power of God Almighty, we too might be raised to live a new life.”

We often wander through Lent wondering if this time is really any different than any other Sunday. The hope for Lent is about making changes. Where have I wandered, where am I ignoring God, where have I refused to follow the Holy Spirit. Sometimes making the unpleasant decision to say, “Not my will but yours [God] be done.”

 Holy week becomes that turning point, we rejoice with Jesus at the passover meal and are given a gift of remembrance. On Friday we nail all those issues, sins, problems, etc. to the cross letting Jesus carry the burden we ought to carry. It’s hard to leave stuff from our life at the foot of the cross but Jesus invites us to and reminds us that he is a God that forgives and loves.

From there we go to the excitement of Sunday when the women go to the tomb and become the first proclaimers of a risen and living Christ. They and the disciples are renewed and energized to carry on the work that Jesus taught them. They (and we) are not left alone. The Holy Spirit lives in us giving us the strength to love and be loved, to sacrifice and maybe even give our life for another.

Be bold this Easter – Shout Hosanna wherever you go! See Christ in others and show that Jesus is alive in you. You never know how your renewal might lead to the renewal of another, which will lead to the renewal of more. We have been raised to new life and God wants that for the world. Celebrate love and watch the world begin to change.

Happy Easter everyone and may you be blessed to be a blessing.

Pastor Trina