After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.
~ Luke 10:1
Moms have some great wisdom. When I was in middle and high school, I struggled through the insecurities that many of us experienced in our teenage years. The problem was … from time to time I got stuck in it. I obsessed over my thoughts and dwelled on them. Usually, my mom and I talked about things while she was doing laundry or when we were washing dishes. She listened and empathized. But, one time, she noticed that my eyes – the focus of my attention – was me. I couldn’t see what was going on in the lives of other people and I couldn’t see beyond my current circumstances because all I could see and all I was paying attention to was me. My mom challenged me to look outside of myself and to even force myself to pay attention to others until I was able to move forward.
Our theme of Growing Connectionschallenges us and moves our focus outward – outside of ourselves. Churches exist to connect people with our living and active God, and then continue to grow those connections throughout our lives. Sometimes when I bring up the necessity of reaching out, people will challenge that thought and speak of the importance of caring for church members and tending to the relationships we have here. I absolutely agree that part of our Christian call is to love and support one another, but that can’t be our focus to the exclusion of reaching out. It can be very uncomfortable because most of us were probably taught from a young age not to talk about politics or religion. An unfortunate side-effect of not talking about either of these is that we don’t have the language or the skill to talk in ways that are helpful. The only model most of us have seen or experienced is a confrontational style that puts the hearer on the defensive.
We’re living in a time that is very different from the world we grew up in. Christianity and the role of the church no longer occupies a central role in our communities and homes. These are uncertain times for many churches as some are growing but most are declining. We have choices about how to live and be Christ’s church in this time. We can turn our eyes inward and become anxious and worried, or we can turn our eyes outward and grow connections with our neighbors and community.
Our Lenten theme this year is “God has a mission, and God’s mission has a church.” Together we’ll explore how we join together in accomplishing God’s mission.
In Christ,
Pastor Jeff
Epicurious Lutheran 