Dear St. Lukers,
One of the highlights of my week is spending my Wednesday mornings with our 50 North Book Club. This fall, we are reading two books on different, but related, topics: Hope and Compassion.
Both are concepts that seem simple – basic even. And yet, as our conversations have transpired over the last few weeks, and as we have read more about the nature of those two practices, we are recognizing together how challenging both concepts can be.
So often, we think of things like Hope and Compassion as feelings, but in reality, they are practices that require us to be intentional about how we are engaging with ourselves and with one another. Can we have hope for the world if we don’t have hope for ourselves? Where does compassion for others come from if we haven’t yet learned to be compassionate with ourselves? It takes intention, it takes consistency, and it takes practice to truly embody these ideals for ourselves and for the world alike.
This week in worship, we are looking at the third of John Wesley’s General Rules: “Attend Upon All the Ordinances of God”, often summarized as “Stay in Love with God”. This general rule is about how we order our lives, focused on our practices of spiritual disciplines like worship, prayer, generosity, and reading scripture.
But as a church, we are called to go beyond the basics, because when we come together, we are capable of so much more. Rather than just talking about loving God, what does it look like in our lives as a whole? How is the love we have for God proven out by the way we live? How we treat one another, how we treat the environment, how we use our voices and our time to fight injustice and oppression – all of these are related to our practice of a spiritual life, not only individually but together as a church.
So, join me this Sunday in worship as we look at what it means to Love Boldly by being a church that proves the love of God out in the way we live – and I imagine, in ways that look a lot like Hope and Compassion too.
Blessings,
Pastor Melissa
