Pastoral Message | February 2023

I’ve never been one of those people whose has a word for the year, but this year, I feel like a word was given to me: WONDER.

I’m sensing an invitation in 2023 to be curious about life and the world. I desire to cultivate a sense of awe and openness about each day and each moment with God, others, and the world around me. The invitation to wonder feels new, playful, open, creative, and even surprising.

In mid-December, as this word “wonder” began to deepen in me, I received a text from Pastor Heather and Pastor Patrice: “Would you be willing to take on some extra work to help guide the transitional discernment work at our church?”

Hmm… I wondered what this would look like. Without going into all the details, the Spirit had already been planting questions in me that made me excited, curious, and open to saying, “Yes!” I felt an invitation to help create space to wonder together about the transitions we are in. We have a new, innovative pastoral transition plan; we are forming a pastoral nominating committee; we have multiple new staff members and staff roles; and like every church in the U.S., we are wondering what church will be in this post-pandemic reality.

All this can seem daunting, disconcerting, disorienting, and filled with liminality. The Franciscan priest and contemplative Richard Rohr says that liminality is, “when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. It is that graced time when we are not certain or in control, when something genuinely new can happen. It is the ultimate teachable space.”

I wonder what God is up to in this time of liminal transition at ELPC. I wonder what new thing God might invite us into in this season and the next. I wonder what tried and true realities we might need to lay down for the next chapter to emerge. I wonder what kind of inner and outer transformation God might want to form in us and through us. I wonder what God might teach us.

What are you wondering about at ELPC these days?

As we live into this transitional plan and search for permanent pastoral leadership, I hope and pray that each of us will stay open to this graced time of transformation and wonder with God—and one another—what new thing God desires to do in each of us and in the collective us of ELPC.

—Pastor BJ