Weekly Clergy Letter from Mother Anne Turner

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

During Easter season, the lectionary takes us through the Acts of the Apostles.  The evangelist Luke (who wrote Acts as the continuation of his gospel) wants to tell us about the exponential growth of the new church in the wake of Jesus’s resurrection.  The book is full of dramatic conversions, miraculous healings, and bold testimonies.

 

Sometimes, I struggle with the credibility of such a starry-eyed account of the early church.  But I believe that Luke gives us such a vivid story to caution us against the sin of playing it small.

 

So often in our lives, we let the present be the measure of the future.  The status quo is not only our baseline but our finish line.  This failure of the imagination does not come from any great evil.  It is a natural human coping mechanism; it allows us to routinize and predict our lives.

 

But God is never predictable. Life after resurrection, in particular, is not predictable.

 

This weekend, we begin a new phase of our visioning process.  Throughout the month of May, you will be invited to use your imagination in the service of this church.  Beginning this Sunday morning, there are a variety of opportunities after each service to contribute to our shared vision for the next ten years of Grace Church.

 

Will there be dramatic conversions, miraculous healings, and bold testimonies?  Our future may not look like the book of Acts.  But I do believe it can be dramatic, miraculous, and bold.  God does not want us to play it small.  God does not want us to underestimate ourselves—or the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

I hope you will participate in this visioning process.  And I hope you will let the unpredictability of God surprise you with all that we might become.

 

Yours in Christ,

Anne+