October/November 2008
Dear Friends,
Why do people come to church? It was the first question 10 members of our congregation were asked, along with other UUs, at a marvelous Covenant Group Facilitators meeting at the Portsmouth church today. It says a lot about who we are and what we hope to find in church that so many of us were there! And I am grateful to Peggy Herbert for all her efforts to encourage us (and help us!) to get there.
Why do people come to church? We come because we are lonely, because we are feeling overwhelmed by events, or by endless requests for our attention from the internet, the media, work, the economy, family, our homes, gardens, and hobbies put on our path.
We come because we are hungry for quiet, for a gentle time, a gentle place and a gentle people in the midst of so much noisy and competitive life. We come because we are searching to reconnect with our best selves, our highest aspirations, not for our careers, but for our humanity.
We come because in a church community, we hope we will find the human kindness and understanding, encouragement and support every single one of us needs on this precarious journey through the days of our lives. We come to find forgiveness, in ourselves and in one another.
We come because we need to deal with the reality that at the end of life there is death. What then?
We come because we want to be of use, to give something of ourselves to a bruised and hurting world, and we want to do it within the context of a faithful community. We come to find, together, a right path toward meaningful, safe, and joyful relationships where we can safely share the days and nights of our lives, the light times and the dark.
We stay because we find here a place we can trust, one specific community where we can give something of ourselves, our own unique gifts of some service…flowers, singing, food, gardens, service and leadership in committee work without which no church can thrive.
Covenant groups work because their goals are simple, clear, and created and accepted by all participants: to engage in service to the congregation and the larger world, to abide by a set of relationship guidelines, and to welcome new members. Seems to me that these goals could be the solid foundation on which any congregation that wants to thrive could be built.
Yesterday we celebrated the lighting of our chalice with these words of 13th century mystic, Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet You there.”
In faith,
Olivia
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