Pastor’s Pen | October 2022

Hope and possibility permeate our celebration of Reformation Sunday.

I realize you are opening this newsletter early in the month of October, and Reformation Sunday feels a long way off. And yet, this year, there is something profoundly hopeful about this year’s celebration of a 16th century monk and his contemporary reformers who dared to challenge the Church’s theology, practices, and structures. For me, Reformation Day reminds us that our impulse to control God’s grace and liberation in the structures of our own making cannot hold back God’s relentless determination to claim the whole world in an intimate, all-encompassing love.

This feels profoundly counter and hope-filled to the messages we are receiving about the future of the Protestant church in the US. Recently, Pew Research Center reported that “if recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population with a few decades”. Read the full article here.

Data and reports are important. I do not want to downplay the importance of statistics. I simply want to remind us that statistics, data and reports do not own the full story. God does. We live within the story of God who brings forth new life from death. Who works, tirelessly, to see that all things are made new. Including the Church. Including the ELCA. Including New Journey Lutheran Church.

So as we prepare to celebrate Reformation Sunday with our red shirts and red paraments, let us remember that God’s grace cannot be contained within the structures we create. God’s grace is bigger and God is determined to claim this world in an intimate, all-encompassing love.

Keep the faith, beloveds. Trusting that it is faith which keeps you.

With hope,

Pastor Beth