Mother's Day Greeting

Don't forget to send hugs and kisses to the mothers in your life and ask God to bless them.

For me Mother's Day has another significance, too. This weekend eleven years ago was my first time worshiping at Christ Church. I was immediately drawn in.

Part of the appeal was a certain familiarity. My church back home was also Presbyterian, also in a college town, and also had a bald senior pastor prone to using words like "ethos."

But Christ Church had other attractive qualities, less familiar to me. I had been obsessed with the strangeness of the book of Jude for years, but not until my first Sunday at Christ Church did I hear a sermon on it. Nor had I heard a Bob Dylan song during an offertory before 2015. And during worship at my home church, you generally only heard the voices of the miked song leaders. At Christ Church, the voices of the congregation absolutely filled the sanctuary.

In the eleven years since, I have taken membership vows here, gotten married here, had our baby baptized here, met friends and mentors here, received meals during times of hardship, and countless other blessings.

As we continue our series on Acts, I'm reminded that the challenges facing the church, inside and outside, are nothing new. Every generation asks questions like, "What makes someone a Christian anyway? What's the right way to do our ministries so we're serving everyone we're supposed to? How do we engage with the outside world?" God answers some such questions with resounding finality, while with others he seems content to let us struggle for a while.

But as we imperfectly grasp our way toward obedience, we act as Christ's body here on earth. Each of us individually uses our own gifts and callings to equip the rest of the church. If you're like me, you probably often feel like you don't do enough on that front. As I wrote this paragraph, no joke, I remembered that I haven't yet filled out the Christ Church gift and interest survey. Perhaps instead of indulging my shame about not being more involved, I can help others in the church help me find my place. If you see me this Sunday, ask me if I completed it yet.

Theologians like to say that the church is our mother. Being Presbyterians and Calvinists, we affirm that God chose us before we chose him. Being modern people, we sometimes forget that the way God chose to bring us to life was to bring us into contact with the church. Without the church, there is no baptism, no Lord's Supper, no proclamation of the gospel, and most obviously, no fellowship with the saints.

I don't know about you, but before I could be of any practical help to my mother, I first had to receive her care, nurture, and instruction for years. So it is with the church. As I think about how to be more involved in the life of the church, I have a wealth of examples to draw on.

Thank you, Christ Church, for showing me Jesus.