FROMTHEDESKOFTHE FROMTHEDESKOFTHE

REV.PHILIPPEE.C.ANDAL,M.DIV.

“And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5, KJV

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years, and for many good reasons. When I tell my story of how I arrived at Community, I share there are various points of measuring time one could use. One could use when I united with this body as a seminarian in 2014. Another could use when I joined the staff in 2015. Still one could use when I was elected interim pastor in 2016, elected senior pastor in 2017, or installed in 2018 (the point we use to mark this anniversary). However, as the pandemic has demonstrated for us, time is not always linear, and as the experience of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness exemplifies, God sometimes leads us in a “roundabout way” (Exodus 13:18).

One could say these past five years have been similar. Who would have thought on Installation Sunday 2018, less than two years later, and then for almost another two years thence, we would not be able to sit shoulder-to-shoulder as we did that day, much less be in the presence of any assembly due to rightfully taken COVID-19 precautions? To be sure, much has changed these last five years, maybe at a more rapid pace of which many of us are not accustomed and do not prefer. It has seemed like at many points, everything that could go wrong, went wrong from elections, to policies, to mass shootings, to pandemics, to social distancing, to re-opening, and so on. We have suffered much loss, collectively and individually. Our sense of normalcy, along with so many other things I do not have space to mention, have been taken from us. Yet, one thing remains and can never be taken from us, and that is our hope (see Romans 5:5 above).

This hope that we have is the same hope that has propelled our church for nearly 78 years, and it is this hope that will continue to promote us for eternity. In these last five years, our hope did not make us ashamed when we began Community Groups, a virtual ministry, and then a hybrid ministry. Our hope did not make us ashamed when we became a clinic for our community. Our hope did not make us ashamed when we partnered with Lincoln-Bassett Community School to provide for students and families in need. Our hope did not make us ashamed when we passed historic landmark legislation with CONECT. Our hope did not make us ashamed when we began a capital campaign to strengthen the house of God. Our hope did not make us ashamed when we continued to fulfill Christ’s Matthean mandates to feed, to take in, to clothe, to visit, to go, to make disciples, to baptize, and to teach (Matthew 25, 28).

Looking back on five years, today, I do not see the same church or the same pastor, but I still see that same hope and, because of that same hope, I believe and declare it doth not yet appear what we shall be as pastor and people (I John 3:2)! Let’s keep hope alive as we continue to Worship the Christ, Equip the Church, and Serve our Community.