Happy Summer! As we head into summer, let me share with you a story, an update and a new opportunity.

First, the story...Ben, my husband, and I were sitting around the other night when he said to me, “Did you see that someone on the Living In Burke Facebook page is looking for a church?” Ben knows that I regular watch pages like this for people who are looking for churches. It is a great way to get the word out about Abiding Presence and invite the community to come check us out. Before I could even open the app on my phone, though, Ben followed up, “Oh, never mind! Your people already covered it.” Sure enough, there were multiple posts from all of you sharing your experiences at Abiding Presence and inviting this person to come join us.

In this season of moves and transitions, there will be many people looking for a church. They could be your friends, new neighbors, new coworkers or random people you don’t know on social media. I encourage you to be talking about Abiding Presence and inviting people to come see what we are all about. Why? It’s not just because we have something special happening in our faith family (although, I think we do!). Even more importantly, it is because others are searching. They are actively seeking a place to connect, to grow in faith and to hear the good news of God’s love for all people. When we offer an invitation we are helping them to find that community for which they are searching.

Second, the update...as you have hopefully heard by now we have two open positions for which we are hiring - a Children & Family Minister and a Youth & Family Minister. I have been actively working my contacts, learning how to us LinkedIn (come connect with me there!) and talking to various people in the children and youth ministry world. Thanks to all of you who have helped to spread the word about the positions. I’ve had initial phone conversations with nine people, most of whom will now be moving on to first round video conference interviews with our interview teams. The hope is to have the positions hired in the next six weeks and for people to begin in the positions on September 1. Please be actively praying for the people who God is preparing to join our ministry team.

Finally, a new opportunity. This fall we will launch our fifth year of MOPS, our midweek ministry to moms and children ages birth through kindergarten. New this year, we will be adding a Moms Next group, geared toward moms of 1st grade and older kids and teens. This will allow us to expand the ministry to all moms in our congregation and community. If you are interested in participating in MOPS or Moms Next, there is more information and registration on our website.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you! Thank you for all the ways you support ministry at Abiding Presence. You are the church! What we are able to do as a faith family is only possible because of your involvement. I am grateful for the privilege of being your pastor!

Some of my favorite summer memories as a child revolve around Vacation Bible School (VBS) in my home congregation. My mother, who spent several years as the volunteer VBS Director, always used to say that VBS happened on the hottest week of the summer. My home congregation wasn't air conditioned when I was growing up and the 2nd story classrooms of the education building got miserably hot. There were crafts and songs, games and snacks and, of course, Bible Stories, too. What I remember most about VBS, though, were the teenagers. 

Our VBS program involved a couple of hundred kids and a lot of middle school and high school teen helpers. They were old enough to be able to help with scissors, glue and glitter. At the same time, they weren't old enough to be moms and dads, which made them really cool. They ran around with us outside as we played games and laughed with us during snack. The teen helpers brought the "fun" to the week of Vacation Bible School (not that the adults weren't fun, too...but...well...they were adults). 

For years I waited until I was old enough to be one of those cool teen helpers. When I finally was, I came to love VBS even more. There was something incredibly special about that week and the relationships that were established. 

Now that I'm a pastor, I still love VBS. I say that it is the most exhausting and wonderful week of the church year. Nothing compares to it! And, it takes a whole church to make it happen. It takes amazing teens who are willing to wake up early (and stay late) to connect with the kids. It takes adults who are able to rearrange their schedules to come teach and/or lead groups of children around.

We've started the VBS countdown at Abiding Presence and would love to have you join us! If you are interested in helping, please be in touch with Sara Dyson, Children and Family Minister. Then you can be part of the fun, too!

A Note about Worship this Weekend:
Saturday at 6:00 p.m. & Sunday at 8:45 a.m. - Regular Services (60 minutes)
Sunday at 11:00 a.m. - Confirmation Service (2 hours)

Please plan accordingly as our confirmation service will be much longer than a usual Abiding Presence service.

It’s confirmation weekend at Abiding Presence! This Sunday at the 11:00 a.m. service 15 of our young people will affirm the promises made for them at their baptisms and we will pray for the Holy Spirit to be stirred up in them to confirm their faith. It is one more joyful, Spirit-filled opportunity to witness how God is at work in the lives of our young people.

What I remember about my own confirmation experience are relationships that I made during the two years of my life I spent in confirmation classes. There were a group of four of us who became the best of friends, hanging out at youth choir and confirmation each Tuesday night and during Sunday School on Sunday morning. In the midst of the trials of the rest of my middle school friendships, those three girls became the friends that I could count on not matter what.

Confirmation was also the time that my relationship with my pastors developed into something beyond just a hello in the handshake line on Sunday mornings. My pastors came to really know me and, in turn, I came to know them. They became people who I felt I could talk when I needed a listening ear and they became my trusted adult as I navigated tough decisions into high school and beyond.

Finally, confirmation was the time in which my relationship with God started to mean something. It was in the midst of my first year of confirmation that I heard the call to be a pastor. I often joke that I felt called to be a pastor before I even knew what a pastor did all day. Regardless, that call to the ministry was loud, clear and nurtured within me throughout those confirmation years.

As I prepare to now be the pastor who gets to lay her hands on our youth’s head as they are confirmed this weekend, I am filled with awe at this amazing group of young people. They are a fun, faithful and passionate bunch who don’t shy away from asking hard questions. I pray that the time that they have spent in confirmation may be as formative to their lives as it once was to mine.

This year we’re doing something new with confirmation. Each of our confirmation youth will receive sponsors – members of the congregation – who will invest in their young person is his/her post-confirmation life. During the confirmation service, the congregation will be asked, “People of God, do you promise to support these sisters and brothers and pray for them in their life in Christ?” The entire congregation will make the promise, responding, “We do, and we ask God to help and guide us.” We want to make sure, though, that each confirmand has two adults in the congregation (outside of their parents, pastors, confirmation mentors, senior high youth advisers and church staff) who are on board to actively fulfill this promise specifically for them. I believe that congregation sponsors have the potential of making a huge difference in the lives of our youth post-confirmation as they experience the care and support of the Abiding Presence faith family in tangible ways.

Thank you to our congregation sponsors and to all of you who will help us to support and pray for our confirmands in their life in Christ.

As the calendar turns to  Mother's Day this weekend, we know that each person has varied experiences and emotions. For some, this is a day of great rejoicing. For others, this is a day of grief to great to be captured by words. Borrowing the words from Amy Young (http://messymiddle.com), we want to acknowledge the wide spectrum of mothering. 

 To those who gave birth this year to their first child - we celebrate with you.

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you.

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.

To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away - we mourn with you.

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and

disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you.

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you.

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you.

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience.

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of

motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst.

To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be.

To those who step-parent – we walk with you on these complex paths.

To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren – yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you.

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.

To those who placed children up for adoption –  we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart.

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising – we anticipate with you.

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.

On this weekend after Easter our gospel lesson transports us back to Easter night. We will hear how the risen Christ comes to stand among the disciples who are still locked up in a room terrified of what might happen next. Jesus had been crucified and buried. That morning when Mary Magdalene had gone to the tomb she found Jesus’ body was missing. After encountering the risen Christ in the garden, Mary had told his disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” but they do not yet believe her. They still doubt. They continue to be overwhelmed by fear. Then Jesus himself shows up with a greeting of peace. He shows them the wounds on his hands and side. Suddenly, there is great rejoicing. Christ is risen!

All the disciples are there in the room with Jesus except for one. For reasons we will never know, Thomas is missing. When he hears the news that the disciples have now seen the Lord, too, Thomas doesn’t believe them. He doubts. He needs to see with his own eyes and touch Jesus’ wounds with his own hands.

In the midst of his doubting, Thomas is surrounded by a community of people who keep proclaiming to him the good news. They keep telling him their story. The other disciples aren’t scared of Thomas’ doubt. They do not push him away. Just one week later, this time when Thomas is there with the other disciples, too, Jesus shows up once again. Thomas gets to see him. He gets to touch Jesus’ wounds. His doubting is then turned to joy, too.

This Easter story offers us a wonderful image of what the church might be today. The church can be a place where we tell our stories of having seen the risen Lord over and over again. We keep sharing our faith because we need to bear witness to our stories and because those stories might help carry someone through their life’s challenge. At the same time, the church can be a community where doubt is welcomed and acknowledged because we trust in a God who shows up even when we don’t believe it is possible. We can both believe and doubt together.

This weekend is our annual Youth Sunday weekend. We will hear the reflections of some of our graduating high school seniors who will share about their faith journey. As I was working with one of these wise young people on their reflection they said to me, “I want to believe in God, but sometimes it is hard.” I told them there was no truer statement of faith than that.

I encourage you to come be inspired by our young people of all ages who will stand up this weekend to lead us in worship in faith and in doubt, trusting that God will show up in our midst. Draw strength from their stories. Share in their joy. Affirm the importance of their witness among us not just on Youth Sunday, but throughout the year. See the church at work in and through them.

Thank you - all of you - for being the amazing community of faith that you are. I am grateful for you, especially all of the ways you came together as a community to make Holy Week and Easter the experience that it was. It took a lot of hands - pouring communion, to waving people into parking spaces, to greeting people as they walked in the door, to vacuuming the sanctuary, to setting out flowers, to stuffing bulletins, to picking up signs on the side of the road, to so much more. Thank you!

Tonight we enter into the Great Three Days as we take our final steps with Jesus to the cross and the grave. We know that Easter is coming, but first we enter into this most holy time of preparation. These are the holiest days of the year for those of us who follow Jesus.

I’m looking forward to journeying with you through these Great Three Days again this year. There are lots of opportunities for worship, so please take advantage of them! There are three services on Good Friday - 12:00 noon, 6:45 p.m. (Children’s Service) and 7:45 p.m. On Easter Sunday we will again worship at three services - 8:30, 10:00 and 11:15 a.m. (note that none of them are at our regular service times!). If you are able, please take advantage of the overflow parking at the Burke School and shuttle bus on Easter Sunday. If you cannot do the overflow parking, don’t worry. Come anyway! We’ll have spot waiting for you in the church parking lot.

When we say, “All are Welcome” at Abiding Presence, we really do mean all. So, bring your friends, your neighbors, the people you love and the people who may drive you a little crazy, too. Come! It’s going to be a great celebration on Easter Sunday as we proclaim with joy, “Christ is Risen!” Christ’s resurrection is good news for everyone!

But first…first come these next three days. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing in these coming days, I encourage you to pause. Sit. Breath. Pray. Read the story of Christ’s Passion (John 18:1-19:42). Be still and experience the holiness in the midst of all the ordinary around us. I promise, the joy of Easter will be much greater if you first take time to first journey to the cross and to the grave.

For a reason I have long since forgotten, I mentioned the word “Alleluia” at one of our recent family meals. “Mom,” my daughter immediately scolded me, “You cannot say that. That’s a sin.” I tried to make the theological point of why it probably wasn’t nearly as much of a sin as she thought, but I quickly realized this was not a battle I was going to win. She had been taught that Lent meant giving up the word “Alleluia” everywhere, all the time, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday without exception. My violation equated to a sin, without exception.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve missed “alleluia.” I’ve missed the joy it brings. By this point in the season of Lent, I’m ready to be done. Especially with Easter falling so late in April this month, I’m just ready to move on. Can’t we hurry this Lenten journey up already? Yet, the church year will keep us in Lent for two more weeks. Two more weeks of trudging along to get to the cross. We’re close, but we’re not there yet.

For many of us, this is probably a good thing for there is still Lenten work around the disciplines of Lent to be done. How have you been engaging the disciplines of repentance, fasting, prayer and works of love? What have you done fully? What do you still need time to be able to do? What aspects of the disciplines do you need to engage in order to be ready for the joy of alleluia on Easter morning? Think about it. Pray about it. Act on it. There’s still time! You don’t have to be ready for Easter yet.

Here in the church, we’re far from ready! We still need many of you to sign up to help make Easter morning possible. So, if you will be here Easter Sunday, please plan to lend a hand to enable the celebration.