Senior Minister’s Monthly Message
At Home With God
What I most want for Hillcrest is that this is a church where everybody can feel at home with God. That sounds like a very simple statement, I know. And at the same time, in this day and age, in the way churches function these days, bringing it down to such a simple statement is less than obvious. I see many churches around me trying to figure out what it is that they are here to do. They turn to language around justice and making the world a better place, and I’m all for that. It is my conviction though that the best work for justice that we do, we do when we feel a connection with God, not in order to obtain a connection with God.
I believe that in the end, God is already at work in our world to bring about greater justice and we join on in. We are not here to create a better just world so that God can come at a later time. And so the first order of business that we have is to be at home with God. That is why we had a theme for Lent called Spiritually Rooted. And our Youth Sunday service on the at the March was such a beautiful example of our young ones and everybody else just surrounding one another with love and care and sharing many blessings in the name of God. I think everybody who was there felt it.
In April, we are getting ready to first observe the Good Friday, the remembrance of the crucifixion, and then celebrate Easter, the remembrance of the Resurrection. Both matter. And after Easter, we go into an Easter season in which we live into what does it mean to be a resurrected people, to participate in the resurrection. This is not a simple question at all, but it does help us to orient ourselves towards what is going on in the world no matter how you evaluate the world’s affairs.
When we come and look at the world from the perspective of being a part of the Resurrection, something has to change in us to live this out in a better, more hopeful way. So that’s what we’re going to be exploring in this Easter season. What does it mean to be free? What does it mean to live from the perspective of the Resurrection? What does it mean to discover ourselves anew in the eyes of God?
These are big questions. We won’t have all the answers. This is an ongoing journey that we as human beings undertake in this earth while we are here alive. We do it together. We do it in celebration.
We do it because we love one another, and we do it because we think that that is the best way for us to continue to work towards a world that is just and good for all. Through our worship, our outreach, our youth ministry, and all the other things that we do, in the name of God.
Peace and blessings to you.
Pastor Niels