Question: Are we really an Easter Community?
Last Sunday I preached a message that encouraged each of us to move from thinking of Easter as an event and move, instead, to thinking of Easter as a life-stance. I shared that Easter is a life-stance that insists on looking for a God who is planting grace just around the corner. Taking an Easter-stance means we look into the future knowing/believing that God is already there preparing a way for us!
I translate that to mean that if we want to be a growing church, an Easter church, then we are always open to growing ourselves…in engaging in activities or experiences that challenge us. That get us out of our own box.
This is always a challenge for me. I tend to want to “get people to come and play in my sandbox” because in my sandbox I know all the rules. I like to keep things comfortable, but the truth is being comfortable usually means we aren’t growing!
One way I’m stretching myself this year is I’m trying to learn a new language. My oldest son is getting married in November to Jeuen, a wonderful young woman from Korea. Because of this I’ve thrown myself into learning some Korean. I’ve enjoyed my Pimsluer language tapes, but my son told me that the next step in this journey is to actually go to a language encounter where I am forced to try my Korean out. “You will never learn it unless you have to use it. Dad you’ve got to get out of that box!” He sent me a link to several Korean language emerging events near Woodinville.
Being an Easter person means challenging yourself. Guess what, I haven’t done it yet! Ha! This Easter-stance thing is harder than you think! I like my box!
Another way you could challenge yourself is to try to make a new friend this year! This Easter Cyndy and I invited a couple of new folks to Easter Dinner. They were both folks from Bear Creek, but it was still a stretch for us. As we were talking, each of them threw out invitations to us. One was to go “Contra Dancing”! Have you ever heard of it?!? Well we hadn’t. After our guests left Cyndy and I looked it up. And as we were watching a YouTube video on it (I’ll link it herehttps://youtu.be/jcYOIXIMfJQ), Cyndy turned to me and said, “Not on your life!”
And just then we turned on our favorite binge watch, our comfort box, and just as we were settling in to the 6th season of D.I. Lewis, we both turned to each other and said, “You know what? We should try it!”
In order to be Easter people you’ve got to get out of your own box and try some new steps!
This Easter season, I challenge each of you to join my Easter challenge. Try something new, invite someone new into your life, or better yet get out of your own box and learn to embrace an Easter God who’s just around the corner of your little box! This Easter season, as a church let's try some new events that force us out of the box!
One of those experiences might be a "Worship Wild" event! An event where we all hike to a destination point and have a worship experience there, in the wild! If your interested text "wild" to 425-364-6545.
Your friend and pastor, stepping on a lot of toes as I learn to dance into Easter, Brook