September 11
Beloved of Good Shepherd Church,
Grace to you and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord!
What is Christianity all about? I want to try to keep this very simple. Our religion is about connecting with God and each other in love. Jesus Christ is God come into our lives to connect with us in love and teach us how to connect to each other in love. Is that simple enough? Sometimes people say to me, “Isn’t it more complicated than that?” I guess we might make it more complicated than that, folks certainly have over the years, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Most wise people I know counsel us to “keep things simple.”
Once you fall in love with God and life, you will seek to go deeper in your relationship with God. The relationship begins at God’s initiative in as much as your life is a gift from God. Across all your years God is constantly gesturing toward you, looking for you, and loving you with wide open arms. The sparks really begin to fly in your relationship when you turn toward God with your own arms held wide open. Over time you develop a practice of turning to God in the midst of the most ordinary activities of daily life. This is referred to as the practice of the presence of God.
There is no final destination in your relationship with God, rather, if you consent to it the relationship is ever-deepening. It has the potential to continually get better and grow deeper until we die at which point we are fully enfolded in the infinite love of God’s heavenly embrace. That’s pure, unending joy.
There are a number of ways to hold your arms open to God here at Good Shepherd. Each activity we do at our church is a spiritual practice.
This Sunday is our first Music Sunday. You don’t have to have a musical bone in your body to hold your arms wide open in song by participating in one of the Music Sunday activities. Find out more HERE.
Participation in our weekly formation offerings is a way to hold your arms wide open in study and conversation. Just about every one of our formation offerings is offered in a way that invites you to come and go as your schedule and desire allows. Don’t worry about coming in late or leaving early; don’t worry about having read the material beforehand, just come and open yourself to the study and make new friends as we learn together. Find out more HERE.
You might consider joining us for some or all of the upcoming Silent Retreat on Saturday, September 20th at the church. Meditation is a wonderful, gentle way to hold your arms open to God who is holding his arms open to you. Don’t worry about not knowing much about meditation. I’ll teach you when you get to the retreat. I think you’ll like it. You can learn more HERE.
Engaging with our outreach activities is a marvelous way to hold your arms wide open to people in need. Every month we have one or more opportunities to go out into the community to serve by lending our gifts, talents, resources, and love to the needs of our neighbors. We send a lot of people each month on local outreach missions. You might like to join them sometime. Doing so could be your spiritual practice for the month. Learn more HERE.
God is holding his arms wide open for you. How might you hold your arms open for God and your neighbors? Life is a gift and an adventure. Fall into the love that holds us all together with open arms and see what happens.
The word religion has its roots in the Latin word religare which means to bind together or reconnect. Think about the word ligament. Ligaments connect bones in your body and hold joints together. To re-ligament is to re-connect. Our religion is aimed at “ligamenting” or re-lig-a-ment-ing us to God and each other in love. Pretty cool, huh?
Remember this always - God loves you, and I love you too!
Love is all,
Hendree+