Every year I write a letter that looks back over the past year and looks forward to what's coming next. This is the letter this year. If you only have time to read part of it, I encourage you to skip down to the pictures and look at that part (the "what's coming next" part). God bless us all, and Merry Christmas!
My Dear Friends,
Being with you for the past year at Milton United
Methodist Church has been a real joy for me. I believe that our congregation is
truly living out of God’s vision for us. Through the ministries here, we are
providing opportunities for folks in our community to know and love God, and to
love each other.
One of the things at the core of our church’s identity is
the idea that everyone is welcome at God’s table, even if we disagree or don’t
understand each other. Folks at Milton UMC take this seriously and show very
real hospitality, and I am tremendously thankful to be a part of this church’s
witness to God’s welcoming arms!
One way we saw this welcome coming to life this year was
with our Blessing Bag service project in February – a project that saw roughly
equal parts participation from our church community and from the wider Milton
community. Welcoming folks to God’s table continued during Lent and Easter,
with meaningful services for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and our first ever
Easter pageant. Another first this year was Milton UMC’s participation in Relay
for Life. We participated to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and heal the sick, and
again, we saw a very large group of folks from the wider Milton community joining
our Relay for Life team.
This year, we continued the tradition we started last
year of participating in Milton Days. We are becoming known as the church that
provides free face painting and brain-teasers. This year, we expanded by having
our worship service in the park on the Sunday of Milton Days. It was small (this
year), but as I walked around the booths later in the day, several people
working the booths wanted to thank us for providing the service. They had been
setting up their booths during the service, so we didn’t see them, but they
were worshipping along with us!
There were other welcoming moments, as well: for
instance, we had our second annual Halloween party. Our children’s Sunday
School group began having regular outings as the Second Sunday Society. Our
special music group began – The Spice Girls and the Three Wise Guys. Right now,
the kids are preparing a very special Christmas pageant. The pageants and kids’
events have been a great way for all of us to invite our friends and families
to experience God’s welcome.
For those of you concerned with numbers, you should know
that our average Sunday morning attendance is 10% higher this year than it was
last year. That doesn’t feel like very much when you’re sitting in the pews
(it’s basically adding 3 people), but this is significant. It is a sustainable
amount of growth that I hope to see continue next year. This growth reflects
real people who have made real commitments to being in relationship with God
and people through Milton UMC. God is extending a welcoming hand through Milton
UMC!
Because God has called us to display God’s welcome, we
have been looking into becoming a Reconciling congregation. Being a Reconciling
congregation would mean that we make a public statement that all people are
welcome at Milton UMC, regardless of sexual orientation. This decision has not been made yet. We will be having two
workshops – on Sunday, February 10, and Sunday, February 24 – that will help us
discern how God is speaking to us about Reconciling, through Scripture and our
own experiences. I am looking forward to these workshops very much.
In the coming year, I hope that we can start thinking
about how God might be working at times other than Sunday mornings. How can our
congregation be a home base from which we all create communities of
discipleship? Imagine this:
These are people in
the congregation – people you see Sunday mornings:
Each two (or three,
or five) people in the congregation start a group during the week. They invite folks
they know – folks who are wanting to be closer to God and each other. They
invite people who may not be able to
attend on Sunday mornings, or may not be interested in attending on Sunday
mornings. (Don’t worry, Pastor Rachon will help get the groups started):
Remember, in this
scenario, you might not see all the people who are getting closer to God and
other people because of our church’s ministries. Some folks in these groups may
come on Sunday mornings, but others probably never will. Does that mean they’re
not part of the church, not faithful disciples? No, it just means we need to
define the church a little more broadly. In fact, these kinds of groups are
often much more effective in helping
people get closer to God than Sunday morning worship. Each group can focus on
what it needs to focus on. And there will be plenty of opportunities for the
different groups to meet each other and be one larger community.
One of these groups has just begun – a group of local
moms looking for intentional friendships. This is a model I believe could be
very effective in the communities of Milton, Edgewood, and south Federal Way,
where most of our folks come from. Milton UMC is uniquely equipped to use this
model, because our congregation is like a patchwork, made up of small pockets
of folks from different segments of the community. God has given us unique
gifts and unique surroundings – and I believe that God has an amazing future in
mind for our congregation and our wider communities: a future where people have
more and more relevant, engaging, and meaningful opportunities to love God and
love neighbor.
In closing, one phrase keeps recurring in my mind: “I
thank my God every time I remember you.” It’s from Philippians 1:3. Here’s a
little more:
I thank my God
every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my
prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first
day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among
you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:3-6)
God bless us all. Amen.
