Happy 1st Anniversary! Beverly and I moved to Greenville in mid-June 2020. July 5, 2020, was our first Sunday in worship. It also was the first Sunday returning to in-person worship since March. Thank you for the friendly and supportive ways you have welcomed us into the congregation and oriented us to Greenville.
We have had a year marked by local and global events: a pandemic, growing burdens on families and needs for child care, strong Bible study small groups grounded in prayer, racial justice protests, a national election, the strain on students and educators to teach and learn in unstable physical and digital environments, a domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, an exciting partnership with City Church that continues to grow, and the decision to renovate our sanctuary to expand our ability to offer meaningful worship to name a few examples.
We have had to remember how to be the Church in challenging and new circumstances. Author Sönke Ahrens identifies this challenge in the context of education.
It is, for example, easier to remember something we have learned in school if we are tested for it in the same room with the same noise in the background (Bjork 2011, 14). Likewise, sometimes it is difficult to remember something from school when we are not sitting in the classroom where we learned it (Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers (p. 102), Kindle Edition).
Fascinating. Our memory is located and stabilized at multiple levels. When we take away the supporting environmental factors, it is harder to remember. This means that our relationships with our teachers, classmates, and physical environments are all part of the memory.
This disorientation also happens when we see people out of context. For instance, I met Maddie Homich at the Senior Tea and on Graduate Recognition Sunday. Beverly and I also attended her graduation open house. But when I saw her working at Frugthaven Farm a couple of weeks later, I hesitated before greeting her. I did not expect to see her in that context.
Having familiar places where we learn best is important to us. A classic and somewhat playful (though many times, serious) example is people claiming specific seats in the sanctuary. At my home church, Three Oaks UMC, the Williams family occupied the second row along the inside aisle of the right section of pews as you look to the front of the sanctuary. Having to sit anywhere else would, of course, mean that we would miss God’s message for us that day 
. There is even a history of people paying to rent their pews and decorating them. The history of the Free Methodist Church denomination, founded on August 23, 1860, was “dedicated to free pews, free worship, free men and women, and a freedom to live holy lives in obedience to the Bible” (https://www.gfree.org/our-story/). We can be quite misguided about where we learn.
And then there is Jesus. Jesus did not teach people the same way in the same place at the same time. His “classrooms” were mountainsides, dinner tables, boats in stormy waters, dusty roads, synagogues, and wells at the middle of the day. The only connecting thread in Jesus’ teaching is Jesus himself. So, our relationship with Jesus is what allows us to learn and remember in any circumstance.
The last year and a half of the pandemic have challenged us to remember how to be the Church in different ways than we first learned. It has affected and limited our gatherings, events, and activities. Technology we did not know we needed is now standard equipment and we are renovating the sanctuary to better serve our in-person and online congregations. Worship and small groups now have online options which will continue into the future. This is an opportunity to deepen our faith because we are tested by new circumstances and called to live out our faith in new ways.
I appreciate the creative and inspired efforts we are making. I believe God is giving us the grace to adapt and move through the disorientation to offer the ministry of Christ’s outreaching love. Together, let’s keep seeking God, following Jesus, and loving our neighbors even though it’s not the same anymore.
P.S. After posting this earlier, I read my email and found this header:
