Every Sunday Is a First Sunday for Someone

Do you remember the first time you were a visitor at Ascension? Did you walk in not knowing anybody? Did you encounter unfamiliar faces, practices, music, and traditions? What made you feel welcome? What brought you back?

Consider this – every Sunday could be someone’s first Sunday. At one time or another all of us have been visitors here – at some point we are all visitors somewhere, and how we experience welcome, comfort, and inclusion can significantly impact our decision to return or want to get more involved. For someone walking through the doors of Ascension, this may very well be the first time they’ve stepped into a church in years – or ever. It may have taken courage, hope, or even desperation to come. And what they experience when they arrive can speak louder than any sermon or song. 

Ascension is a congregation built on profound relationships with God and each other. I know this to be true, not simply because I’m one of your pastors, but because at one time I too was a visitor here. In fact, the very first time I visited Ascension it was with my family to see if this was a place I wanted to serve. And although I don’t recall the names or faces of the people we encountered that day, what I can tell you is that we felt a deep sense of welcome from the moment we walked in the door. I felt it then and I continue to feel it today – there is something special about Ascension. And what’s special about Ascension is YOU.

My friends, it doesn’t matter if you are a longtime member or someone who recently started to worship or serve with us, we are all called to be part of something greater – to participate and contribute as each of us are able – to be involved rather than stand on the sidelines as spectators – to be a family rather than an audience. We are called to share joys and concerns, successes and struggles, faith and doubt. And ultimately, our greatest coordinated efforts are to serve others in the name of Jesus rather than satisfy our own selfish wants and needs. These are marks of the body of Christ. This is what it means to be the family of God.

God invites all of us to welcome and walk alongside people to take part in what God is doing in and through us. Relationships don’t grow by accident and neither do churches. Signs, websites, social media posts, special events, and ministry programs all have their place but if openness and connection aren’t distinguishing marks of this congregation then we will never become the reflection of God’s kingdom we’ve been created to be.

When we are committed to being a reflection of Jesus’ radical welcome to our neighbors, coworkers, friends and more importantly to the strangers and onlookers with whom we cross paths, that spoken and often unspoken invitation is far more welcoming to visitors and newcomers than any fancy brochure, expensive advertising campaign, sermon, or song.

My ongoing prayer is that all of us would dedicate ourselves again to welcoming anyone who hears the Holy Spirit’s call to come into our doors on a Sunday morning or cross our path at other times. Here are a few easy ways you can be a glimpse of God’s love in action:

  • Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know. If you forgot someone’s name ask.
  • Try sitting in different places, staying longer or arriving earlier so you can meet different people.
  • Invite a visitor or someone you don’t know to sit with you.
  • Say hello to a few people you don’t know before spending time with the people you know well.
  • If someone appears confused or lost take a moment to help them find their way.

So let us commit together to being an even more welcoming church than we already are, and not just in theory, but in practice. Let us pray for eyes to see the stranger, courage to start conversations, and hearts ready to listen. Let us invite, include, and involve our visitors. And if someone decides to return, not because of our building or programs, but because they felt seen and valued, then we’re being the church God calls us to be.

Pastor Tony

Changed by the Resurrection

Our journey through Lent will soon be coming to an end. On Maundy Thursday we will gather in the upper room with Jesus and his disciples and be reminded of the incredible gift we celebrate in worship every Sunday morning as we hear, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” On Good Friday we will travel to the foot of the cross and hear Jesus utter a lonely cry of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” We will hear the words of finality that Jesus spoke with his last breath as he paid the ultimate price for our sin, “It is finished!” And we will travel again to the empty tomb to hear about the group of women that traveled there early on the first day of the week only to find it empty. We will hear once more the words of the angels at the empty tomb, “He is not here, but has risen.”

But once that final, culminating event of the Resurrection is complete. Then what? What are we supposed to do then? Well, I think it’s important for us to remember that Easter is more than just a day. Easter is an every day celebration of the cross and resurrection of Jesus – the forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal life with God. Easter is also an every day celebration in which we live each day trusting in God through Christ, knowing that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” for us.

So what do we do as we go forth from the empty tomb? Perhaps it would be best for us to start by following the example of the first witnesses of the empty tomb. After the two angels reminded the women that Jesus had risen, St. Luke tells us that “then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” They went forth from the tomb changed by the resurrection of Jesus. They went forth from the tomb to bring an “every day” witness of God’s power over sin, death, and Satan himself.

And where then are we to go once we leave the empty tomb? Well, perhaps it would be best for us to follow the example of Jesus’ first disciples. After Jesus walked through locked doors to appear to the eleven disciples and to show himself to Thomas, seven of the eleven disciples went back to their fishing business. They went back to their everyday stations in life and took the witness of the resurrection with them. They lived in the joy of the resurrection of Jesus while carrying out the ordinary, daily responsibilities given to them.

Like the women at the empty tomb and the eleven disciples, we too are every day witnesses and participants in the resurrection of Jesus. We believe. We have the hope of eternal life. We have the joy of the resurrection living inside of us. Also, like the women at the empty tomb and the disciples, we have stations in life that God has given to us as gifts. Most of us aren’t fishermen, but all of us have one or more of these callings: mother, father, partner, wife, husband, daughter, son, sister, brother, grandparent, employee, retiree, caregiver, friend, and neighbor. Each of these callings comes with a set of duties and responsibilities.

And as followers of Jesus, redeemed by God’s grace we are called to wrap the daily duties and responsibilities of our lives in the joy, love, peace, and forgiveness of Christ. And when we do this, more than likely, others will take notice, and God will bless our faithful work by giving us more opportunities to “tell all these things to all the rest.”

So, what are we to do then?  My friends, we are to respond to God’s grace, love and mercy by going forth from Easter Sunday and the celebration of the empty tomb as every day witnesses, freed to live and love and serve as God’s forgiven children in Christ Jesus. And as we go forth empowered by God’s Spirit, living and active within us, may we live in the joy of the resurrection so that everyone, everywhere will see just how great God is! Happy Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Pastor Tony

Called to Love

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

It’s February, the month of Valentines and heart-shaped boxes of candy…so what else is a pastor to write about in the newsletter but love? Thanks to the mass commercialization of Valentine’s Day, love is everywhere. Love is all around us!

Is it really, though? I mean, sure, our culture is highly skilled in and dedicated to promoting romance. I can’t tell you the number of jewelry commercials I typically see on television around this time. But while romance is as abundant as ever, it seems that love is a different story. And at least in my opinion, it seems love is much harder to come by in the public eye these days. Violence always leads off the nightly news, and public discourse has become hostile to the extent that political differences have driven wedges between families and friends.

But as people united in Christ, we are called by God to love others even if it’s not the most popular thing to do. Fortunately, the Bible is a great resource to help us do this! One of the best descriptions of love in the Bible is the passage quoted above, written by the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church. These words to the Corinthians are some of the most enduring words in the Bible and are familiar to many people because they are often read at weddings.

Despite that common use, though, the implications of the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13 are wide-ranging. Loving with this sort of patience and gentleness invites others into our lives and provides intimate ground for relationships to grow. Strangers whom we may at first stereotype into a category become individual people we truly see, know, and appreciate. Love like Paul describes can bring down the walls of fear and conflict that seem to be so effective at separating people right now.
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This is the kind of love God calls us to offer to the world not only this February or this Valentine’s Day, but every day. So, I invite all of us to let God’s love for us in Jesus Christ be the Valentine that we offer to everyone.

~ Pastor Tony