Dear Grace Church Family,
What a wonderful week this has been. You will hear more details from our lay leader, but our “Sing a new Song,” dream session with the Leadership team was four hours of dreaming, visioning, and planning for the future of this beautiful community. I was grateful to hear stories of all the ways God has been at work in this community. We celebrated milestone after milestone. I continue to be in awe! Please make every effort to be in church this week or watch online, so you can hear Catherine Harwood’s report of our time together. Also, let us know if one of the goals she shares sounds like something you want to be a part of! Our community needs you!
I visited the Wesley foundation at UCF on Tuesday night. It was a wonderful experience listening to the students share their faith journeys with me. We went to dinner at a local restaurant afterwards as part of their Beloved Community ministry. The hope is to expose students to different food and cultures. We had Vietnamese soup, Pho, which is one of my favorites! It is so good! Part of the reason I visited this ministry was to learn about the needs of young adults in our reach. One of the students shared the story of what she believed to be a rising call towards ordained ministry. This is some of my favorite listening! We are in the works to have this student come and preach right here at Grace!
Part of what I shared with those gathered on Sunday for the Dream session is that there is so much changing in the Church today and the work we are called to is different than it was for the generations before. There are things we can learn from the past, but some of our path is unchartered. We are in a whole new day. What I loved about the work our leadership did, was they celebrated the past, and they set goals to guide us towards our new future. Many of you might be living with questions in your own life. Things in our world might seem uncertain for you. I encourage you to rest in prayer and allow God to give you a sense of peace and to guide your steps in the way you should go.
Our scripture for this Sunday is Luke 5:1-11. Jesus gives the disciples some redirection. They were sure about the way they were going, but he tells them to try a new way! They found blessing in the new way. I hope to see you in worship as we explore together their experience and how it relates to us today.
As always,
I am grateful to be…
With you on the journey,
Pastor Michelle