MESSAGE FROM PASTOR LIZ DAVIS
February 2025
Dear Beloved Ones,
The store shelves are stocked with heart-shaped candy and that can only mean we’re approaching the month of LOVE!
Valentine’s Day will draw love to our minds, and we might all have very different reactions. There might be grief, anger, anticipation, disappointment, joy, celebration, and stress, among other emotions. The thing with the commercial holiday is that it’s focused on a specific type of love, and couples that with a pressure to buy and consume.
As a church who worships the God of love, we can turn our minds from that consumeristic focus to the fullness of God’s love and our call to live as God’s beloved. God’s love has room for every person. God’s love is unconditional.
Someone recently told me about an experience of serving alongside people that reminded them that humans are complex and our needs and abilities are complex. There’s a difference in loving people generally and loving the person in front of you. Generally, we can love people, honor their worth, etc. Humans as a whole can be just fine. It’s the specificity that gets hard. That’s when we are all too aware of that thing that person does that annoys us, the way that person has hurt us, how they have broken our trust, or we become aware of our differences and disagreements and the discomfort we feel. Then we’re not so sure about loving that person.
Jesus’ ministry was all about loving that person. He brought together people who would feel uncomfortable with each other (fishermen and tax collector!) in order to teach them to be a community. He touched the untouchables and let others touch him (Matthew 8:1-3, Luke 8:43-48,
Luke 7:36-50). He let people get close, with all their issues, their smells, their sickness. He asked them what they needed, not assuming he knew what they wanted (Luke 18:35-43). That’s what loving in specific looks like. That’s what Jesus calls us to replicate today.
We are building a community within our church that strives to love each person like Jesus loves them. We are learning to trust each other so that we can share what’s really going on in our lives and experience care and compassion from our fellow members. From confirmands sharing their highs and
lows, teams carrying prayer requests, and women supporting each other as they raise kids, our church is making space for us to learn to love each other. Entry level trust is being built around coffee and over dinner, and as we greet each other for Sunday worship. Then our church turns outward to extend Jesus’ love to more folks in our community. We serve in food shelves, direct donations, and collaborations with social services. We are sent every Sunday, filled with a sense of God’s love for us, so that we can share that love in every space we go. We are missionaries of a love that is different than the one being sold this season, we go to live and witness to the power of a love without cost, a love shown to us through Jesus.
God is with you!
Pastor Liz
The store shelves are stocked with heart-shaped candy and that can only mean we’re approaching the month of LOVE!
Valentine’s Day will draw love to our minds, and we might all have very different reactions. There might be grief, anger, anticipation, disappointment, joy, celebration, and stress, among other emotions. The thing with the commercial holiday is that it’s focused on a specific type of love, and couples that with a pressure to buy and consume.
As a church who worships the God of love, we can turn our minds from that consumeristic focus to the fullness of God’s love and our call to live as God’s beloved. God’s love has room for every person. God’s love is unconditional.
Someone recently told me about an experience of serving alongside people that reminded them that humans are complex and our needs and abilities are complex. There’s a difference in loving people generally and loving the person in front of you. Generally, we can love people, honor their worth, etc. Humans as a whole can be just fine. It’s the specificity that gets hard. That’s when we are all too aware of that thing that person does that annoys us, the way that person has hurt us, how they have broken our trust, or we become aware of our differences and disagreements and the discomfort we feel. Then we’re not so sure about loving that person.
Jesus’ ministry was all about loving that person. He brought together people who would feel uncomfortable with each other (fishermen and tax collector!) in order to teach them to be a community. He touched the untouchables and let others touch him (Matthew 8:1-3, Luke 8:43-48,
Luke 7:36-50). He let people get close, with all their issues, their smells, their sickness. He asked them what they needed, not assuming he knew what they wanted (Luke 18:35-43). That’s what loving in specific looks like. That’s what Jesus calls us to replicate today.
We are building a community within our church that strives to love each person like Jesus loves them. We are learning to trust each other so that we can share what’s really going on in our lives and experience care and compassion from our fellow members. From confirmands sharing their highs and
lows, teams carrying prayer requests, and women supporting each other as they raise kids, our church is making space for us to learn to love each other. Entry level trust is being built around coffee and over dinner, and as we greet each other for Sunday worship. Then our church turns outward to extend Jesus’ love to more folks in our community. We serve in food shelves, direct donations, and collaborations with social services. We are sent every Sunday, filled with a sense of God’s love for us, so that we can share that love in every space we go. We are missionaries of a love that is different than the one being sold this season, we go to live and witness to the power of a love without cost, a love shown to us through Jesus.
God is with you!
Pastor Liz
