Shepherd's Heart 5/1/26
Dear ones,
I have been sitting with a feeling all week that I cannot quite name. It is gratitude, yes. It is wonder, yes. But it is something more than any one of those words can hold by itself. It is the kind of feeling that comes when you stand at the edge of something holy and realize you have been standing there for a long time without knowing it.
This is what I want to say first, before anything else: I am so grateful for what God is doing in our midst. The last three years have felt a whirlwind of change and growth and new wineskins.
I do not say that lightly. I say it as someone who has watched this congregation over the last few years lean into the Spirit's work with a kind of holy hunger that I do not take for granted. I have watched you show up. I have watched you give. I have watched you welcome neighbors and strangers and the curious and the wounded. I have watched you say yes to renewal even when renewal asked something of you. The growth we are experiencing is not a strategy or a program or a clever idea. It is the fruit of a community that has chosen, again and again, to make room for the Holy Spirit to move. And the Spirit is moving. I can feel it in the prayers during worship. I can feel it in the conversations that linger long after the benediction. I can feel it in the way people are bringing friends, bringing children, bringing their honest questions and their unhealed places. Something is happening here. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my pastoral heart, that I see it, and I am thankful.
This is what I want to say first, before anything else: I am so grateful for what God is doing in our midst. The last three years have felt a whirlwind of change and growth and new wineskins.
I do not say that lightly. I say it as someone who has watched this congregation over the last few years lean into the Spirit's work with a kind of holy hunger that I do not take for granted. I have watched you show up. I have watched you give. I have watched you welcome neighbors and strangers and the curious and the wounded. I have watched you say yes to renewal even when renewal asked something of you. The growth we are experiencing is not a strategy or a program or a clever idea. It is the fruit of a community that has chosen, again and again, to make room for the Holy Spirit to move. And the Spirit is moving. I can feel it in the prayers during worship. I can feel it in the conversations that linger long after the benediction. I can feel it in the way people are bringing friends, bringing children, bringing their honest questions and their unhealed places. Something is happening here. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my pastoral heart, that I see it, and I am thankful.
But I also need to name what is in front of us this Sunday.
This Sunday, our traditional worship service will gather in the sanctuary for the last time before we move into the chapel. I have been thinking about that all week. I have been walking through the sanctuary in the quiet hours, running my hand along the pews, looking up at the windows, remembering. And I think you should know that I feel the weight of it. I feel the weight of it because you have told me what that room means. I feel the weight of it because I know what has happened in that space.
That sanctuary is where couples have stood and made promises that shaped the rest of their lives. That sanctuary is where families have wept over caskets and somehow, by the grace of God, sung resurrection songs through their tears. That sanctuary is where babies have been baptized, where confirmands have answered their first vows, where prodigals have come home, where the dying have received communion one last time, where the prayers of generations have soaked into the wood and the stone. There is no piece of furniture in that room that has not held a story. There is no square foot of that floor that has not been wet with someone's tears or worn by someone's knees.
And it is all there because of you. Because of the faithfulness of the saints who came before us, who poured themselves out so that there would be a place for us to gather. Fifty years of generosity. Fifty years of building, repairing, cleaning, polishing, donating, pledging, sacrificing. The pews you sit in were paid for by people who loved a Jesus they were trusting you would also love. That is what a sanctuary is. It is not just a building. It is the visible memory of a community's love for God, made tangible in wood and glass and stone.
This Sunday, our traditional worship service will gather in the sanctuary for the last time before we move into the chapel. I have been thinking about that all week. I have been walking through the sanctuary in the quiet hours, running my hand along the pews, looking up at the windows, remembering. And I think you should know that I feel the weight of it. I feel the weight of it because you have told me what that room means. I feel the weight of it because I know what has happened in that space.
That sanctuary is where couples have stood and made promises that shaped the rest of their lives. That sanctuary is where families have wept over caskets and somehow, by the grace of God, sung resurrection songs through their tears. That sanctuary is where babies have been baptized, where confirmands have answered their first vows, where prodigals have come home, where the dying have received communion one last time, where the prayers of generations have soaked into the wood and the stone. There is no piece of furniture in that room that has not held a story. There is no square foot of that floor that has not been wet with someone's tears or worn by someone's knees.
And it is all there because of you. Because of the faithfulness of the saints who came before us, who poured themselves out so that there would be a place for us to gather. Fifty years of generosity. Fifty years of building, repairing, cleaning, polishing, donating, pledging, sacrificing. The pews you sit in were paid for by people who loved a Jesus they were trusting you would also love. That is what a sanctuary is. It is not just a building. It is the visible memory of a community's love for God, made tangible in wood and glass and stone.
So this Sunday, we are not just transitioning to a new worship space for a new season. We are pausing to honor what God has done in this one. We are going to mark it the way the church has always marked sacred transitions, with liturgy. Together we will pray a liturgy of spaces, blessing what has been, naming what is, and committing what is to come into the hands of God. At the end of worship, all of our pastors will gather at the front, present together, holding this moment with you. It will be tender. It will be beautiful. And I think, if we let it, it will be one of those moments that you remember for a long time.
We are not closing the sanctuary. We are not abandoning it. We are stewarding it. We are preparing it for the next fifty years, so that when our grandchildren walk into that space, they will encounter beauty that points them to Jesus the way the saints before us prepared beauty for us. The move is not a departure from our heritage. It is the continuation of it. The same generosity that built this sanctuary in the first place is the generosity that will renew it now. And the chapel, where we will gather in the following week, will become its own kind of holy ground. The Spirit is not confined to a room. The Spirit goes where the people of God go. And we are going together.
Some of you will need to grieve this Sunday. Please do. Grief is not the opposite of faith. Grief is one of the languages faith speaks when it is being honest. If you find yourself with tears in your eyes, let them come. If you find yourself remembering the wedding, the funeral, the baptism, the moment when something cracked open in you and God met you there, let yourself remember. That is not nostalgia. That is gratitude. That is the kind of remembering the Scriptures call us to all the time.
We are not closing the sanctuary. We are not abandoning it. We are stewarding it. We are preparing it for the next fifty years, so that when our grandchildren walk into that space, they will encounter beauty that points them to Jesus the way the saints before us prepared beauty for us. The move is not a departure from our heritage. It is the continuation of it. The same generosity that built this sanctuary in the first place is the generosity that will renew it now. And the chapel, where we will gather in the following week, will become its own kind of holy ground. The Spirit is not confined to a room. The Spirit goes where the people of God go. And we are going together.
Some of you will need to grieve this Sunday. Please do. Grief is not the opposite of faith. Grief is one of the languages faith speaks when it is being honest. If you find yourself with tears in your eyes, let them come. If you find yourself remembering the wedding, the funeral, the baptism, the moment when something cracked open in you and God met you there, let yourself remember. That is not nostalgia. That is gratitude. That is the kind of remembering the Scriptures call us to all the time.
And then, after we have remembered well, we will turn our faces toward what is coming.
Which brings me to one more thing.
This Sunday, immediately following worship, we will hold our annual meeting. I know annual meetings can feel like the kind of thing you can skip. I know there is laundry to do and lunch to make and a sports game (or a nap) calling your name. But I want to ask you, as your pastor, to stay. Please stay.
The annual meeting is not a formality. It is one of the most important gatherings we have all year. It is where we do the slow, faithful, ordinary work of being a congregation together. We will look back at what God has done. We will look forward to what God is calling us into. We will vote on the budget that will fund the ministry of this church for the coming year. We will vote on the church council members who will steward our common life. We will dream about the future together. Your voice matters in that room. Your prayers matter in that room. Your presence matters in that room. Click here for all the information you need before the meeting.
A church is not built only by what happens on Sunday morning. A church is built by people who keep showing up for the unglamorous parts. The committee meetings. The budgets. The votes. The questions about heating systems and sanctuary renovations and how we will be faithful with what God has entrusted to us. These are not separate from worship. These are worship. This is what stewardship looks like in a congregation that takes its calling seriously.
So come this Sunday. Come ready to grieve well and remember well and worship well in the sanctuary one more time. Come ready to bless the space that has held us. Come ready to step into the chapel with hope. And then come ready to stay, to engage, to vote, to dream, to be the church that decides together what we are going to do with this beautiful gift God has given us.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be your pastor in this moment. To watch what God is doing here. To stand with you at the threshold of what is coming. There is so much ahead of us. And we are going to walk into it together.
From my heart,
Pastor Tara Beth
Which brings me to one more thing.
This Sunday, immediately following worship, we will hold our annual meeting. I know annual meetings can feel like the kind of thing you can skip. I know there is laundry to do and lunch to make and a sports game (or a nap) calling your name. But I want to ask you, as your pastor, to stay. Please stay.
The annual meeting is not a formality. It is one of the most important gatherings we have all year. It is where we do the slow, faithful, ordinary work of being a congregation together. We will look back at what God has done. We will look forward to what God is calling us into. We will vote on the budget that will fund the ministry of this church for the coming year. We will vote on the church council members who will steward our common life. We will dream about the future together. Your voice matters in that room. Your prayers matter in that room. Your presence matters in that room. Click here for all the information you need before the meeting.
A church is not built only by what happens on Sunday morning. A church is built by people who keep showing up for the unglamorous parts. The committee meetings. The budgets. The votes. The questions about heating systems and sanctuary renovations and how we will be faithful with what God has entrusted to us. These are not separate from worship. These are worship. This is what stewardship looks like in a congregation that takes its calling seriously.
So come this Sunday. Come ready to grieve well and remember well and worship well in the sanctuary one more time. Come ready to bless the space that has held us. Come ready to step into the chapel with hope. And then come ready to stay, to engage, to vote, to dream, to be the church that decides together what we are going to do with this beautiful gift God has given us.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be your pastor in this moment. To watch what God is doing here. To stand with you at the threshold of what is coming. There is so much ahead of us. And we are going to walk into it together.
From my heart,
Pastor Tara Beth