Celebrating the Church!

Next week we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Oak Hills Church. In thinking back to all that this local church has meant to me and my family, one of the things I most appreciate about Oak Hills is the opportunity that I’ve been given to use my gifts and talents here. I was in my twenties, with a toddler in tow, when I first got involved at Oak Hills. In the way of many women who choose to stay home and raise a family, sometimes I felt a little isolated and that the life I was living was too small. But the ability to be involved in the life of the church expanded, for me, the meaningfulness and purpose of my life beyond my own family and neighborhood. It gave me a place to lead, think and dream. I have made life long friends and watched the playmates of my own children grow up and begin families of their own. It is an amazing gift to find this rootedness in today’s society; to find a sense of place and belonging.

I appreciate, also, the ministry of the church in my own spiritual formation. Through the years the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the teaching has had an indelible impact on my life. Sermons, small groups, recommended readings and most especially those spiritual friendships that I treasure, have advanced my relationship with God in both an inward personal way and an outward world-view way. There is a consistency to the services and ministries that all point in the same direction: the reality of the presence of the Kingdom of God right here, right now, for everyone.

One of the spiritual companions that I have “met” here is Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth century Spanish nun. She wrote, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world, yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.” Almost five centuries later, that is still the case. The body of Christ can only operate through the participation of those who gather together to do his will in the world. Thanks to all of you who have been the body of Christ with me (and to me) in the past and to those who will join in being the body in the next twenty-five years. I’m very hopeful that the ways that God will find to use us to bless his world is on the increase and I can’t wait to see it all unfold!