Monday, November 10, 2008

Wonders Never Cease

It was gorgeously warm and sunny in central PA this past weekend, which made it all the more surreal to read the facebook postings of my Midwestern family and friends who kept talking about snow. Well, that system finally made its way east, and we actually had a little bit of snow falling here today, which totally surprised me - I don't think of central PA as capable of getting snow this early. Shows what I know.

In other surprises, a seed of ministry blossomed in a beautiful and unexpected way today. We've been talking a lot this fall about what our mission is, how we can reach out beyond our walls and be a positive and serving presence in our community. Our council president gave a beautiful temple talk yesterday on similar themes and laid out a little bit of a challenge to the entire congregation to get involved and help us discern this path forward together. And today a parishioner who is normally kind of quiet called me up, all excited, to propose a short-term ministry project that is easily accomplishable, meets an immediate and identified need in the community, and gives us a chance to establish good rapport with a neighbor. And this parishioner is willing to lead and coordinate the whole project. So, I just affirmed it was a brilliant idea and gave them permission to run with it.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping would come out of these discussions. And when so much of ministry is casting and tending seeds that you're never sure are going to come to fruition, it feels really good to see signs that one of them is starting to take root.

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