
In the midst of watching regular morning news programs on my favorite network, a video came up that, before I could look away, had me watching a young woman slip off the edge of a cliff in Hawaii. Did you see it? Because the woman was wearing a Go-Pro camera, we saw everything she saw as she inched to the edge of a cliff for a better view. As she did, her right foot stepped in a trickle of water and slipped out from beneath her and she was falling before she knew what happened. While injured, she did survive and is telling her story to warn the rest of us to find firm footing, perhaps a little further away from the edge.
Getting firm footing is so critical. Knowing where your feet can land firmly makes one feel secure and confident. There are times in our lives when we are in transition from one season to the next where finding firm footing becomes a challenge. Eden Prairie Church is in that season of transition. We’ve been in transition for a while. And because there is a delay in finding a church accompanist, we will continue to be in transition. As we walk together, we are looking for that firm footing of getting to know one another and working together as a team.
One of the places the staff and I have been working for firm footing is the opening / start of worship. We absolutely love the energy and conversation that is happening in the gathering space outside of the sanctuary. But how do you know it’s time to start worship so you can make the choice to find a place in the sanctuary?
Here’s what we are going to try. You’ll hear the bell ring (who could miss that!) while the church musician is playing the gathering music. The bell is your cue that the next thing that is going to happen is a congregational gathering song. If you choose to, we invite you to make your way into the sanctuary and find a place to land so that you can join in the gathering song meant to set the tone for worship.
Let’s see if that’s a place for us to find firm footing. Thank you for trusting your staff to continue to work on finding firm footing for all of us, so that we can continue to be a congregation challenged and enlivened by the vitality of growth.
I’ll see you on Sunday for worship, as we take a look at facing storms on The Voyage of Life with Jesus.
Pastor Becky Jo Messenbrink