Friends,

I love being excited for other people. Meeting a new person who is deep into something I know little about and hearing about it through their perspective fills me with joy. In our congregation it is easy to get excited about what people do, because we have a lot of interesting people. The amount of “space people” in our congregation is staggering, and I cannot help but feel awe when they talk about missions to Saturn’s moons and whatnot. This enthusiasm is not limited to people with dramatic careers. I still do not fully understand what Paul Johnson does for a living, and I doubt I ever will, but I know enough to know that it is everything to do with things I am terrible at, like spreadsheets, budgets and financial trends. If someone told me what Paul does, I would be desperately bored, but when Paul talks about it, it is as if some veil is being lifted and all of a sudden, I get why people like Paul do what they do, and my world gets a little bit bigger.

I am hardwired this way, but for whatever reason I am also hardwired to be passionately disinterested in what other local Churches are up to. This isn’t out of a sort of malice, tribalism or whatever. I just like doing my own thing, and feeling unburdened with the knowledge of how others are dealing with the same issues as our Church is sometimes helpful. I like marching to the beat of my own drum, and sometimes it takes a bit of cultivated ignorance to think of new approaches to old problems. With that being said, sometimes it’s just a really bad idea.

At our vestry retreat we were discussing how to lean into the growth we’ve been experiencing, and someone asked, “Well, what are other Churches doing? Certainly, this isn’t a new problem.” And to my extreme embarrassment, my only honest answer is that I really have no idea.

To help remedy this problem, I’ve started to sign up for the newsletters from many of the local Churches. I don’t want us to become St. Paul’s 2.0, or just a clone of Aldersgate Methodist Church, but both of those Churches are doing really well in areas we could improve in. Now that I have made the jump and started poking through these Church’s websites and reading their newsletters, I am starting to get excited about their ministries in the same way I am excited for whatever Paul Johnson does with the government.

These websites, newsletters and other bits of media are little glimpses into the remarkable, often imperfect and faithful efforts of our neighbors. The competitive part of me immediately starts to determine what we do better, and what they do better and how we can catch up. But once that insecure part of my brain calms down, I can see just how diverse the Church can be in such a small area. I find the Churches that are comfortable and forward with their unique identities to be the most compelling. Christ Church in Old Town is a compelling blend of highlighting their unique contribution to American history and supporting the LGBQT a big part of their ministry. St. Aidan’s leans into their Celtic identity by educating the world about St. Aidan (thank you I had no idea), offering Celtic Worship on Sunday evenings, and a labyrinth for the community to use as they will. Aldersgate is a flagship when it comes to robust programming for their members of every generation. They want to be a multi-generational Church, and their programming reflects it.

A uniting factor with these congregations is that they aren’t doing this for the sake of competition, profit, or pride. Instead, they seem to be motivated by a love of God and a love for their neighbor. St. Luke’s is in a time of transition. In the past we have been an outreach and charity focused congregation, and I hope we continue to make this part of our DNA. We have had a reputation for being intellectual, and I hope we continue to strive for truth. Lately, we have been having a lot of fun expanding the circle the encompasses our congregation, and we plan on assuring that while we get wider, we will continue to dig deeper into our faith.

I am genuinely excited to read up on what our brother and sisters in Christ are doing in the surrounding community. Some stuff, like the videos St. Paul’s does for the announcements every week, deserve to be shamelessly copied. Other stuff, like St. Aidan’s Celtic worship is wonderful, but part of their identity and not ours. While we continue to grow into our faith, and try to go where God is leading us, I am going to try to cultivate a sense of wonderful and excitement not only in what other people are doing, but other churches as well. There’s no shame in mimicking what is being done well, and there is nothing wrong in admitting that we cannot be all things to all people, no matter how hard we try. 

Being reminded of our call to love God and to love our neighbor is necessary at every step as we continue to journey into who we are becoming. We’ll try on different identities, adapt some and leave others behind, but I hope our hallmark will always be the sense of warmth and love that is in this place.

-Nick

If you’re curious, we are really good at the small things. The thought that went into our branding, fonts, colors and art is better than most, and we can thank Sue Bentley, Stephanie Kaye and Melissa Bluey for that effort. You may notice it when it is good, but you certainly notice it when it is not! We are also good at creating something to draw people in. Conversely, I notice that we can work on being concise. Less is almost always more when it comes to websites, and we have seemed to err on the side of including too much.