Like many of you, I love making that last turn coming down Highway 36 into Estes Park . . . where there’s a turnout and a sign announcing your arrival. The view of the town, with Rocky Mountain National Park in the distance never fails to make me catch my breath. I know, when I’m driving that way, that there are adventures ahead. But the first time I rounded that curve, I was a little tentative, not knowing what was before me.
I feel a little like that now, with Good Shepherd rounding a number of curves, with different vistas before us.
For some weeks now, we’ve put the “curve” behind us of re-gathering in person for worship. What a joy it has been to reconnect with folks—in person—that we’ve only seen on Zoom (if at all!). What a joy it has been to be able to hear the organ, the contemporary group, and a choir . . . and to SING! What a joy to celebrate around the table! We have indeed “rounded a curve”!
We’ve just recently rounded the curve of the three-year Priest-in-Charge process. We learned a lot on that journey, and it feels wonderful (to me at least) to be headed "down the hill” into new adventures.
And, in a few weeks, we’ll be rounding another curve . . . into a new way of being together on Sundays (see the article elsewhere in the Sheepskin on that). As I said in the “Midweek Moment” announcing the new schedule, there’s a bit of familiar, as well as a bit of novelty, in where we’re headed. It’s not perfect, but it’s our “next best guess” of how to be a worshiping community for the foreseeable future.
Those are turns in the road we’ve experienced, as well as one we anticipate. In some respects, they represent a return to some kind of “normalcy”. That’s a comfortable feeling, to be sure (even given the uncertainty that COVID still represents).
But all of those turns have led, or will lead, to something new. As we’ve begun to regather physically, we’ve been joined by new folks, checking to see if Good Shepherd might be the right church for them to call “home”. The end of the Priest-in-Charge process suggests an end to some tentativeness on all of our parts. A changed worship schedule allows for greater engagement and innovation. Add to all of those changes are the enhancements and repairs to the building and grounds, as well as new programmatic initiatives (such as Compline and the Advocacy Team’s contributions).
With all that’s going on, we have the opportunity to begin again. Indeed, we have the imperative to begin again. As joyful as it is to regroup, regather, and renew old relationships, we have to reclaim our outward vision. Whether its re-engagement with long time ministry partners such as Covenant Cupboard or St. Clare’s, or discerning best how to be involved in our immediate neighborhood, or simply recognizing that we have something good to share at Good Shepherd, “beginning again” means turning our eyes to participate in God’s mission in this place. It means recapturing that feeling of turning down towards Estes Park for the first time, awed by the beauty and excited by the possibility of what lies ahead.