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The Time Has Come

Believe it or not, there are only two weeks left in the season of Lent, which means Easter is right around the corner. This also means that there are huge changes for this faith community right around the corner, as well. As you know, because of budget issues, we will be eliminating the Director of Adult Ministries & Outreach position effective April 1. Now, as much as I hate to have Meghan Harmison lose her job, and as much as I will miss working with her, I know we made the correct decision financially. However, this change in staffing means if we, as a faith community, want to continue being a faith community that creates and develops effective and meaningful programming for adults and outreach ministries we will need to start acting differently and doing things differently and we will need to volunteer more of our time, because we will no longer have a staff person to coordinate, develop, and follow through on so many of the ministries we currently have.

For example, Pantry Pack is an outreach ministry that touches many lives in the wider community. Each week, over 40 families come to Salem to receive food that they desperately need. Now, thank goodness we have Charlotte Wallenburg, an incredible volunteer who is willing to coordinate the ordering of the food and the packing of the bags, as well as other volunteers who are willing to show up on Thursdays to hand out those food bags, but there are many more areas of responsibility that will need to be covered that Meghan currently handles, as a staff person, if this ministry is going to remain a viable ministry. If you are willing to help with this ministry, I hope you will take the time to attend a meeting scheduled for next Thursday, March 22, at 6:30 p.m. in Koinonia Hall.

The elimination of the Director of Adult Ministries & Outreach position, along with the departure of John Holt, Director of Youth Ministries and Communications, at the end of April, as well as the difficult decisions that we need to face with our facilities in the near future mean there will be a lot of changes here at Salem. These changes mean some things will have to change or may have to cease happening altogether, which does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. In fact, maybe we need to be intentional about letting some things “die” so that we might discover new life. In our Gospel text for this Sunday (John 12:20-33), the fifth Sunday in Lent, Jesus says “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (12:24). What a beautiful image of how new life grows and expands! The question for us is: Are we willing to let some things die in order to grow?

Now, I am not just talking about letting staff go, or letting some of our ministries die; I am also asking us to consider letting some of our facilities go, as well. I don’t know the best answer as to what to do with our facilities, but I do know that, as a faith community, we are called first and foremost to do the work Christ has created us to do, and if our buildings are getting in the way of us loving our neighbors and serving our community, then the time has come to let some things “die.”

As we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and the gift of new life, I pray and I hope that each of us are preparing our hearts and our minds to do things differently in the future, and that we are preparing to let some things die so that we might continue to bear much fruit in the future.

Shalom, Pastor Dave

Tags: Weekly Word