A Note from the Pastor
We Were Never Meant to Follow Jesus Alone -
Life is busy. There are places to be, things to get done, schedules to manage, and responsibilities that seem to pile up faster than we can check them off. At the same time, technology has made much of life incredibly convenient. We can shop, work, order dinner, watch a movie, pay our bills, and accomplish all kinds of things without ever leaving home.
There’s a lot to appreciate about that convenience. But if we’re not careful, it can also convince us that we can handle life pretty well on our own, that we really don’t need other people all that much.
Our faith in Jesus tells a different story. We were never meant to follow Jesus alone. Jesus calls us into relationship with him and with one another. He gathered disciples around him. The early Christians gathered for worship, prayer, teaching, meals, generosity, and service. Paul described the Church as the Body of Christ, where different people with different gifts belong to one another and each has something to contribute.
The Church is the gathered community, people worshipping, growing, serving, and following Jesus together. John Wesley understood that. The early Methodist movement wasn’t built around hearing a sermon once a week and then going back to life as usual. Methodists gathered in classes and smaller groups where they prayed, studied Scripture, encouraged one another, served their neighbors, and asked each other some pretty direct questions about how their faith was actually shaping their lives. For Wesley, faith was deeply personal, but it was never merely private.
That’s still true for us. We need people who celebrate with us when life is good and sit beside us when life is hard. We need people who pray for us when we don’t have the words. We need people who encourage us, challenge us, forgive us, and sometimes tell us what we probably didn’t want to hear.
And life together can be messy. We disagree. We misunderstand one another. We have different personalities, preferences, and opinions. Sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. But that, too, is part of life together.
It’s easy to talk about patience when nobody is testing ours. Forgiveness sounds wonderful until we actually have someone to forgive. Loving our neighbor is much easier in theory than it is when our neighbor is difficult to love. The Church gives us a place to practice the grace we proclaim.
God certainly meets us when we’re alone: in personal prayer, in Scripture, and in quiet time with him. But following Jesus continually draws us back toward other people. We worship together. We learn together. We serve together. We carry one another’s burdens. We laugh, grieve, forgive, encourage, and remind one another that God’s grace is real. In a world that makes it easier than ever to do life by ourselves, Jesus calls us to something different. He calls us together. Faith in Jesus is personal, but it was always meant to be lived together.
Pastor Chris Hardy
Life is busy. There are places to be, things to get done, schedules to manage, and responsibilities that seem to pile up faster than we can check them off. At the same time, technology has made much of life incredibly convenient. We can shop, work, order dinner, watch a movie, pay our bills, and accomplish all kinds of things without ever leaving home.
There’s a lot to appreciate about that convenience. But if we’re not careful, it can also convince us that we can handle life pretty well on our own, that we really don’t need other people all that much.
Our faith in Jesus tells a different story. We were never meant to follow Jesus alone. Jesus calls us into relationship with him and with one another. He gathered disciples around him. The early Christians gathered for worship, prayer, teaching, meals, generosity, and service. Paul described the Church as the Body of Christ, where different people with different gifts belong to one another and each has something to contribute.
The Church is the gathered community, people worshipping, growing, serving, and following Jesus together. John Wesley understood that. The early Methodist movement wasn’t built around hearing a sermon once a week and then going back to life as usual. Methodists gathered in classes and smaller groups where they prayed, studied Scripture, encouraged one another, served their neighbors, and asked each other some pretty direct questions about how their faith was actually shaping their lives. For Wesley, faith was deeply personal, but it was never merely private.
That’s still true for us. We need people who celebrate with us when life is good and sit beside us when life is hard. We need people who pray for us when we don’t have the words. We need people who encourage us, challenge us, forgive us, and sometimes tell us what we probably didn’t want to hear.
And life together can be messy. We disagree. We misunderstand one another. We have different personalities, preferences, and opinions. Sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. But that, too, is part of life together.
It’s easy to talk about patience when nobody is testing ours. Forgiveness sounds wonderful until we actually have someone to forgive. Loving our neighbor is much easier in theory than it is when our neighbor is difficult to love. The Church gives us a place to practice the grace we proclaim.
God certainly meets us when we’re alone: in personal prayer, in Scripture, and in quiet time with him. But following Jesus continually draws us back toward other people. We worship together. We learn together. We serve together. We carry one another’s burdens. We laugh, grieve, forgive, encourage, and remind one another that God’s grace is real. In a world that makes it easier than ever to do life by ourselves, Jesus calls us to something different. He calls us together. Faith in Jesus is personal, but it was always meant to be lived together.
Pastor Chris Hardy
