Sep 09, 2022 |
Rector's Blog, Growing into Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Growing into Love
We talk about growth in our Vision Statement. There’s a whole bullet point dedicated to it, and we will be focusing on that bullet point throughout this program year. In it we say that we envision a church that is “Growing with people of every age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic situation, and political persuasion.” We wrote that four years ago, and I will freely admit that when we wrote it, I was thinking about numbers. I was thinking about increasing the number of people that are connected to Church of the Redeemer. But the language we used pushes us beyond that. When we say we want to grow not only in number but in the type and age and experience and perspective of our membership, we are saying we want our understanding of who we are to grow. We are talking about the growth, development, and maturity of how and where we see love.
Communities are generally built around similarity: Similar interests, similar life experiences, similar histories, similar bloodlines and perspectives. Historically, human cultures have not encouraged people to seek connection and relationship outside of their prescribed circle. Church is meant to counter this. We don’t always get it right, but this is what church is supposed to be about.
