March 2026 Newsletter: Pastor’s Page
Hello church family,
We have entered the liturgical season of Lent, a period of six weeks that gives Christians intentional space to reflect on their discipleship as we approach Easter Sunday. This Lent, I’m reminded how important it is to be part of a community of Christians. Many of us can take Christian community for granted or unintentionally forget how valuable it is to be a part of one another’s lives.
This year our Leadership Board is reading a collection of essays in a book entitled “Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People.” My hope is that as we work on church renovations, our Board will be mindful of how those renovations and all our ministry nurture deep, faithful community.
In the introduction to our book, editor Charles E. Moore argues that our current society often feels like an airport departure lounge. We are in a place full of people who don’t really belong where they currently find themselves (relationships, jobs, locations, mindsets), and in general our interactions with other people are “fleeting, perfunctory, and trivial.” In other words, even though we may be connected by technology or shared space, we aren’t truly connected as genuine community in much of society. Moore argues “We need spirit-filled ways of living that are capable of combatting the corrosive ideologies of our age that undermine community.”
Moore begins the book using a snippet of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a literary classic that depicts Russian society in the 1860’s/1870’s. It is a period of change, one of increasing unhealthy hyper-individualism.
One character states “Everyone tries to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life by self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude (isolation).”
The theme of our Board study book, and The Brothers Karamazov, is that we become who we are meant to be through connection and genuine love with others.
As we move through the season of Lent towards Easter Sunday, I invite you to reflect on your connections to community – church, family, neighbors. Is there a way you can expand or deepen those connections this season? Or welcome those who are isolated into community?
Lenten blessings,
Pastor Jared