BMPC Pastor's Column

There is a lot to celebrate at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and it’s worthwhile remembering that. This Sunday, we’re taking time to reflect on all the things we have to celebrate. We are welcoming new members, celebrating the gifts of the congregation through stewardship season, and much more.

This Sunday is a “Surprise Sabbath” for our elementary students. Our typical lesson plan is left behind so that students have the opportunity to practice sabbath together. We’ll explore ways of praying, resting, celebrating, and giving. Last year we celebrated birthdays together—but this year we are pausing to celebrate the many milestones and experiences our community shares—baptisms and babies, graduations and new beginnings, anniversaries and endurance. We will decorate special cakes as a way to “rejoice with one another” and can’t wait to share them with the congregation.

Finally, we are especially excited about celebrating with one of our sixth graders, Elliette Long, who is coming to the end of her pediatric cancer treatment. You’ve probably seen those beautiful videos on social media of people ringing a bell at the end of their treatment. But why ring one bell when you have access to a whole carillon? So our congregational celebration will be crowned with a special performance by Elliette on the carillon as we share in the joy of this milestone. You can even go up and tour it yourself following the performance.

Paul tells us in Romans to celebrate with those who celebrate. There’s a lot of sadness and pain in the world, but there is still so much for which to be joyful. Join us this Sunday after the 10:00 worship service for cake, tea, and scones (Elliette’s favorite), special music, new friends, and the joy of community. It is good that we get to do life together.

We have a treasure right here on our campus: Surrey Services for Seniors. In case you read that line and think it doesn’t apply to you, I invite you to keep reading, because I imagine that someone you love could benefit from knowing a little more about Surrey, perhaps in a life-giving way.

On October 18, Jill Whitcomb, the President and CEO of Surrey, will present on the topic “Helping Older Adults Thrive” during our 11:15 education hour. Even if you yourself are not 55 years of age or older, you likely have a family member, neighbor, coworker, or friend who may be able to benefit from Surrey’s services. Prior to the presentation, I invite you to visit the Surrey website, familiarize yourself with their programs, and come to the presentation ready to help make connections on behalf of yourself or the older adults in your life and utilize their many programs.

For example, the church regularly receives calls asking if we can provide transportation for those unable to drive or who no longer wish to drive. While we cannot organize volunteers to provide rides for insurance and liability reasons, Surrey has a transportation program that can fill that very need–right on our campus! For a small fee, Surrey can provide rides that are geared towards seniors and others with mobility needs. Learn more about this program.

Transportation is just one example of how Surrey serves the community. Meals, grocery shopping, Medicare counseling, and other direct services are available as well. Did you know there are education, enrichment, and social activities? From estate planning to cognitive health, from exercise and wellness to arts and music, from crafts and games to an innovative training program for family caregivers, Surrey is a treasure trove of opportunities to help all older adults in our community thrive.

Surrey’s mission is to “empower older adults to embrace aging as a time of possibility, independence, and support.” I love this mission statement, precisely because it states the exact opposite of what society teaches us about life in our later years. Every age can be a time of growth, development, and thriving–and both our BMPC Senior Adult Council and Surrey Services are a wealth of resources to help older adults thrive in all the ways that the God of abundant life intends.

As you know, the Session approved the Mission Study in September. When joined with the news that the Presbytery’s Commission on Ministry did the same, the BMPC Nominating Committee is now authorized to begin forming the Pastoral Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee is now accepting your suggestions for the PNC through October 18. Once a slate is finalized, there will be a congregational meeting to elect that team.

With the first step in the pastoral transition process now complete and the second one underway, we’d like to give you an opportunity to learn more about the Mission Study itself. While you have had access to that document through printed copies and on the website, and you may have spoken to a member of the Mission Study Task Force on your own, on Sunday, October 4 there will be a chance to hear directly from the group about their work.

The Session selected six BMPC members (Elliot Dee, Ariel Gonzalez, Peggy Gregg, Paul Gunther, Katie Hirt and Tom Willcox) to compose the task force. Those individuals worked tirelessly on your behalf, preparing a survey that nearly 500 of you completed and then reflected upon its results. They learned more about BMPC in terms of membership trends, finances, and the breadth of ministries offered here. They studied our congregation’s demographic composition, summarized the diverse perspectives you shared in the survey, and offered some conclusions from all that they discovered. It came together in an excellent document that offers recommendations for the PNC once it begins seeking your next Senior Pastor.

At the gathering on Sunday, members of the task force will speak about the Mission Study process, what they learned, and answer your questions. It all begins at 11:15 in Congregational Hall.  I hope you can be part of that conversation.

Our son Owen started his senior year of college just a few weeks ago. When he first left for school four years ago, I was a little worried, as all parents are, that it might take a while for him to find his “people.” So, we gave him the advice that most parents give, encouraging him to go to everything he could during those first few weeks. Accept every invitation to try something out. If they teased a free T-shirt, be there to get one. And for sure, BE at the activity fair in those early days of the fall semester so you can wander among the clubs and groups and see where you might fit.

That first semester, Owen went to the Wooster activity fair and left signed up with an audition to join the college’s tenor/bass a cappella group – Merry Kuween of Skots. Wooster is the “Fighting Scots,” which the name is a play on, and with six different creatively named a cappella groups on campus, I don’t ask questions.

This Sunday at BMPC, we will be hosting our own annual version of a campus activity fair – our Rally Day Ministry Fair in the gym following our 10 a.m. worship service. Every year you hear me encourage you to stop by the tables staffed by volunteers from all of our different and thriving ministry areas to find a new place of connection. And this year is no exception. Just like I have told Owen to be there to find his people, that is my advice for you all as well.

Here are just a few things that you might connect to this Sunday –

Stop by the Music and Fine Arts table and offer yourself as an usher for one of the wonderful concerts scheduled for this next year.

Visit the Children and Family Ministries table to learn more about what it means that members of the church will pray for over 500 children in our congregation this year.

Swing by the Youth Ministry Table to sign up to referee Minute to Win It activities at this December’s Rainbow Reindeer Games.

Pop over to the Caring Ministries Table to get information about making soup that can be taken by staff and Deacons to members during illness or recovery.

Say hello at the Adult Education table and sign up as a volunteer in Converse Library helping with reshelving books in our adult collection.

Spend some time at the Mission table assembling a personal care kit for this winter’s code blue shelter while you hear about our eight different mission committees.

Drop in at the Senior Adult table to learn more about the trips, programs and fellowship opportunities on the calendar for this next program year.

Make you way over to the Congregational Life table to learn more about being in a Connection Group.

This is just a snapshot of the ways that you can find to connect to the mission and ministry of our church in this next year, and by no means exhaustive.

Four years ago, we told Owen to show up, try something new, and trust that somewhere along the way he might find his people. I believe the church works much the same way. God often meets us through one another, in unexpected places and ordinary invitations. So come wander, wonder, and see where God might be calling you to belong.

“Help me, God. I cannot find my shoes, and I’m worried I might be lost, too. But you know where I am. Help me. Amen”

It is a sweet prayer shared with me years and years ago, with a handwritten note that added something like, “If you can find your shoes, feel free to include something else that seems to have gone missing.” Over the years, I have come back to this prayer at different moments, offering it to different people with different kinds of worries. I have smiled when a parent reported a child saying it in relation to a “pet” worm they had left outside the day before. My heart has broken when someone asked if they could substitute “joy” for shoes. The answer, of course, was, “yes.”

Shoes, keys, homework, a water bottle, patience, peace, hope, time…. We all have moments when something seems to have gone missing. Sometimes when those things are missing, our world suddenly feels out of order. When a young child is separated from their parents, I’ll be asked if I know where their parents are, worried that somehow they have been lost. Despite our best attempts to explain where the sanctuary is or to show on a clock when a meeting will be over, they are looking and waiting, still a little worried that either they or their parents have gone missing.

I appreciate the acknowledgment in the prayer that when things feel overwhelming or out of order, it’s easy to feel lost ourselves. There are days when I read through the news and find myself returning to this prayer, worried that the things I hold most dear seem to have evaporated. I sometimes have to say, “I cannot see your justice, I do not see any mercy, I worry that kindness has been lost.” I offer that prayer and have to acknowledge that I also feel adrift when the world seems devoid of those same things.

But repeating the promise “you know where I am” doesn’t try to soothe away the discomfort or the anger or the fear or the hurt; it reminds me that even in a place where I feel lost, God is indeed present, because nothing is lost to God.

So as a new school year begins and keys, lunches, patience, rest, confidence, and a few pairs of shoes seem to go missing, may you be reminded that God is with you, and those missing things can indeed be found again.

An Exciting New Year in Youth Ministry

We’ve had a fantastic summer in BMPC’s youth ministry: a transformative pilgrimage to Taizé, France, and a joy-filled week at the Montreat Summer Youth Conference in the mountains of western North Carolina. Now school is back — or almost back — for all of us. The end of summer is always a little bittersweet, but there’s plenty to be excited about in the year ahead!

First up:

Rita’s! On Wednesday, September 2, at 5:30 p.m., I’m buying Rita’s for any youth in grades 6–12 who want to come celebrate the start of the year. Come meet me at the Rita’s in Bryn Mawr for one last summer treat — and a chance to kick off a great year together.

And there’s even more coming:

We’re expanding our ongoing mission opportunities for young people, because serving others shouldn’t be something we do only for one week each summer. We’ll visit Gemma Services on October 4, November 1, and throughout the year to spend time with vulnerable young people living in Gemma’s residential programs. BMPC youth don’t need to arrive with special skills or a perfect plan. They can simply show up, make friends, and share their gifts through sports, academics, the arts, and — most importantly — their willingness to be themselves.

We’re continuing our gender-based programs for 6th–9th graders, creating space for candid conversations about the messages we receive — especially online — about what it means to be masculine or feminine. Burgers & Root Beers and Matcha & Mahjong are opportunities to have some fun, be ourselves, and talk honestly with caring adults about the pressures young people are navigating. The first gathering is October 5.

Something new on Wednesday nights. Starting September 16, we’re launching a new weekly fellowship program for 4th–7th graders. This is a chance for young people in late elementary and middle school to have fun, learn, grow, and build community together as they make the transition from children’s ministry to youth ministry.

At the same time, Student Serve is getting a new focus for 8th–12th graders. We’ll ask big questions, dig deeper into Scripture and theology, and explore what it means to grow as leaders — not just in the church, but in the world around us.

It’s going to be a great year in youth ministry. Yes, saying goodbye to summer is a bummer. But there’s a lot to look forward to. See you at Rita’s on September 2 — and at all the great things to come!

This month I had the joy of spending a week of continuing education at Ghost Ranch, a former dude ranch, now a Presbyterian conference center about an hour south of Santa Fe. Ghost Ranch is an awe-inspiring location known not just for its Presbyterian history, but as a site of historically significant paleontological discoveries and artistic inspiration. Georgia Okeefe herself lived at the Ranch starting in the 1930s.

The conference itself was incredibly life-giving, and the connections and conversations I made with clergy from a wide range of generations and Christian traditions were refreshing. But the landscape was what really captivated me. I kept taking the same photos over and over again, hoping that maybe the next one would be able to capture the overwhelming beauty of the mountains and surrounding mesa. One evening, a friend and I took the chairs from our guest room out into the middle of a field to stargaze and be overwhelmed by a clear glimpse of the Milky Way.

One of the most famous mountains viewed from Ghost Ranch is Cerro Pedernal, which means “flint mountain.” The architects who thoughtfully designed the main lecture space at Ghost Ranch ensured that there was a clear view of Pedernal behind each of our keynote speakers and preachers. I will confess that mostly while I was listening to the presentations, I was looking at the mountain.

Okeefe herself is said to have painted Pedernal at least 29 times. I wonder if, like me with my iPhone, she kept trying to capture the overwhelming beauty of the mountain that can’t be fully captured in film or in oil.  The quote commonly attributed to Okeefe in reference to Pedernal is, “God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.”

It is no wonder the Psalmists found both beauty and divinity in the vision of a mountain –
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

My prayer as we near the end of summer is that you too have found a place to experience the beauty of God’s creation—something so remarkable that it defies being captured in a photo. But also, that the summer has offered a time of quiet and retreat, a time of reconnecting with friends old and new, a time to give thanks for the blessings of this life in the midst of its challenges.

May we lift our eyes to God’s glory revealed in the world around us and remember again the One from whom our help comes and our calling to be stewards of God’s beautiful creation. And may we carry that sense of wonder, gratitude, and renewal with us into the season ahead.

“Georgia O’Keeffe – Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds [1936]” by Gandalf’s Gallery, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0