From Our Pastors – April 19, 2024

Pastor Amy
April 19, 2024

This past week, I traveled to Valley Forge, PA for a 3-day conference entitled “Space for Grace: Engaging Intergenerational Faith.” The conference was hosted by the same organization that is organizing our mission trip to Puerto Rico, the American Baptist Home Mission Society. ABHMS is strongly aligned with the mission and legacy of ABC pastor, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The keynote preachers and speakers brought a wide diversity of experiences and perspectives, which I look forward to sharing with all of you. We learned about what would mean to be a truly inclusive church of people with disabilities; about the role of joy and celebration in binding communities together; about what it means to create safe and resilient individuals and communities; and how trauma can show up through the generations. We thought and prayed about what it means to stand with the teachings of Jesus in a time when Christian nationalism is on the rise, and our world is seeing increasing violence and division.

In this Eastertide, we at the Union Church in Waban are thinking about what it means to Share from the Heart. The Space for Grace conference made me think about this in new ways. So often when engaging all ages of our intergenerational church, we have rightly focused on the importance of intergenerational relationships in terms of those relationships impact us as individuals of faith. We think about what it means for elders to experience connection and joy in the presence of our children and teens. We recognize the importance of relationships with elders and adults for our teenagers as they become more resilient and form their faith in face of the challenges of life. Throughout this conference, however, speakers focused not so much on individual faith, resilience, and well-being, as on building healthy, faithful, and resilient communities in which all people can thrive. It is one thing to support the spiritual well-being of an individual who uses a wheelchair, and another to make sure all people with disabilities have full and comfortable spaces within our pews and at our pulpit. It is one thing to deepen the resilience and faith of a child, and another to make sure that the home, school, and community they live in is free from violence and full of love. Beloved, as we explore what it means to share from the heart, I look forward to sharing more of my learnings, and inviting all of us to consider even more deeply what it means for our inclusive, welcoming, intergenerational, and mission-minded church to truly be a Space for Grace for all people, and to create a world where all can thrive.

Peace
Amy