"I love to hear the story..."
LAURA REASON
Josh asking me to write about some ways or times I’ve experienced transformations sent my mind back over several seasons and deep moments of change. Imago’s Vision Sunday on August 22nd had me deciding to share how transforming it is to partner with different faith communities and having their stories and mine weave together for a while. My role has often been to help others discern how their story is part of God’s larger story and purposes and find clarity and strength through what this teaches them. I came to worship here in my retirement to experience community in a deliberately inclusive congregation whose face is turned to the world.
I have been in official relationships with eight congregations in different pastoral roles (as a solo, associate, interim, bridge and head of staff pastor). I have also been in supportive relationships with some 15 other congregations as a volunteer, working with them during particular phases of their life. In all these relationships, I start by asking to hear their stories. Congregations can tell you their origin stories and, if they are healthy, they know what in their DNA is sustaining for them and what pulls them away from their path. In the telling and retelling of our stories and weaving those into God’s story, we are changed – no longer “conformed to this world, but…transformed by the renewing of (our) minds, so that (we) may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect”. (Ro. 12:2, NRSV)
Imago Dei holds to its value of a generous orthodoxy. Those who lead and preach week by week express great authenticity and witness into the realities of human life. With the pandemic shutting us down right after I started worshiping here, it’s been hard at times to figure out how to enter into this community more fully. I attended an adult class once on Zoom but after no one greeted me or acknowledged my presence in that hour, I did not have the courage to return. I am grateful for Josh’s tireless efforts to routinely connect and check in. I am blessed by worship packets delivered to the front door for Advent and Lent. I remind myself that there has been no “normal” anywhere since the pandemic began and it’s a time of shifting expectations, strange stresses and fragility for all of us. It is a time for unfailing patience. Clearly Imago has a story to tell and share; the fact that so many of us have joined this worshiping community since the pandemic began bears witness to how clear this is.
Perhaps that is why I found Vision Sunday so refreshing, for all the ways we seek to transform lives. I’m convinced all are welcome here and having so many people give testimony to ways they are able to allow God to work through them to bring faith into action gives me great hope. It’s how transformation can continue to happen in the midst of this community.
Laura Reason is a retired Presbyterian minister who is discerning how to spend the last third of her life. She is a widow, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, friend and a child of God. Her favorite hobby is getting to know people. Exercising her curiosity takes a close second.