An Early Perspective
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
- 2 Peter 3:18b
Hi Christ Church and Friends!
We’re well past two months now of me getting to be and serve as your new Lead Pastor! What a joy it has been so far.
As I shared recently in a sermon, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve with and among you all. When I think about all of the twists and turns my life and the life of our church have taken to get us ready for one another, I’m awed by God’s movement.
Throughout our most recent worship series I shared about my vision for our church: that we would be a place that takes seriously and lives out our mission statement of reflecting the love, hope, and joy of Jesus to our community. Furthermore, I emphasized that we would do this across the life of our church, including our Parkway and Fort Lauderdale campuses as well as in and through our school, Christ Church School. We are fortunate to have such great staff, leaders, laity, and facilities across our various ministries. Thank you for being a part of it!
Because I believe so strongly in the work and service we are doing on both of our campuses and in our school, I’ve spent intentional time trying to meet as many people as possible throughout our church community. This has included one-on-one meetings with the majority of our staff and with our Church Council members, as well as with leaders of our Welcome Ministries and Care Team. I believe the best way to help our church grow, both in depth and number, is through relationship. So, if I haven’t gotten a chance to meet you yet, shoot me an email or give me a call so we can connect.
This need to build relationships isn’t unique to me or our other pastors, Pastors Josh and Monique. No indeed. We are all called to relationship building. As we all together are creating and building relationships across our campuses, in our school, and in our larger community, we will impact countless lives, and we can’t help but grow and help connect people to Jesus.
After all, God gave us the greatest example of the power of relationship and presence that we have through Jesus’ coming. We call that the incarnation, which simply means “in the flesh;” God came to be in relationship, in the flesh, with us so that we and all might grow.
“Grow” is our overarching theme for this year, both in the life of our church and in our school. 2 Peter 3:18 quoted above is our focus scripture. Our hope and work always as Christians is to grow in God’s grace and in our knowledge of God, and to help others do the same.
Earlier this spring, prior to my arrival, our Church Council took three votes that I believe wholeheartedly will help us to do exactly that: to grow in the grace and knowledge of God and to share it with others. In those votes they affirmed that we are a social justice seeking church, a Reconciling church, and an anti-racist church. Said another way, earlier this year they affirmed that our church believes that all people, regardless of their race or ethnicity, sexuality or gender, economic status, or otherwise, are loved and created by God and will be fully welcomed as they are. More simply, these votes, I believe, make a public statement that you, your child or grandchild, sibling, partner, co-worker, neighbor, or friend will be fully welcomed just as you and as they are. As many of you are well aware, this just simply isn’t true at every church. Your commitment to living out these values is a large part of why I said yes and accepted this appointment.
Having said that, we have much work to do to make this truly our reality on both of our campuses, as well as at our school. Thankfully you all and we have been working to live out these values. We live them out because we aren’t just talking about values, we are talking about people created in the image of God. We live them out because, while it makes some uncomfortable or maybe even ourselves uncomfortable, we recognize that for far too long so many others have been uncomfortable, and it’s past time that we as followers of Jesus change this.
I’ve been proud to begin my work with you all spending some of my time working with both our Anti-Racism Task Force and our Rainbow Alliance as they help guide and lead our church in these areas so that we all can more fully live into these values individually and as a church and school.
Our Anti-Racism Task Force hosted its first in-person meeting recently and hosted a discussion of the book His Name is George Floyd. We’ll have our next planning meeting on Wednesday, October 19, to see how we can continue to live into our three pillars of this work: to educate, build community, and advocate. Our next book discussion will be on Killers of the Flower Moon on Wednesday, October 26, at 7pm. Make plans to join us for one or both of these.
Our Rainbow Alliance is working hard to make our church community a safe place for members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I’ve enjoyed getting to meet with this leadership team and am grateful for them. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read their recent newsletter, I encourage you to check it out here.
I’ve also enjoyed spending time getting to know our great staff, students, and families who are a part of our school and those who are part of our Parkway Campus.
Related to our school, I’ve been trying each week to greet our families and students on Tuesday mornings at drop-off to get to know them better. I’ve enjoyed popping into our teachers’ classrooms regularly to hear about the daily lessons and to meet our youngest Christ Church friends. I look forward to continuing to do this as we move forward. Pastor Monique, Head of School Tane Bonham, and all of our staff are doing such a great job.
Pastor Josh and our leaders at our Parkway Campus are doing great work as well. I’ve been so impressed to see the powerful work happening with our food pantry, Wednesday night dinner, and Sunday morning breakfast. I look forward to preaching there in worship in just a few weeks. If you haven’t been to our Parkway Campus yet, or are looking for a place to serve, you should check it out soon.
A final thank-you to our staff, members of Church Council, other lay leaders, and really all of you. I know you all have been through A LOT as a church over the past couple of years. Thank you for helping us to get to where we are today. Holy Grounds (fellowship time between services) started back in August, and we’ll be resuming Grow Group time and discussion starting Sunday, October 9, between worship services. We’ll have more opportunities coming soon too.
You don’t have to wait though to get more involved in all that God is doing here at Christ Church. There is plenty going on right NOW for you to continue to build relationships and help reflect the love, hope, and joy of Jesus to our community as we grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus.
And remember we’re able to do this, we GET to do this work, because we too are experiencing the love, hope, and joy of Jesus.
I’m so grateful I get to be your Lead Pastor. God has been moving here at Christ Church long before I came (back) to South Florida. I can’t wait to see how God is going to move through us in our time ahead together.
Have a great day, everyone. See you soon.
Peace,
Pastor Nathan,
Christ Church United Methodist
P.S. I wrote much of this letter before Hurricane Ian’s arrival here in Florida. Honestly, I contemplated scrapping much of this newsletter to offer a different word. I decided to not to, as I think what I’ve shared is important for you to know.
Having said that, we continue to keep all of those who have been impacted by Hurricane Ian in our prayers. We are working with the Florida Conference of the UMC to help and serve as they guide us. You can read more here about the efforts we are partnering with them on flood kits and the Hurricane Ian fund that has been set up.
Sunday in our worship services we also lifted up prayers and words of encouragement throughout the service related to Hurricane Ian. As part of the sermon I preached on our Fort Lauderdale campus, I offered a song of wisdom, reflection, and hope: “Anywhere We Are” by Nichole Nordeman. You can listen to it here.
We’ll update you as we have more information as how we can support those recovering from Hurricane Ian. Thank you all.
