From Bob Brite: On the way to many changes – and celebrating every step of the way

Celebration is a necessary part of life. If you don’t have the high points, you can’t survive the low points. Celebrations typically mark the accomplishing of something – an end – or the commencing of something – a beginning.

Our 134th anniversary celebration on Sunday, February 13 was a lot of fun, and it was a celebration that marked both the past and the future. Celebrating our long-term members was important; so was celebrating our new members and our babies. Dennis’ fine piece on the past year (available on You Tube) reminded us of the accomplishments in ministry over the year 2010.
This will probably be the last anniversary celebration held in our current facility. By this time next year (or close to it, give or take) we will have relocated into the ecumenical Ministry Center at 28th and Garfield.

People are now working on accomplishing that move – working groups on building configuration, a revised Ministry Covenant, putting together a new Ministry Center Board that represents the interests of all three congregations involved. There
will be lots to accomplish, and lots to celebrate, over the course of the next year. There will also be matters of grief and saying good-bye to the facility that has housed FCC for the last 55-plus years.
God wants life for us to be celebratory; we are called to joy in the grace and forgiveness God offers us in love. I define joy as the art of being fully alive; it’s something deeper than happiness, as some-times pain and loss are part of being fully alive. It is my hope that as we move through this next year of accomplishment, leave taking, and ministry that joy accompanies us every step of the way. That is at the heart of being authentically Christian.
I’d like to see YOU on Sunday,
Bob

Bob Brite is the Transitional Pastor of First Christian Church in Minneapolis.