POST 37: "Everything's Gonna Be All Right"
|
|
“Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.” Mother Teresa
After a few deep breaths, Forrest and I first acknowledged we have made some dear friends on Long Island.
Andrew and Hannah, after a rough start, have begun to thrive.
So we took a position working together at the Community Church of Little Neck in Queens (CCLN). This was a very humbling move. At the height of our careers we moved to a very fragile church. CCLN is a small church in the northeast section of Queens. Like many churches it is small with a predominantly aging congregation. When we arrived it was in grief. Its pastor, a good friend of ours, died of lung cancer at the age of 56. The facilities were worn as well. The walls of the social hall were a Pepto Bismol pink dating back about thirty years. The Church’s furnishings were retro ‘70s. At the latest. CCLN was tightknit congregation, on the razor’s edge of either living or dying. Yet this congregation was good, faithful, salt-of-the-earth people.
We had met our match. This would require all our skills from all our prior churches and agencies we had worked at all our lives combined. We were the “walking wounded” called to minister to a grieving church hanging on for dear life. Now either God has the funniest sense of humor or we are in for a miracle of the century. I tend to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the unfolding mystery which shifts every day, it keeps us humble and faithful. Yet, often, this is how God works. We would not have ended up at CCLN had we not received the first painful, failed church call, which held the seeds of something greater.
You just never know. So we rolled up our sleeves, pulled out our prayer mats, and got to work. We got rid of the Pepto Bismol, and attended to other major projects, as well as started some new programs and services. Did I mention that we were sweating as we're praying? Because you just never know.
Notes:
http://www.verybestquotes.com/150-mother-teresa-quotes/#sthash.eA4ynwNZ.dpuf
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard/post-38-do-like-i-do.html
Inglewood, CA 90301
info@manilowmusicproject.org
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.
After a few deep breaths, Forrest and I first acknowledged we have made some dear friends on Long Island.
Andrew and Hannah, after a rough start, have begun to thrive.
So we took a position working together at the Community Church of Little Neck in Queens (CCLN). This was a very humbling move. At the height of our careers we moved to a very fragile church. CCLN is a small church in the northeast section of Queens. Like many churches it is small with a predominantly aging congregation. When we arrived it was in grief. Its pastor, a good friend of ours, died of lung cancer at the age of 56. The facilities were worn as well. The walls of the social hall were a Pepto Bismol pink dating back about thirty years. The Church’s furnishings were retro ‘70s. At the latest. CCLN was tightknit congregation, on the razor’s edge of either living or dying. Yet this congregation was good, faithful, salt-of-the-earth people.
We had met our match. This would require all our skills from all our prior churches and agencies we had worked at all our lives combined. We were the “walking wounded” called to minister to a grieving church hanging on for dear life. Now either God has the funniest sense of humor or we are in for a miracle of the century. I tend to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the unfolding mystery which shifts every day, it keeps us humble and faithful. Yet, often, this is how God works. We would not have ended up at CCLN had we not received the first painful, failed church call, which held the seeds of something greater.
You just never know. So we rolled up our sleeves, pulled out our prayer mats, and got to work. We got rid of the Pepto Bismol, and attended to other major projects, as well as started some new programs and services. Did I mention that we were sweating as we're praying? Because you just never know.
Notes:
http://www.verybestquotes.com/150-mother-teresa-quotes/#sthash.eA4ynwNZ.dpuf
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard/post-38-do-like-i-do.html
Inglewood, CA 90301
info@manilowmusicproject.org
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.
