By Father Casey
We are in a busy time of year. Those of us with kids barely know a day without some end-of-year activity, or sports tournament, or special program. Many businesses are at full stride this time of year, so I know lots of folks who working long hours or traveling quite a bit for work. Not to mention that the weather is fantastic, so it’s a great time for leisure travel, and gatherings of friends, and concerts. So, for a lot of us, our calendars are full.
No doubt that contributes to the traditional dip in attendance we experience at church this time of year. In the weeks following Easter Day, services and formation classes are noticeably less full, and ministry volunteers are harder to find. After the heights of Holy Week, and the experience of over 1,200 ringing bells, singing Alleluia, and chasing butterflies, it feels like we’re missing people.
So I have a humble request. I hope you will not substitute other activities in your life for the work of being in community at Transfiguration. Even as our lives take on plenty of other events and responsibilities, we need to maintain our commitment to God in the church. The life of faith consists of returning week after week to the well for a drink from the water of life. The strength of our discipleship is maintained by the regular workout of praying, praising, and learning.
And if there is anything we’ve learned in the long, lean years of the pandemic, it’s that good habits are hard to restart after a long pause. Lockdown and distancing caused many folks to get out of the pattern of attending church, but even after they could begin again, and even with the best of intentions, they struggled to resume what had formerly been routine. The old habits had been replaced with new habits, and active involvement with the church that had meant so much to them simply fell away.
So again, I ask you to keep Transfiguration – our worship, our formation, our fellowship – in your regular life. We aspire week after week to offer God our very best – carefully crafting sermons, rehearsing music, developing classes, editing bulletins – all for the sake of helping everyone in our community go deeper in the way, the truth, and the life of Christ.
This weekend, in fact, there is something wonderfully special happening that I hope you’ll choose to experience. On Sunday at 5pm, we’ll dedicate our Heritage Edition of the St. John’s Bible. It’s already been a part of our life for nine months, but it is time to formally celebrate this marvelous gift to our church, and all the ways it will bless and inspire our spiritual imaginations for generations to come.
So, I hope to see you then, friends…if not sooner!
Father Casey