Grace and Peace to you in the name of our living and loving Savior, Jesus the Christ!

I’ve been intrigued lately by a series of videos available to view on YouTube by somebody with the screen name “thatjustinguy”.  I haven’t viewed all of his videos (There are hundreds of them) but I’ve viewed quite a few.  I showed and will continue to show some of them to begin our worship services but the one I want to write this newsletter article about is this one (click here) titled Lost and Found.

The video is about the many and various things we lose.  Sometimes the things we lose are the stuff of life like keys, remotes and shoes while other times it is things like our minds, our focus and our way.  The video goes on to say that when we find ourselves lost one of the things we have to do is search.  Search for a way out.  Search for a way forward.  Search in order to be found …

We’ve been searching for quite awhile here at Our Redeemer.  Searching for what it means to be church in our day and age.  Searching for what our particular form of church is going to look like.  Searching for how we are going to walk faithfully into God’s promised future.  And I think that our search has been a good one.  We’ve gained power and voice in that search.  We’ve gained perspective and insight into what all these things mean.  We’ve gained advocates and partners in our community who are beginning to think highly of how we’ve gone about our search.  But most of all, I think, we’ve hopefully gained a sense that God is out there searching for us as well.

God is searching for us in the world looking to meet us as we meet others.  God is out there searching for us as we seek to find ways to increase the impact of what we know and hear through our faith, through our scriptures, through our lives.  God is out there searching for us helping us to not only “be found” but also to find new avenues for ministry, new opportunities to love others, new path ways to follow.  God, even as we search for a way forward in our lives, is searching for us as well.

I hope that this is reassuring news for you.  I hope that you feel wanted, needed, desired not just by me, not just by our church, but by the God who calls you a friend.  I hope you, deep within you, feel the embrace of a loving and living Creator who has walked into our world and embraced us with a love that will never go away.  I hope you feel these things because I do as I serve here with you.

In Peace,
   Pastor Andy