From Pastor Kristen
It was wonderful to see so many of you (47!) in person last Sunday. Regrettably, the livestream did not work. We seem to have worked out the "bugs" however, and anticipate a successful livestream to our YouTube channel this Sunday. We have made a "mini service" pdf available for those who could not access the service: https://sothstl.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SOTH-June-6-mini-service.pdf
In last Sunday’s gospel reading from Mark Jesus tells the crowd who’s come see him that the family of God extends beyond the boundaries of bloodline to embrace a whole variety of people whose common goal is doing the will of God. This was powerfully good news to the early Christians who were commonly rejected by their families for being a follower of Jesus. And families today’s can be equally as complicated.
But God’s family is intended to be something different. God’s family is called together from a variety of ages, cultures, genders and perspectives - not for its own sake, but for the sake of the world. In fact, part of the power of the church is that it is not a biological family, but rather a community of individuals whose focus is on the God of Love. And God’s focus is on the world God loves.
Church is the community that chooses God. Church is the group of individuals who come together from every place in order to receive the good news of God’s love, week after week, so that those same individuals can go back into their daily lives to share and affirm and advocate for that love in their homes and neighborhoods and beyond. And this can be challenging but essential work – but I rejoice that it is work we will do together!
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