The title is a mouthful. The words best fit the church in which I serve – The United Methodist Church. Our church is a community of local churches in crossroads, villages, suburbs, ghettos, and urban centers are scattered all over the world. We are uniquely design and commonly grounded. We are young and older. We are recently birthed and as old as the communites they reside.
We are also imperfect. We are sinful people who are still growing in grace. We confess that we have not loved God with our whole heart. We profess that God picks us up in our brokenness loving us as he molds and shapes us in the beauty of his grace.
Today, I get to celebrate the beautifully imperfect connectional community with the people of the NC Conference of the United Methodist Church at Pilgrimage 2010. Today, youth and adults from eastern North Carolina will come to sing God’s praises, fellowship in Christian community, and experience God’s grace. Over the last few weeks I began to reflect on the awesomeness of this community. We are pastors, adults, and youth working together for the common good of bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to young people and sharing with them God’s grace that they can grow and be sent forth in his service. This is beautiful!
Dude. Right on. This weekend will do nothing short of bringing glory to our risen savior Jesus Christ. Pilgrimage is such a fantastic opportunity because there exists within its walls the possibility of multidimensional growth. Youth and adults come and worship and grow in their on walk with Christ. Youth ministries come and experience praise, worship and fellowship on new and exciting levels. The church body is also strengthened because of the new connections made through over 300 churches worshiping together. What an amazing and wonderful weekend God has in store for us.