Pastor's Corner

Dear Friends and Members:

What a blessing it is to be alive! And life in the world comes with a consistent dynamic of change: we age, change jobs, lose or gain friends, marry (or don’t), have children (or not), and learn the latest electronic device. When we come to church, it often gives us a sense of safety and security beyond what we find in our society, and we cherish the constancy of our worship practices like the Gloria Patri, Doxology and Hymnody. We rest in the fact our committees are doing their work and hesitate to evaluate whether they are working in today’s church. But churches can become stuck. To cling too tightly to what comforts us can bind us in a way that we are unable to hear the Good News of Christ as it applies to today’s world. The very foundations of faith, if they are tied to traditions, can prevent us from telling the gospel to outsiders. Not many people in town know what a Narthex is, or discuss communion’s meaning, but most of us do. There comes a time to renew, refresh and renovate the church of God in each place.

Here in our church, we are doing just that. Earlier this year, the Church Council formed a team to evaluate our church, the society around us and the impact of our ministries. This team of 6 people have been meeting and using a Ministry Audit Guidebook provided by our Annual Conference to assess these four areas: Life Cycle and Timeline of our Church; Current Ministry and Identity; Area of Influence and Potential for Ministry; and Evaluation of Finances and Facilities. From this work we will write a summary report with recommendations for changes to renew, refresh and even renovate the ministry of Horseheads First UMC.

This summary report will be presented to the Church Council and the entire congregation in late fall, or early 2025 for us to discern together where God is leading our congregation to make changes. This is not the church of the early or late 1900’s, nor even of the early 2000’s. Reaching people with the message of God’s love is different now than it was even ten years ago. The message of God’s love through Jesus Christ never changes, but the method of delivering that message is in constant flux. One example of this is the way our younger generations communicate and the electronics which we have given them. Another is the ever-changing social mores like what you wear to church and classroom, and what words you use to speak. Cursive writing is rare but texting with code letters to convey meaning is common.

We don’t change the gospel; we change the language and context we speak it in. This means radical changes in the church to best serve a radical Savior. The question is not what should we change, but what should we keep, what should we renew and what should we allow to gracefully die in our methods of reaching people with God’s love? This is the work we are doing. I hope you will commit to praying for this (your) church and asking God to speak clearly to your elected leaders. Remember to spend time listening for God’s direction and share that with any / all leaders. We will listen and carefully begin to make changes so the world will know, Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of all people!

Pastor Jeff McDowell