Month: January 2024

Scripture:  Matthews 19:16-26

Dear Church,

The invitation to follow Jesus is the greatest gift that we ever receive.  Life with Jesus is abundant beyond our wildest imagination and transformative beyond our innate capabilities. 

That’s why opportunity is a core value of our culture at the Grove.  In Christ, we become new creation–both wholly changed and also more authentically ourselves.  A healthy and holy church provides space and grace and opportunity for folks to become who they will be in Christ.

And…

Opportunity has costs.  Any investment banker could tell you that.  Taking advantage of any kind of opportunity–financial, relational, educational, physical or spiritual–requires commitment, investment, energy and sacrifice.

We aren’t able to become new and also stay the same.  Growth requires change. Saying yes to something new also requires saying no to the status quo.  Sometimes the opportunities we find in Christ require saying ‘no’ over and over again in ways that seem foolish and even destructive to the culture. That’s certainly what this young man found out. (Matthew 19:16-26)

But maybe it didn’t end the way everyone assumes it did.

Maybe there’s another way to read this story that will give us healthier and holier expectations of ourselves and the opportunity costs of following Jesus.

I hope you’ll join me to worship the Lord this Sunday at 10am, in the sanctuary or on the live-stream. 

And I hope you’ll keep scrolling.  This week’s e-news is a little more wordy than usual, but we have several significant–ahem–opportunities to share with you.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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Scripture:  Matthew 21:12-17

Dear Church,

Jesus entered into Jerusalem riding a donkey, fulfilling the vision of the prophets–the Son of David, long-awaited Shepherd King who has come to set his people free.  And once he passes through the gates, he heads immediately to the temple.  His first stop is not the palace to challenge King Herod’s corrupt violent regime and confront Roman political brutality (though that comes later).  He goes to the temple.  But he doesn’t go there to pray.

His first priority is not to overthrow Herod or Caesar, but to turn over tables in the temple courts and throw hands with the money changers.  And as he riots he screams scripture, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’

Once the religious entrepreneurs have fled the scene, in the empty space Jesus welcomes the blind and the lame and heals them with the power of God.  Children stream in and begin to sing praises. And the Holy Ones are…indignant.

Before he offended anyone else, Jesus enraged the ones who believed they knew his Father best.  He centered truth so holy that it appeared disruptive and profane, especially to the religious folks who thought they were sacred experts.

In this story you can’t overlook the thing that is hidden in plain sight in every Jesus story: Risk.  Jesus took risks.  He risked offending people. He risked alienating people. He risked being misunderstood.  He risked being disliked, hated, betrayed and killed. Jesus risked everything because he knew the power of the truth of God’s revolutionary, radically transformational love.

Risk is one of our core values at the Grove, and this Sunday we’re going to be talking about the holy necessary risks Jesus took in his life and the holy necessary risks Jesus calls us to take in our lives.

Warning: it’s going to be. more than just talk.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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Scripture:  Matthew 25:1-13, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Dear Church,

You are wildly welcome here. We hear these words spoken regularly at the Grove, and for good reason. Being welcoming is one of our core values and one that we share with all followers of Jesus across space and time. But welcome is one of those things that is often so much easier said than done. What about when you are faced with welcoming someone who asks a lot of you, or someone who has complex needs, or someone who offended you? On the flip side, maybe you struggle to believe that you can truly come as you are with all of your baggage and be received with welcome.

This Sunday we will look at our core value of welcome through Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins. If you are curious about what a story about ten virgins has to do with welcome and hospitality, then you will just have to come and see. My sincere hope is that through this text we will grow together in wisdom that leads to readiness to welcome each other and our neighbors radically and faithfully, which starts with being ready for the arrival of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God in our midst.

In community,
Stephanie Ann Vander Lugt

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Scripture:  Luke 14:12-24

Dear Church,

Years ago, a neighbor in the Hickory Grove community told me that her kids had a special name for our church.  They called the Grove ‘the eat church,’ because they had been fed here so many times–at community meals, at vacation bible schools, at Freedom School and community festivals.  She told me they were always excited when she told them they could come to ‘the eat church.’

I love it.

Because lots of holy people would say that church is about more than eating, I don’t think Jesus would be one of them.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus told a story at a dinner party about how the Kingdom of God was like a banquet where the invited guests didn’t show up and the host filled every empty seat with the poor, the lame, the maimed and the strangers. This Sunday, before we find our places at Jesus’ table, we’ll think about that story and what it means to believe Jesus’ words and to believe that we find salvation and union with God at the communion table.  In other words, those kids had it right.  We are, nothing more and nothing less than ‘the eat church.’

It’s the beginning of a new year of being church together, and I’ll share with you the word the Lord has laid on my heart for us as a community and how the Spirit might use it to guide and form us in 2024.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

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