Thanksgiving Came Early This Year

Just this past August, we learned of a visit that was being planned for the Bishop of Tabora, The Rt. Rev. Sadock Makaya and his wife, Edie, who would be traveling from their home in Tanzania to be with us here in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan.  Our own Convocation Representative, Tanya Aide, immediately responded to the plea for help and worked to ensure that our guests would be well cared for while visiting in our own Saginaw Valley Convocation.  As part of his time here, Bishop Makaya was with us for the Eucharist on October 15^th which was also our Community Gathering Sunday, with our focus that day being about Baptism (how timely).  Bishop Makaya shared his greetings and blessing in the service and later spoke after lunch about his own diocese and the extraordinary work that is being done there in the name of Christ.  Bishop Makaya presented us with several gifts and we shared several of our own; but even more powerful than his generous spirit were his words to us.  Throughout his visit with us in church, as a guest of the Endeans and then in driving the bishop and his wife around the diocese, I was struck by the clear message he continued to offer: thanksgiving. 

To say that Tanzania is different from Saginaw is perhaps among the largest understatements of the year and there are certainly different ways to interpret who we are and what we are about.  Bishop Makaya’s response to us and all that they were seeing was to give thanks to God – for us, who we are, what we are about and what we have.  This was genuine thanksgiving that was being offered for the many and abundant ways that God blesses us.  There was never judgment in his words, but rather joy in seeing God at work in all that we have, seeing opportunities with treasures being entrusted to us.  Later that next week, Bishop Makaya took this message of thanksgiving and hope to our Diocesan Convention where these same thoughts inspired listeners to imagine new possibilities for mission and mutual learning.

Why does it take a guest to remind us of God’s blessings and abundance in providing for our needs and even beyond?  Here in this cultural exchange, this unexpected gift, there was no talk about what divides us or what challenges our sense of theology and relationships, but rather, there was a refreshing and renewing sense of the Gospel and our mission to it.  I believe it was a gift from God to bring us this guest, this outsider who truly, if just for a moment, took us outside of ourselves and the minutia that we live with daily and refocused the message on what it is truly all about: bringing the message of Jesus Christ and new life to those who have not experienced this love yet.  How wonderful it is to see things through a new and different perspective, for we most certainly take who we are and what we have for granted.  It was this idea of new and different perspectives that made Alaska and my time as a Tour Director so rewarding for me over ten years ago and was no less true this past summer with our group from St. John’s.  Although we were visiting places that I had been almost thirty times before, it was new every time, thanks to the new eyes that were there and experiencing it with me.  In this sense, a place may seem familiar but is never feels old, for it is almost rediscovered with each new person. 

Perhaps this is why days like our upcoming All Saints’ Sunday are so incredibly special, as well.  Sure, we have been in St. John’s hundreds, if not thousands, of times and yet in that morning the church we know, love, work at, even fight over will die and a new church will be born – with those three precious new sets of eyes who are experiencing the message of Church for the first time and everything will be again new.  As Bishop Makaya shared, “Praise God for what we have, indeed!”

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!  (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This same opportunity is with us all year, far beyond this coming All Saints’ Day, and is a fundamental part of our Vision Process.  Part of our opportunity and work together is to ask, “As we are that new creation, what is God asking us to allow to pass away?”  This is as essential of a question as the three we have already asked you to consider:  what do you treasure about St. John’s in the past? What do you value the most about who we are now? What do you feel we need in order to be the church that God needs St. John’s to be now and into the future?

Yes, our discussion begins with our buildings, some of the most beloved treasures that God has entrusted us to use, but not just for preservation.  Our conversation has to do with what is at the core of our identity as a church – who we are and what we are about.  Guests and newcomers, with their fresh perspectives, can see things we might be overlooking or have even grown so accustomed to that we take for granted.  What is it that we wish to convey about hospitality, Baptism, Eucharist, and music and how they are each experienced here?  The only right answers are the ones for which we not only embrace but are passionate about, because they get at the heart of what it means to be the church that is St. John’s.

As you read through this edition of The Messenger, you will learn about a number of ways to get involved.  Please don’t just consider them, embrace them.  Come get involved, come experience the new life on All Saints’ Sunday, participate in the Community Gathering Sunday on November 12^th, and let’s explore what it means to be St. John’s – a community that is filled with blessings!

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.  Amen.  (Ephesians 3:20—21)