From Pastor Kristin:

I spent the week of January 23rd with St. Francis of Assisi watching over me. It’s true! I spent the week at the ELCA Northeast Regional Leadership Guild, which took place at a Catholic Retreat House in Pennsylvania. In my door, was a stained glass image of St. Francis. Once I got over the stare of St. Francis, I turned my attention to the reason I was in Pennsylvania - to listen to speakers and workshop leaders who would teach me, and my peers, everything we didn’t learn in seminary.

But, this year, the creators of this event for recently ordained people like me, changed things up. Instead of speakers dumping information into our brains, we focused on leadership through the lens of community organizing. We engaged in discussions about our own strengths and growing edges. We were blunt about the challenges we’re struggling with in our individual congregations and in the broader church. And we were honest about our own spirituaity. THEN – we agitated one another.

That’s right. We AGITATED one another.
We prodded one another about what is holding us back. We asked pointed, yet caring questions about what is keeping us from fully following God’s vision for ministry. And we urged one another in planning concrete steps to becoming more powerful leaders.

This was the first time I had heard that agitating others can be considered a skill –and a good quality of leadership!

Which got me thinking…about how God agitates our faith. After all, that’s where the ministry begins. With God. With faith. With God’s promise to love and work and move in our hearts, through the blowing winds of the Holy Spirit.
Brother Roger of Taize (an ecumenical monastic community in France) wrote that “the Gospel comes to turn our lives upside down: by the Holy Spirit, Christ penetrates what worries us about ourselves. He reaches what seems to be out of reach, so that even the darkest places can be illuminated by his presence…it causes what had been smouldering unders ashes to burst into flame.”

On page 5 of this newsletter, you will find a way of opening yourself up to the agitation of the Holy Spirit. Of intentionally welcoming in the Gospel to penetrate your life and your faith. The “Examen” was developed by St. Francis (the same one who stared at me all week in Pennsylvania) as way of reflecting on how God speaks and moves in our lives each day.

Beginning in lent, we will also be creating opportunities in worship for you to share how you have experienced and even been agitated by God in the past week. Additionally, we will be creating concrete opportunities for you to speak and give the prayers of your life and heart over to God - completing the circle that begins when Christ, through the Holy Spirit, goes to work in us, and in our lives.
May the God of agitation be with you!