Volume XII Issue 6
July/ August 2009
This is the first newsletter since we concluded our 40 Days of Community and I want to thank you for a wonderful experience. During those 40 Days I believe we rediscovered a central aspect to being a church, namely, that we are so much better when we are together. We magnify our Christian faith in each other and inspire change in the people and world around us. A vivid example of what it means to be together is being played out in the streets of Iran where hundreds of thousands of people have joined together to demand their fundamental rights. Individually, the authorities in Iran have nothing to fear from the people. Together, however, the people fill the night with calls of “God is great.” Together they have the power to create the kind of change that strikes fear into the Iranian authorities. The response of the authorities has been to destroy the “togetherness” of the opposition. Turn the people back into isolated individuals, fearing for their own life, and the power will be emptied from their movement. There is real power in “togetherness”. We are better together. For too long we have allowed the world, the culture and our self-seeking indifference to destroy our “togetherness” as a church. We have allowed our faith to become simply a personal, private event, unrelated to the world around us. To the degree that we have come to live our faith alone, we have lost what it means to be part of a church. As Paul Nixon writes in his book, I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church, “thriving churches choose to pour themselves out in service to the communities of people that live beyond their walls and membership lists.” Thriving churches are alive with the power of community, Christian community. The 40 Days of Community might be at an end, but my work and dedication to building a more powerful Marengo United Methodist Church is just beginning. We are better together. We are the church, the body of Jesus Christ in the world. Together we can change the world. Yours in Christ, Pastor Keck