LETTER FROM JUNE NEWSLETTER

LETTER TO THE CHURCH FROM THE JUNE NEWSLETTER OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, FIRST CONGREGATIONAL OF NORWICH, NY

Dear Friends in Christ,

On behalf of our church, the United Church of Christ, First Congregational, I recently attended the Installation of the Rev. Mr. David Spiegel at the First Baptist Church. But I was wearing two hats on that day. I brought greetings both from the Norwich Ministerium and from this church. What follows is an edited version of my comments.

“I am charged with bringing greetings from the Ministerium. One might think that is easy, because we are (or at least Scripture says we should be) one in Christ. Galatians says this (quote): “In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ.” Now, given the society in which we live, it’s not always clear this edict of Paul’s is given credence. But, on behalf of the pastors in the Ministerium, I want you to rest assured we believe we are one in Christ, so I, in fact, bring greetings with confidence that we are one.”

“I also bring greetings from the United Church of Christ, First Congregational. Every month in the Newsletter of my church, I address my letter to the church in this way: ‘Dear Friends in Christ.’ And as much as we are one in Christ, to me being ‘one in Christ’ sounds and feels like a mystical union.”

“Now, I have nothing against mystical unions, but to be friends in Christ feels more like a human bond to me. And our two churches together, over the course of 200 years, have been friends in Christ, have had a human bond, a friendship with human connections.”

“Indeed, a number of years ago when the roof of the First Baptist Church had some trouble, this congregation used our space for worship. When the building of the United Church of Christ underwent massive remodeling, the people of the First Baptist Church graciously invited us to use your space. On a personal and human note, I already know that David and I have some real bonds in our backgrounds, in our understandings of church, and I believe our collegial relationship is already flourishing.”

“In his First Inaugural, Abraham Lincoln famously used the phrase: ‘bonds of affection.’ In the very next sentence, less famously but with equal import, Lincoln defines ‘bonds of affection’ as (quote): ‘the mystic chords of memory.’ That’s not cords, as in rope. That’s chords, as in a blend of harmonious sound. The bonds of affection, the mystic chords between the First Baptist Church and the United Church of Christ, First Congregational run deep and I expect we can and will continue to make music together.”

“David— welcome to Norwich. We are glad to have you here. May God bless your ministry here and our ministry together.”

Now, there were a number of speakers on this occasion, but I loved what the Rev. Mr. Ken Simpson had to say. Ken is a retired Baptist pastor, now living in Cortland. When I arrived in Norwich fifteen years ago, Ken was already retired but was a member of the First Baptist Church of Norwich. I got to know him back then. He is a fine man and a good pastor.

Ken got in the pulpit and said two things. In making this ‘charge’ to the church, a tradition at services of installation, he said, first, love your new pastor. The action of loving a pastor can only be helpful to the ministry of the church.

Next Ken, offered a remembrance about his High School graduation. The speaker on that occasion, he said, emphasized that the key to success for the graduates was that they needed to be enthusiastic— enthusiastic about life, about what they might choose to do with their lives. So, said Ken, from that point forward, he understood that enthusiasm needed to be a high priority in life.

So, Ken went on to say, the key to being church, the key to having a successful church, he said, was to be enthusiastic. Be enthusiastic about your church. If you are enthusiastic about your church— if you speak enthusiastically about your church to others, if you attend services weekly, if you go to all the concerts the church offers or pot luck suppers or whatever else the people decide to do, the church will be successful.

Indeed, he said, you need to be enthusiastic about each other, love each other. Then he reiterated the implied premise: enthusiasm leads to the success of a church.

Last, Ken reflected on the word enthusiasm, itself. As he grew in those years after High School, he never forgot that enthusiasm is a key to life. And after he became a pastor and had studied Greek some, he came to realize the word enthusiasm had its roots in Greek. Loosely, it means ‘Ecstasy arising from God.’

So, church is not just the thing about which we can be enthusiastic and about which we should be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is more appropriate for life in the church than in any other aspect of life because, by definition, enthusiasm is about God.

So, as I have mentioned in this space often, a colleague of mine likes to say: “See you in church.” Perhaps what I need to say is: “Be enthusiastic. It is Church! And that’s where we can be enthusiastic about God and each other.”

In Faith,

Joe Connolly