Dear Friends of 2CC,

For a few years when I was first at our church, we had a member who spent large parts of the year out west—most of the major holidays and, without fail, most of the summer.  

At some point, they would resurface at church on Sunday, but I usually knew they had come back a bit before that because, upon their return, they would swing by the church office and leave a small stack of Sunday bulletins from their other church in California.  

To be honest, this was a little hard to figure out.  

They never wanted to talk about the bulletins — just have me receive them.  

I was heartened, of course, to know that they had kept in the habit of church while they were away.  

Frankly, I also wondered if they were trying to tell me something.  If they were, I was proving too obtuse to recognize it:  “See here, pastor, let me show you how it’s done….”

I never knew.  

This went on for ages, until one day, while I was picking up my latest stack of bulletins and wondering what they were supposed to mean, Gloria said: “Do you think they give their other pastor all of our bulletins whenever they go back to that church?”

Somehow, this seemed entirely possible, and that made the whole thing seem less critical.  

I even considered sending that pastor an email, sort of along the lines of “Hey, it’s me…”, although I never did.  I didn’t need to.  From that moment on, I was never bothered by it again.   

In fact, as time has gone on, I’ve really enjoyed hearing about what people find in worshiping other places.  

Each church has its own ways and responds to God distinctively.  This is a good thing.   It’s obvious to say that preachers have their own particular voice — certain themes they emphasize or ways they deliver a sermon.  

Similarly, churches have their own collective “voice,” which expresses itself in any number or ways, in and out of a formal time of worship.   That’s lovely.  

We tend to boil down our encounters to whether we liked it or not, but there are other questions to ask: who is God to these people?  Where do they see God?  What do they do about it?  What feels most “worshipful” here?  

This has a lot to teach us, if we let it.   It may not lead us to suggest changes once we get back home, but it gives us a sense of the wideness of God’s mercy and the joyful ways that His people respond. 

As you begin to set your own plans for the summer, I hope you’ll find time to worship not only with us here at 2CC, but also somewhere new. 

You can even drop off the bulletin if you want.   

See you in church,