I covenant to expect failure and success in order to find the way that works for us in the sacred and holy now.

This is the second line of my covenant to the congregation (see the newsletter from August 21 for context and the entire covenant). As it turns out, this was such an important promise to have had in place when the pandemic began and we had to learn how to do “virtual church”. That was a time of many failures and successes as we experimented our way into the sacred and holy now that was becoming something we had never experienced before. I feel so fortunate to have been in seminary at the time because the learning I was doing was focused on assisting us through this different way of being together.

I think we did a pretty great job making it through those pandemic times together. But what is the sacred and holy now asking of us? We are not the same. We did not go back to “normal” or the “before times” and that means that people need a different model for church. But what is that? What should it look like? I don’t have an answer but I am looking and listening carefully and learning as much as I can.

We will try new things and invent new ways. We will tell new stories and uncover hidden theologies and walk down new spiritual paths. We will fail and we will succeed. That’s what it means to be human beings. We will keep arriving. And I hope we will keep welcoming one another with a loving embrace despite it all.

Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move. – Lewis Fisher