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| It’s time for summer breaks and rest! This will probably be the last “ps from ps” that I write until the fall. I usually take a couple months break over the summer due to travel and camps and resting my fingers from typing. It’s not that we “shut down” over the summer in 716 and don’t do ministry, it just looks a lot different. More conversations, celebrations, prayer and relationship building happens around fire pits, pools, bike paths and golf courses (especially prayer on the golf course for me, as the club strikes the ball at a high rate of speed). It’s a different shape. But ministry and mission are still happening. Needs don’t disappear. And neither do our spiritual gifts and ability to share talents and resources. All through Matthew’s 10th chapter, Jesus is instructing and sending his disciples into the world. He’s getting them out of old routines and placing them into conversations, celebrations, relationship building spaces and probably a few conflicts too. He’s making them ready to share grace, hope and love that he will soon demonstrate in person on the cross. Toward the end of the chapter, he tells them two basic things: welcome everyone and be ready to share a cup of cold water with the little ones. Welcome everyone. Be ready to share a cup of cold water. I hope your summer is filled with incredible experiences, some old patterns and some new offerings due to the effects of the pandemic. And I hope that wherever you go, you might take these simple instruction from Jesus: welcome everyone and be ready to share a cup of cold water. I’m not sure what the “cold water” will look like and I’m not sure who “everyone” might turn out to be. But I do know that wherever we end up this summer, you might encounter an “everyone” and they might need “cold water” that you might already have the ability to share. Many times in the fall, I restart online devo’s by asking that great elementary school first essay question: “What did you do over the summer?” How will you answer that a couple months from now? When you reflect back on July and August, what will have happened when you encountered “everyone?” And did you offer up any “cold water” to the “little ones?” Enjoy your summer. Allow God to break into your life in new spaces and places. Look for and anticipate it happening. Be smart about your return to churches. Don’t return until you are comfortable and you know your church is being safe for you and the community around you. God’s going to be with you wherever you are.Lord, I’m ready. Help me have the water ready for everyone this summer. Amen Still in One Peace, PS |
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