Getting Ready For Sunday
Below is an audio primer for this coming Sunday, November 20th, 2022. In the audio, I call your attention to some writing we have done for new guests and folks learning about our church for the first time. You can find that writing below.
Guest Letter (found inside our canvas bags)
Hello and welcome.
If you are reading this little letter, it is because you were a guest with us on a Sunday morning (or you found these bags when no one was looking and couldn’t resist!). First Baptist Church of Pasadena is a quirky community full of generous and curious folks doing their best to follow the way of Jesus. We are a church in the classic sense of the word, a gathering of people under the common confession that Jesus is Lord. At least we are trying to believe that Jesus is Lord, even when we don’t quite understand how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus matters for the millions of questions and struggles and rising sea levels and our aunt who just died suddenly or the nagging loneliness we feel even when surrounded by friends and family.
Being alive and aware as a human is a uniquely challenging situation. We each carry so much, are tasked with holding overlapping and contradictory tensions, and also simply need to stay fed and sheltered. Within this community, we are trusting that our gathered embodied presence is sufficient for the work of moral and spiritual formation. We literally need one another and have quit apologizing for that fact. Being faithful to the way of Jesus is nearly impossible alone. Have you tried forgiving an enemy lately? Even harder is really forgiving a friend! To be present to one another as a church community is to confess that we are less without one another. If you risked the disorienting experience of visiting a new church community, it is because a part of you knows this is true.
We want to honor your presence at our church in a way that is fitting for your needs in this moment. If you want to maintain a lighter presence with us, that is fine. This might look like getting to worship a few minutes after it starts (you will find you are not alone in this!) and slipping out early to avoid the overflowing hospitality our church is known for. I cannot promise someone won’t still find you and welcome you like a long lost friend who has come home. But I do want to encourage you to make your presence known in some way. Linger for a bit. Risk curious eye contact and a hand extended in greeting. Tell someone your name, and ask about how to get more involved in this community. You will find that we are truly grateful that you are here and excited to learn more about how God made you and is still making you.
If you would like to be more formal about it, you can leave us some information so we can keep you in the loop about things happening in our church. We have various smaller gatherings where deep friendships can form, as well as occasional fun activities and opportunities to invest in our community and neighborhood through service.
Our community is marked by generosity and curiosity. We are a fully inclusive church, so all are truly welcome. To learn more about our church, you can visit the About Us section on our website (fbcpasadena.com/aboutus). Our informal motto is “In Pasadena as it is in Heaven.” This has become a shorthand way of understanding our calling in this little section of the world we call home. We believe that in our shared worship, grief, joy, faith, doubt, and everything in between, we are nurturing the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst. Beyond this nurturing, our task is to carry this gift of God into the world, becoming benedictions in all spaces we inhabit. If this sounds like a meaningful life, then come back next Sunday and the Sunday after that. Keep showing up, risking vulnerability by allowing yourself to be seen and known. If you want to grab coffee or lunch with me, my cell number is 626-808-6946. I’d love to hear your story. Maybe in time we can say that we would be…
Less without you,
Pastor John Jay and friends