Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

This weekend I went to church with a friend, a priest. He had taken a new job, and this was his last Sunday as a curate at this church. He preached a gracious sermon about love. He told me afterward that he had been given this advice: Just make sure they know that you love them.

This seems like good advice for dealing with transitions and difficult times in many relationships in the church, where the community is founded on love for one another. Especially in the midst of change.

Relationships change, frequently. We may leave a job in the church or move away. We may have to stop attending a small group because of a schedule change or stop participating in a ministry because it’s not a good fit for our skills or we’re just too busy. All these things can alter relationships with individuals or a group, and can occasionally feel like abandonment. This is especially true when those with leadership roles, like priests or vestry members and staff, have to leave or change their relationship to someone in the community.

In these moments, which can be painful and uncomfortable, it’s helpful to say out loud that we do care for each other, and that this change or move doesn’t change that fact.

Of course, love isn’t the same as affection. We may not be getting along with others in the community, which may be cause to leave a small group or a ministry, but that doesn’t mean we do not love the other person in some sense, that we don’t care for them as children of God.

Communities are unstable things; they change constantly. In the midst of this it’s possible for lose sight of the fact that love is the ground we stand on in the Church. What binds us together is love for God and one another, and so it needs to be said every now and then.