From Pastor Eric’s Study – October 2025

As the school year begins, it is wonderful to have a beautiful gaggle of kids back with us in church. Sunday School resumed with renewed vigor and with a plea for us to give our kids more time to spend with their lesson. You may notice that we are dismissing the children earlier in the service. We continue to discern how best to nurture our kids in their faith and in a deep love of God.

Last month we were blessed to have a baptism, and this week we will have another. One of my favorite lines within the baptism liturgy that I use isn’t one that came from our book of worship, but rather from the UCC’s “God is Still Speaking” campaign early in my pastorate. The phrase is: “when we promise you our love, we promise a love that we will never take away.” It is an affirmation that we are to love like God loves us. We are to love as Jesus has shown us how to love. We all know that living out God’s love is much easier when people are being kind than when they are challenging, still, we are called to love like Jesus even when it’s hard.

Our world is so divided and God's commission is a sacred challenge. We are to see the other with all the love with which God sees them. We are to take seriously our promise to offer a love that we will never take away, because God will never take it away… and we are to do this even when it’s hard. We are also called to be the truth tellers who accept the cost of discipleship when we take seriously the responsibility to call out anyone who uses their faith in ways not rooted in that love and humility which Christ modeled. In this moment, Christianity is regularly appearing in our world at the heart of judgement, of supporting political agendas that negate and marginalize others, and of promoting a nationalism and extremism that we would find abhorrent in other faiths. We condemn the Taliban in Afghanistan or Buddhist extremists in Myanmar, and yet we excuse similar nationalized religious extremism here at home. What does it mean for us to look at the children, newborns, and those in their hundreds and claim them as beloved children of God? What does it mean to stand up and speak out when we see racism, sexism, attacks on the LGBTQ community, or immigrants, or anyone else… especially when it is done with a thin veneer of Christian language?

I pray we keep learning to see and nurture each person in the same way we value the children gathering down front and the babies we baptize, promising to them all a love that we will never take away.