Homecoming is a fall school tradition sporting dances, football, students, and alums. However, Homecoming is more than celebrating this great school and friends. Homecoming rejoices that you belong to this place, to these people, to this community.
Belonging is the deepest desire of our spiritual lives. Our deepest desire to belong to God comes through in our deep desire to belong to one another. We seek to belong to a community, a people, a particular place that anchors us. Belonging attaches the larger purposes of our lives in Christ to people with whom we can laugh, cry, and share.
Belonging is the spiritual connection within all homecoming celebrations. Where do you belong and where do you celebrate? Discover a homecoming to capture your spirit's desire to connect to God and others. Arrive at this homecoming as one who belongs.
Reflecting on the every day, practical dimensions of faith. Practices to shape our lives each day as followers of Christ. Stories to share our practical experiences of wisdom, faith, hope, and love.
When my boys were young, St. John's was a tremendous part of weekly focus for all of us. Teaching Sunday School, helping with fund raising efforts, painting pictures for church auctions, were all woven into the fabric of everyday life for me. The kids are grown now and not living in EC. Nearly every parent I knew then is not a particpating member of St. Johns. So, I fould I had to reinvent myself relative to personal relationships as well as my interaction with God. Without those activites of the past, I have become nearly virtually invisible in the church. Perhaps I gravitated to this posture because I have so much public exposure via my professional relationships in leadership roles. My solace from the chaos of the week comes from God allowing me to have annonimity in His house. I can put aside being the budget officer, program manager, monthly magazine author, art expert, personnel administrator and fixer of all things broken for a few blissful hours. So my "Homecoming" every Sunday is His quiet and gentle presence as he fortifies me for another week of providing guidance and direction to others who count on me to lead. Perhaps some of us can still belong to a community without a high level of contact. In my case, this way of interacting with the church evolved because life around me changed. At times I miss the friends I made when the kids were young. Now, I just don't seem to have the energy to recapture that sense of belonging and interacting. So I am switching to the alternate plan of quiet contemplation of God's mysteries and leave the personal sharing and church based friendships to others.
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