By Rev. Donn Brammer

Jeremiah 29:11’For I know the plans I have for you, plans for [good] and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.’

Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?” The (NLT) says,  “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?”

If you’ve ever read the Bible then you know the disciples left a life they knew and were comfortable with in order to follow Jesus who showed and taught not only how to live but taught us how to better receive and share God’s love and grace and live lives of fulfillment, meaning, and purpose.

We are people of faith, not the people of stick-to-what-we-know-and-have-always-done, we are called to follow God, to follow Jesus and if we are following that means they are leading, and it means we are moving; moving to the future, new horizons, new possibilities; new life.

We can’t go to the future God has prepared for us staying where we are, as we are; we learn, we grow, we move, we change. Change can be exciting, remember your first bike? Your first car? Your first time away from home for work or school?

Do you remember in the movie, ‘Finding Nemo’ when Dory and Martin are in the whale and it was great for a while because the whale provided transportation so they could rescue Nemo, but then the whale tells them this is as far as the whale can take them and they need to get out, to leave by going to the back of his throat. Well, at least that’s what Dory says the whale says, but Martin is fearful, and Dory does say it could be the whale is saying he wants a root beer float, which does nothing to build up Martin’s confidence. Dory is all in and happy to follow and keeps telling Martin to let go but Martin is desperately trying to hold on, which makes no sense because if he doesn’t leave then he can’t complete his mission to rescue his son.

God is calling and leading us to a new future, perhaps a new way of seeing and doing, but the future God is calling us to is still the fulfillment of God’s purpose, God’s mission.

There is a comedy movie called the Blues Brothers, two very unlikely characters who hear that the Catholic Sisters who ran the orphanage they grew up in is in danger of losing the orphanage the Blues Brothers decide they are being called by God to save the orphanage. And that becomes one of the movie’s tag lines, ‘We are on a mission from God.’ And what follows is an unbelievable, ridiculous, series of impossible adventures, but through it all they keep saying, ‘We are on a mission from God.’

And so are we. We are not called the First Christian Club, we are a church, the living Body of Christ, called to missions and ministries of sharing God’s love and grace and we do that by following God, we are not called to be ostriches with heads buried in the sand; we are called to be disciples, we are on a mission from God. May we faithfully follow. God Bless, Donn