Jimmy, the former assistant and
leader/founder of St. Awesomes, once said “Very soon, everything will be
unfamiliar. St. Alban’s will be different. During this transition, some will look
on the church and will think of it as foreign.” Well I think it is safe to say
we have arrived to that point where the experience of St. Alban’s is changing
right before our very eyes. We are in the search process for a new rector, people who avidly attended church while Jeff and Jimmy were here no longer come
and most of all Jeff and Jimmy, the “Christ like” figures in our church, the
leaders and mentors in our walk of faith, are no longer with us.
I feel the situation we are in now
reflects shades of what the disciples faced after Jesus died. Jesus’ disciples
spent three years following Him. They heard Him teach about God’s Kingdom
and witnessed Him perform many miracles. When they saw the Son of God
nailed to a cross and die they may have experienced feelings of
abandonment. They believed Jesus was God’s Promised Messiah and now He
was dead and His body had been placed in a sealed tomb. Feelings are not always
the truth of what is really happening in a situation. If the disciples
had felt abandoned when Jesus died, it was not the truth. Jesus told them
very clearly before He was nailed to the cross that He was going to suffer and
would rise again. Even though the disciples had been told by Jesus what
to expect they were most likely frightened and overwhelmed when the things that
Jesus said would happen were taking place. It would not have been easy to
watch the innocent Son of God be treated like a criminal and be nailed to a
Roman Cross. It was very traumatic and unsettling for Jesus’ disciples. Sometimes
feelings of fear, sadness, or loneliness can cloud our hearts to the truth that
Jesus has spoken to us from His Word.
The Bible is full of God’s
instructions for His people to follow until He returns or calls them home.
Jimmy gave us similar instruction before he left “I have told the 20s & 30s
many times that while they are here in Waco, they are to utterly throw themselves
into the ministry and community of St. Alban’s. And when they leave, we will be
sad, not because they’re leaving the fellowship of the Church, but because they
are moving on.” He was right that we are a nomadic group of individuals. Some
of us will be moving on sooner than we might like but while we are together, let us be together.
During one of Jimmy’s sermons, he
said that, “There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. In order to be
in communion, in fellowship with God, you must first be in a community with
other Christians. There is simply no way to have a communion, a fellowship, by
yourself. We need the Church, we need one another in order to know God.” Similarly
Jeff said to us before he left that one of the best qualities of St. Alban's is
that that we are lay led and that is where I think we need to step in. We as a
lay group need to do our part to grow and further the fellowship of the church,
much like the disciples did after Christ died.
With our fearless leaders having
moved on to new and exciting things, we are indeed fulfilling Jeff’s
description of St. Alban’s as a lay-led Christian community. The children have
their Godly Play group, and the parents come together with that; the old men
have their 6 am breakfasts; the old women have the St. Alban’s/St. Catherine’s
Guild. These are all lay-led. And in an effort to have an avenue of fellowship
for the rest of us who may not fall into one of these categories, St. Awesome’s
20’s and 30’s and Young at Heart, ought to be led by
every member who feels like they may have something to contribute.
