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Christmas Traditions – November Newsletter

November 1, 2017 Leave a Comment

Few things match the beauty of Christmas decorations, especially the large scale ones in malls and shopping centers. I still get amazed as I look at all of the bright lights and glistening tinsel; looking at these beautiful seasonal displays really gets me in the Christmas spirit. I remember as a child going with my family to the mall this time of year, to do some shopping, and if we had time, to sit on Santa’s knee. There was an excited anticipation for this trip, wishing and dreaming for what would be under the tree, and having the chance to whisper it in the jolly man’s ear.

Alongside this was another tradition in my family. Usually next to Santa’s workshop in the mall was a special tree, full of paper angels. Each year, my mom would help me pick out an angel to shop for – usually a girl my age, although as I got older I had more input. We would talk about how not all children get to sit on Santa’s lap and have presents under the tree, and how we were going to help be Santa’s elves. We would look over the list, come up with ideas, and then go shopping. I would pick out things that I thought she might like – and if I got stuck, my mom would remind me that this was a little girl just like me, so maybe we liked some of the same things. In a small, but tangible way, my parents taught me that this was what Christmas was all about – giving and sharing. One year, my Girl Scout troop even got to help with a Christmas party the local Salvation Army was throwing for those receiving gifts. I was amazed at the room lined up with presents, and the volunteers hard at work to make sure each child had a special Christmas. I remember the faces of those children, too – just like mine had been in line for Santa, filled with the Christmas spirit as we sang carols, played games, and ate cookies. Thinking back on these moments now, I am pretty sure this is some of what the kingdom of God is like, too.

As I interviewed to become your pastor, Santa’s Caravan was one of the first things I learned about Heritage Presbyterian Church. I was hooked, and loved being a part of this vibrant ministry for the first time last year. The angel tree in our Narthex is a wonderful testament to what it means to be the church, reminding us that we are connected with God’s children not just here, but in our community as well. I encourage you to take an angel off the tree this year in honor of a child in your life, or for an extra challenge, one for each of your own children, nieces and nephews, or grandchildren. If they live locally, consider a “shopping date” with them as a part of your Christmas celebration. I can’t wait to let Nathan loose in the toy section as we pick things out for another special 3 year old boy, and have already made plans with my mom to continue our tradition, with some of our gift to each other being a mother-daughter shopping trip to provide for several more angels.

When we take a tag off the tree, we are doing more than just carrying a shopping list – we are carrying the hopes and dreams of a child with us. We are practicing the kind of presence with others that is at the heart of our Christmas season – the revelation of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, our Emmanuel, God-with-us. And we experience it ourselves, too. And that is the best Christmas tradition of all.

Fitness: from Physical to Fiscal

October 2, 2017 Leave a Comment

Are you in shape? Frankly, it’s a question many of us avoid at all costs. Either we don’t know the answer, or we don’t like the truthful one. I asked myself this question about my physical health not too long ago, and realized the answer wasn’t what I wanted it to be. So, I’ve started to be more intentional about movement in my daily life, including time spent exercising. As additional motivation, I’m working on a “couch to 5k” plan, which is essentially interval training, where you increase the time spent running vs. walking. It’s hard. I know it’s good for me, but sometimes it’s a battle just talking myself into my sneakers. But, I’ve made a commitment to this program (and am now even further accountable by using it as an illustration here!), which helps me to stick to it. Stay tuned to find out how things are going.

Are you in shape? It’s a question that is about far more than just how far or fast you can run or what a scale might say. It is a question you can apply to virtually every aspect of your life, considering your level of “fitness” in a variety of areas. That, in a nutshell, is what stewardship season is all about. It’s a time when we reflect intentionally about how we are using the gifts God has given us. Through prayer and reflection, we engage in discernment and consider the areas in which God calls us to “keep going” with healthy patterns, and identify those areas when we might “press on” to greater goals with new practices. One way to do this is through the completion of your 2018 commitment cards, both the Financial and the Time and Talents. In doing this, we remember that all we have been given, from our money to our time to our abilities, are a gift from God, and we seek to give back in response, knowing that this giving will nurture our own relationship with God and will contribute to the successes of the ministries Christ has called us to here at Heritage.

I hope that you will take time with both of these commitment cards, making a pledge to your participation in the life of Heritage Presbyterian Church and presenting them in worship on October 15. Marking your intentions can be an excellent way to check-in with yourself, and hold yourself accountable to following through with your intentions to live your most faithful life here in this community. Your commitments also are instrumental to our leaders’ abilities to plan for the future. Your financial pledges allow our Session to make sure our congregation has a solid fiscal plan for the coming year. Your sharing of gifts and abilities strengthen our church’s ministries and remind us of the incredible diversity of God’s gifts and calls to us all. I firmly believe that through these gifts, the Holy Spirit is shaping the future of our congregation, and I am excited to work with you to “get in shape” as Christ’s disciples here at Heritage in 2018!

Sunday School at its Best

September 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

When you grow up as the daughter of the pastor and Christian educator, you tend to log a lot of hours in Sunday School. I have countless memories of wonderful dedicated volunteers who taught me the love of Jesus throughout my life. They read to me, played and did crafts with me, helped me learn memory verses, and taught me songs of faith that I am now singing with my own child in the mornings on the way to preschool. In all of this, they surrounded me with God’s Story, and an appreciation of the ways God’s story was ongoing in my own life.

Sunday School at its best, though, came for me in high school at Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, as I got to know Mrs. Judy during my sophomore year. While many teachers assumed that as the PK I knew all of the answers to the lesson’s questions (and often they weren’t totally wrong), Judy assumed I had questions. She created space for me and others to be who we were in that moment, complete with all the struggles we had as we wrestled with our understandings of who we were and who God was. She allowed me to be me, free from any labels of assumptions at a time when I needed it the most. And, as a result, I was able to grow in my faith, deepening my relationship with Christ and finding a fulcrum in the balance of faith and uncertainty.

At its best, our time together learning in faith is an opportunity for us to be our most real and authentic selves, bringing the tough questions of our world and lives and allowing our responses to them to be shaped by the Word of God. This is what happens each week on our church campus during Sunday School (and at other times through Bible Studies and Presbyterian Women Circles) as brothers and sisters in Christ meet to wrestle with our questions together. Our conversations are strengthened by our diverse experiences, and we want you to be a part of them. When you do, I think you will find that often you will both have something to offer and something to learn. Join us. There is room for you at the table.

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
September 2017 Newsletter

Disruption Happens; Pastor’s reflections on Montreat Youth Conference 2017

August 2, 2017 Leave a Comment

Disruptions happen. Sitting in Anderson Auditorium with our youth a few weeks ago at Montreat, the morning keynote presentation began with saccharinely sweet music and several youth frolicking about with one another. A few moments later, the screens on the side blurred to that snowstorm or ants marching look of static, and the music blared an assault on the eardrums of chaos and screaming and anarchy. Those on stage began to turn over boxes and move in jarring, almost violent ways. You could feel the 1200 or so bodies in the pews shift from relaxed swaying to stiffening stillness. Posters began to appear on the stage: Illness, War, Anxiety, Discrimination, Divorce, Death, Natural Disaster, Leaving Home, Grief. The gaps in between were filled in with the words in our heads and hearts and the painful sighs when brokenness evades even our language.

The theme for Montreat’s youth conference this year was “A Missing Peace.” Planned many months ago, it served as an ample ground for deep conversations in the midst of a world marked by disruption after disruption on all levels of our existence. As I leader, I thought this theme held tremendous potential, and had eagerly approached this week with eyes toward the opportunity to talk about the things that really matter in our world and in our lives of faith, and perhaps to gain inspiration for the difficult work of peacemaking to which I deeply believe we are called, even though often I feel clueless as to how to go about it. But I found myself sitting in that auditorium on Thursday completely depleted of all my energies, my spirit struggling with the weight of it all. One thing after another had taken its toll, and I felt a palpable resistance among many of our youth, and even within myself, to truly be disrupted.

Disruptions happen, and we scatter. It seems that while we all know they exist, we’d rather pretend like they don’t, or distract ourselves and look in other directions when they rear their heads. This is particularly true when you are at a place like Montreat. Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina, this small town is home to one of our denomination’s national conference centers, which hosts a myriad of events throughout the year, offering spiritual renewal and a “place set apart” for retreat for the many who come through the gates. Montreat becomes a sacred place for many, myself included. It is a place we identify as a “thin place” where we feel wonderfully close to God, and expect a spiritual high that will sustain us until we can make it back up the mountain. If we’re really honest, most of us go to Montreat for that reason. We want the sugary, feel-good experience of faith that is comforting and familiar.

We don’t like it when things disrupt our faith experience. Whether it’s an unfamiliar hymn, someone sitting in our pew, or a different perspective of Scripture, we as Christians tend to be resistant to things that don’t neatly fit into our expectations of what “church” should be. And so we guard these kinds of experiences, whether that’s a youth conference at Montreat or a worship service on Sunday morning. No disruptions allowed. Eventually, though, that paradigm has to shift, because frankly God is not in the business of the status quo and maintaining. God is in the business of transformation. God doesn’t intend for us to leave the same way that we came. And that requires disruption. So perhaps instead of pushing back so much against it, people of faith might be wiser to respond in a different way, and consider that our own discomforts might be the spirit’s nudging to see and experience things in new ways, or at least provide an opportunity for us to reaffirm those things that are central and core to who we are, and reinvest our energies in those roots. Even and perhaps especially in the midst of disruption, we can find God. And maybe, if we can learn to experience God’s presence in the arguably small disruptions to the comforts of our faith experience, we will be more able to experience God’s presence in the midst of the disruptions of our lives beyond the sanctuary walls.

As our keynote presenter, Rev. Paul Roberts (president of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta), said, disruptions can lead to discipleship. Throughout the witness of our Scriptures, this has been how God has operated. God disrupted the lives of the Israelites and the life of Moses to lead God’s people to freedom. God disrupted the life of Mary to become incarnate in our world through Jesus Christ. God disrupted believers at Pentecost and out of chaos, the church was formed. Disruption, it seems, is going to happen. And when it does, God is going to come calling. Our job is to figure out what part we can take in the work God is doing in the midst of those disruptions to use them for good. This, I think is more what Romans 8:28 is talking about; that God is able to work for good in any situation, and that God will always work for good. Sometimes, often, this happens through the answered call to discipleship of God’s people.

And maybe that’s the answer to the “missing peace” we so often identify as an issue in our world; a willingness to embrace the life of discipleship that Christ modeled and calls us to join; a willingness to be disrupted, and to let God work in and through us for something bigger.

At the end of that keynote, the signs were flipped, signaling the ways God flips the tables and disruptions in our lives and out of chaos offers hope. Illness to Courage, War to Rebuilding, Anxiety to Empathy, Discrimination to Acceptance, Divorce to Blended Family, Death to Birth, Natural Disaster to Rainbow, Leaving Home to New Start, and Grief to Healing. I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of peacemaking work that I want to be a part of; and that’s exactly the kind of work that God does out of the disruptions in our lives. May we be bold enough to be the disciples who join in.

For more information about Montreat Youth Conferences, check out http://www.montreat.org/montreat-youth-conference/.

The Roller Coaster of Holy Week

April 5, 2017 Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things to do at amusement parks is to ride roller coasters. I have a slight fear of heights, so the initial climb is sometimes harrowing, but the thrill of racing downhill, twists and turns, and even going upside down makes it all worth it. My favorite kinds are the ones where your legs swing freely, which for me brings back the fun sensation of swinging on a playground. I didn’t always like roller coasters, though. As a child, I had to be coaxed to even try them, and I remember gripping the lap bar with white knuckles. The first few rides were rough. I didn’t know what to expect with each new style of coaster. The first time a standing coaster was introduced, I was convinced it was my last ride ever because the seat didn’t fully lock into place until just before the first drop. Things were new and unfamiliar, which in some ways added to the fun, if I was able to convince myself that things would all be fine in the end. Now, I look forward to these attractions, and even like riding the same coaster multiple times in a row, trying out different spots to have a different perspective or experience of the ride.

If we think about the season of Lent as the slow initial climb, then Holy Week is our roller coaster ride. Packed into only a few days, we experience the most dramatic twists and turns of our faith story. Palm Sunday takes us to the top height with a glorious celebration of Christ as King, marked with the waving of palms and the shouts of Hosanna. On Maundy Thursday, we coast alongside the disciples at the Last Supper, and then experience the twists and turns of the betrayal and Jesus’ arrest. Good Friday plummets us down to the lowest point as we grapple with the darkness of the crucifixion. The ride jerks to a halt in that darkness, letting the gravity of the moment truly sink in. Then, on the third day, we are vaulted and propelled into the light of Easter morning. The tomb is empty – Christ is Risen! Breathless, we are able to celebrate that all of the wildness of our journey has come to an end, and has led us to a place of peace and security.

Like a roller coaster, this week can be a wild ride. It can be uncomfortable and even scary in places if we allow ourselves to be fully drawn into the richness of the story. But doing so can deepen our faith and make us more appreciative of that moment when the ride is over and our feet are again on solid ground. This year, as a congregation we will have several special services to guide us through this ride. I invite you to consider joining us for each service, so that you can experience all of the twists and turns that our gospel story has to offer, and proclaim the good news on Easter morning with the spirit of one who has been along for the ride. I guarantee you the end result will be worth it.

Peace, Elizabeth

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