Jennifer’s Blog

Welcome!

Welcome to this new blog, Seeds: Seeing What is Invisible, a spot for thinking out loud about possibilities, passions and partnerships in the Presbytery of Wabash Valley.

The blog’s title draws upon a year of worshipping in many congregations throughout our presbytery, thinking in session meetings and presbytery assemblies and workshops and in the car as I traverse the beauty and diversity of our settings in northern and central Indiana, and hearing Emily Dickinson in my head. Her words have resonated with me for fifty years:

“I dwell in Possibility—“

“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

These words echo for me as I meet folks from so many different places who are or who yearn to be engaged in ministries of hope and good news.

Ultimately, the blog title is informed by Romans 8:24-25: “…Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (NRSV)

Encouraging ministry and mission in city and town, in suburb and cornfield, in places with great suffering and places with great promise, our challenge as people of faith is to see God’s invisible hand at work and join hands with it. Our challenge is to find words to describe what we do see as possibility for ministry, and energy, intelligence, imagination and love to work together to bring what is unseen into our vision and focus, so that what God is up to is made clear and plain. Our challenge is live what we believe.

The gift and the challenge of ministry in the 21st century is to imagine and enact God’s desires for what is fresh, generative and imaginative. It’s a hard time and a great time to be the Church. Let’s explore the possibilities and see what is invisible together.