Jesus with us in transition

This past weekend, October 30-November 1, we hosted pastors, elders, and leaders from churches throughout our Indiana-Michigan conference. We had more than 15 churches represented. Dan Miller, along with Nadine Zook Miller, provide plenty for everyone to think about. The past year has had a lot of transition it for how our conference looks and acts. This weekend we came together to look at how we deal with change.

I got to plan and lead several activities focused around change. It was a lot of fun to work with Cheryl and Jess as we tried to figure out how to use different challenges as examples of how we look at change. In this post, I have some pictures from our mosaic challenge. This was a challenge to best replicate the bigger mosaic while having limited resources and many different groups trying to use them.

Everyone worked had to come up with something. It was fun to watch as they put pieces together. Some worked very had to be exact, some went with artistic expression. Some competed, some cooperated, but all strived to do their best. It seems to me that is what God desires of us as churches, conferences and camps. We are blessed to have a diverse conference of believers striving to follow Jesus.

On sunday, we celebrated communion together. Brent Eash, wrote and read the following:

We are and have been in a time of transition, change, even upheavel. We know it. We may be tired of saying it, and hearing about it. We're tired of living with in it. We don't know all that will happen. Some of what we do know will happen, we wish wouldn't. Transition can be exciting and energizing, but it also can be draining and distressing.

Jesus' first disciples also struggled with their transitions. In their greatest transition, when Jesus was preparing to die and leave them, they were distressed. As Jesus gathered them for a meal, one last meal, they were distressed at his words about how what had been would end. One of them left. Some jockeyed for position and power.

In the midst of all this, Jesus asked his disciples to remember him. Luke tells us, 'then he tooka loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "this is my body, which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me." And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."

Was he just wanting not to be forgotten? Did he know that they would need to remember him to make it through the upheaval, the change, the transition?

It certainly turned out that way. Luke tells of another story of disciples struggling to make sense of past, present and future. Though Jesus is with them, walking right alongside them, in their anxiety and disrupted experience, they're unable to 'see him'. Even though they invited him to stay with them, and he came in with them, they didn't know him. Then they sat down to eat, and Luke says "When he was at the table with them he took the bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him"

They were transformed! In the breaking of the bread, their memory of Jesus returned, and their blindness was healed. They now could see past, present and future with new eyes.

Jesus still comes to the table with his disciples. He comes here now to be remembered and revealed in this time of transition. Come and let us remember him together, and be transformed.

What a great reminder. Thanks to those that participated in the weekend. It was good.

Jason Lichti