In this season of Lent, how often are you reflecting on joy and abundance?
Oddly, that’s what has filled my schedule this week as I work with the Synod of Lincoln Trails to review applications submitted for the next round of Oasis grants. These grants gift pastors with funds so they can put on a new practice that will spark joy. We can’t wait to watch the abundance ripple throughout the presbyteries in Illinois and Indiana.
The Oasis grants will hopefully spread contrails of joy throughout the synod as pastors make space for things that help them thrive in this wilderness season.
But there’s joy close at hand here in Chicago Presbytery already.
I’m thinking of… the walk I took through a city park this week on a 60-degree Chicago day, surrounded by frolicking dogs and pickleball players.
One of our pastor members who recently shared the joy of her 7-year-old daughter as she visited a cat café for the first time.
Churches hosting dinners and gathering intergenerational groups around the table for fellowship, laughter, and conversation.
Congregations that are experimenting with new programs, different approaches to building community, revived models of being church.
What is giving you joy this season? How can the presbytery celebrate with you and support you in hopeful, regenerative work?
I believe in the power of stories. Hope and creativity grow when we share the stories of signs of new life in ministry – learning from each other and considering new ways of being. In the months ahead, I can’t wait to share stories with you of congregations that are experimenting – trying something new, tweaking it as they go, and learning from the process.
At the same time, I’m also looking forward to sharing the stories of Oasis grant recipients as they take music and cooking classes; get away for “selfish sabbaths” (where the recipient is planning a day of all things she wants to do); buy an e-bike and hit the trails; and all manner of other joy-inducing pursuits. Happier pastors can be healthier pastors. We hope to build a climate where our leaders are encouraged to care for themselves – and given the resources and support to do so.
Let’s keep sharing stories of where we are finding joy — in Sunday school classrooms and neighborhood playgrounds, in committee meetings and in the carpool lanes. Want to talk joy, creativity, and how God is doing a new thing in your midst? Reach out and we’ll find a time to get together.
(And pastors – if you haven’t applied for an Oasis grant yet, there’s still time! Learn more here.)
– Rev. Jana Blazek
