For everything there is a season, and this Sunday the season called for questions rather than a sermon.
The scripture from Ecclesiastes was chosen because it speaks to time, to moments in a life and in the life of a congregation, and you are standing in one of those moments. So the questions you submitted became the message.
Is nostalgia even a good thing in a 2026 church? The answer is yes, and. Jesus asks us to remember, and a church with 162 years in the rearview mirror has much worth honoring, yet the same teacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a time for looking back and a time for looking ahead. Discernment means waking up each day with an open heart and asking what God has for us to do now, paying attention to who shows up and the gifts that are here.
From there the conversation turns candid. You learn what two pastors talk about when you are not listening (music, mostly, and their nine children between them), how an extrovert and an introvert end up complementing each other, and how each has come to handle political issues with more humility than a decade ago.
One served a very blue church and then a very purple one, and learned to love people who voted differently while recognizing her own fear of the other. The other, now carrying a senior minister’s responsibilities, chooses to call the congregation back to its own stated mission, vision, and values rather than down into the mud of politics. There is a time to stand up, but not as often as we once thought.
“I think the fear of extinction or whatever we were afraid of a few years ago, speaking of things that are in the past, I think that’s in the past. And we can start to now ask, how are we going to live?”
When asked what they could use more of from you, the answers are prayer and leadership: a daily practice of silence that turns our lives over to something greater, and a willingness to step into the roles that keep this congregation moving, from council to the front door. Many who have carried the load for years are tired, and others have been waiting to be invited. This is the invitation.
The morning closes with a question handed back to you, and it is the question First Plymouth’s mission of love, justice, compassion, and hope now makes possible: what is your dream for this church’s future?
