Lent represents a liminal season—a threshold between what was and what will be—similar to the Israelites’ journey from Egypt through the wilderness. First Plymouth Church has been experiencing an extended liminal period for over six years, moving through leadership transitions and the pandemic, creating understandable anxiety and impatience within the congregation.
During these threshold times, we must make three essential shifts: from knowing to unknowing, from advocating to attending, and from striving to surrender. These movements cannot be forced but require us to release our desire for immediate answers and instead care for the community’s soul through attentive presence.
“Once the Israelites surrendered in those 40 years of wandering, God helped them put in the structures they needed to attend to each other and to be the people of God.”
The single most powerful tool for navigating liminal spaces is contemplative prayer—not just verbal prayers that begin meetings, but the practice of sitting in stillness and silence. This form of prayer invites us to empty ourselves of everything but God, creating space to hear the divine voice that often comes in “sheer silence.”
Through this surrender, the community can trust God’s timing rather than human timelines, allowing divine guidance to lead them into the next era of their congregational journey.
