Dear Kris,

There’s a lot of convenience in our modern lives. Websites and apps offer everything from food to medical care on demand, and most of the time we don’t even have to go out our front door!

Even community, it seems, has been made easier to access. We can opt in and out of all sorts of groups. We get to connect with groups where we can be sure everyone else likes the things we like and (maybe more importantly) dislike the things we dislike too.

But is all this easy opting in and out a good thing? What about the kinds of groups where belonging isn’t about our preferences or convenience? What about communities and associations where it’s not about whether we agree, but more about whether we really matter to each other and care?

This week we’re going to take a look at another famous parable from Luke – this time about a lost sheep. And, again, we’re going to come at it from a slightly different angle. I hope you’re join us for a worship where we’ll consider how this story might be about what’s important for ALL the sheep.

Faithfully,

Hardy

Please join us immediately following the Sunday service for our Coffee Hour (in-person in Trinity Court or online via Zoom).

bit.ly/SVPCCoffeeHour

Theme for Sunday

“Communal transformation is best initiated through those times when we gather. It is when groups of people are in a room together that a shift in context is noticed, felt, and reinforced.”

Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging

Questions for Reflection

• What are the groups of communities that have felt most important to you over the course of your life? What made it important?

• What are the groups that have helped you grow and change the most over your lifetime? How did those groups do that for you?

Luke 15: 1-7

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.