For three Sundays this October, we set the sermon aside and listened to each other instead.
That’s our Emmanuel Stories tradition. Every fall, members stand up and tell the truth about where they’ve seen God at work in this place. This year we asked for stories of belonging, generosity, and serving the community, and you delivered. We heard about our shared memory care ministry and the people it reaches. We heard about Dinner Church, and how a summer of shared meals looked less like a church fading away and more like a family being born. We heard about learning what we hold in common with our neighbors across traditions, about being carried by this congregation through illness and grief, about how even the smallest task can draw a person deeper into worship, and about years of feeding our neighbors at Open Door Ministries.
I say it every year, and I’ll say it again: those stories are not nostalgia. They’re evidence. They remind us, out loud, that God has been faithful here. None of them were stories about how impressive we are. Each one was about God’s grace showing up in small, simple ways.
And this year, they did something more. They set us up for what came next.
Yesterday, right after worship, with full bellies from our Oktoberfest luncheon, we gathered for our Strategic Visioning Kick-Off. With our consultant, Deacon Mitzie, we began a season of listening together as a congregation, asking what the next chapter of ministry at Emmanuel might look like. And how did we start? The same way we always do. We told stories.
That’s not an accident. You cannot know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. All those Emmanuel Stories, this month’s and those stretching back years, are the ground we stand on as we look ahead. The God who shows up in those stories is the same God calling us forward into the ones we haven’t lived yet.
Here’s what strikes me about it all. The Bible is one long story of God and God’s people, and it never once wraps up neatly. Every ending turns out to be a beginning. Every “that’s over now” turns into “but then God.” We are a chapter in that story, and we are nowhere near the end.
So if you shared a story this month, thank you. If you came out yesterday and rolled up your sleeves to dream about what’s next, thank you. And if you haven’t found your way into this work yet, there’s still room. The listening is just beginning, and your voice is part of the story God is still writing here.
What happens next is ours to help write. I can’t wait to see what God does with it.