There is a buzz of excitement in our church this weekend. This morning the congregation will officially meet Pastor Phiwa Langeni. Our lead pastor, Sharon, Benton, is on sabbatical and Pastor Phiwa will be our visiting pastor during her absence. I remember our excitement in 2006, when we were able to take a sabbatical funded by a grant from the Lily Endowment. The funds from the Endowment made it possible for our congregation to experience the leadership of visiting scholars during our absence. Each sabbatical is different, and each congregation is different. In our case, we had three visiting scholars, each serving the congregation for a month. One was a biblical scholar, another a church historian, and the third a novelist and writer.

Part of the process of sabbatical is for the congregation to learn about different leadership styles and meet different leaders in the church. The Lily Endowment invests in sabbaticals because research has shown that sabbaticals strengthen the relationship between pastor and congregation. Our congregation is delighted with the leadership of Rev. Benton, who has been the lead pastor for seven years. We find ourselves in a different place now than when she came to be our pastor. So many things have changed. After two years of Covid pandemic, the stye of worship, which is both online and in person, is a very visible change. Less visible, in some ways, are the changes in other aspects of our life together. There are fewer in person gatherings in our congregation. Our boards and cabinet still meet exclusively over Zoom. Faith formation groups are meeting over Zoom.

We are part of that change as well. After a successful 20-year ministry, the congregation’s Minister of Faith Formation retired in June 2021. In August of that year, Susan and I began to serve as Interim ministers in that position. Part of our interim tenure is an examination of Faith Formation Programs and a fresh look at how the congregation wants to configure leadership in that area of its life.

One of the tasks of the congregation in this sabbatical period is a broad process of self-examination. We are called to reflect on who we have been, who we are now, and who we are called to be as a congregation. Interims are opportunities to evaluate, envision, and take action to move forward.

All of this leaves the congregation with a bit of uncertainty about its future. It is clear that there is no way to go back to the way things used to be. The pandemic has changed us forever. The leadership of Pastor Sharon Benton has changed the congregation. And there are many changes that we like. It isn’t a bad thing to be able to have a church board meeting without having to leave home. We are learning to connect and communicate in new ways. Our online worship enables us to include people who were not able to participate in our previous in-person-only configuration. We have become more mission-focused and are learning to look outward. We are examining how to become more invitational and more intentional in offering welcome to others. Our online presence is giving people a way to find out about and connect with our congregation.

Still, there is a bit of nervousness about the future. Being nervous, however, isn’t all bad. It puts a bit of excitement in what had become routine.

We work at the church and we have not yet had the opportunity to meet Pastor Phiwa face-to-face. Today will be our first introduction and Pastor Phiwa will be meeting a lot of new people for the first time.

Pastor Phiwa serves as the “Ambassador for Innovation and Engagement” in the national setting of the United Church of Christ. That job title is one that is brand new to the denomination. We all have a bit of curiosity about its meaning. What does an ambassador for innovation and engagement do? How will the tasks of that job inform the ministry of Pastor Phiwa in our congregation in the next three months.

Three months will pass quickly. We know that we don’t have a lot of time to get to know one another, much less engage in the important work of beginning to formulate a vision for the next phase of our life as a congregation. We suspect that we are at the beginning of big changes, and change is exciting.

I suspect that attendance at worship, both online and in-person, will be pretty big today. Mother’s Day usually is a good day for church attendance. Add to that the excitement about meeting a new, albeit temporary, pastor, and we should expect a good crowd. A good crowd means reunions for friends who have been separated by pandemic and other events in the life of the church. It will be good to be together.

I suppose there is a tendency for us, after decades of serving congregations and a lifetime of being immersed in the church, to be a bit skeptical of change. We have seen enough planning sessions, goal-setting events, and leadership changes in the church to know that not every innovation sticks. Sometimes it seems that the more we change, the more we stay the same. Sometimes old ideas get rediscovered and old vision are reimagined. It would be easy for us to be a bit skeptical of all of this talk of planning, visioning, and changing.

I am convinced, however, that God is indeed doing a new thing with our congregation. Who we have been and who we are now is not the final word on who we are becoming. New members will come, some of us will be a part of the journey for a little while and then the time will come for us to move on. This sabbatical is an opportunity to pause and take a look at where we want to go. New leadership will give us an opportunity to experiment with new opportunities.

When I was a child and teen, I looked forward to going to camp each summer. It was always an opportunity to try out new ways of being in relationship with others. This sabbatical reminds me of summer camp. It is easy to imagine Pastor Phiwa as our cabin counselor. Some of those counselors from my youth made a big difference in my life. There were lifelong lessons learned. With a similar excitement, I’m looking forward to worship today and the experiences of the months to come. It is sure to be an adventure of epic proportions - one we will remember for the rest of our lives.