Dear Saints:
My family and I have been overwhelmed with the kindness and compassion of so many of you in the aftermath of my dad’s death.. I have greatly appreciated your thoughts, prayers, condolences, and articulations of the hope we share in Christ. Your caring has helped us all to move through this time of loss knowing that we were never alone. My gratitude to God for being the pastor of this church has grown even more in these past two weeks along with a sense of pride. What a joy to hear such wonderful reports of how worship was led in the two Sundays I was gone and for the way so many stepped forward in my absence to provide the ministries in this church. Thank you and bless you!
While I am trying to catch up on all the things that I missed while in California, I am also keenly aware that very shortly, I will be leaving again. As I hope you know, Next Wednesday Oct.28, I will begin a two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of twenty pastors. This trip is being funded by a generous grand from the CF Foundation as a way to facilitate spiritual renewal for pastors. For me, this trip represents a chance to do much more than “see the sights” of the Holy Land; it’s a God-given opportunity to pursue a deeper connection with God, our ancestors in the faith, and colleagues in ministry. I trust that God will use this pilgrimage to benefit all of us.
In order to make this journey even more meaningful for all of us, I would like to issue a couple of invitations. First, I invite you to join me in spirit as I make my way through this experience. Each day my companions and I will be visiting a different location, and the focus of the reflection for that day will be based on a story from the life of Jesus that is connected with that location. I have attached to this e-mail the itinerary that we will be followingalong with the Scripture passages for our focus for the day. I would invite you to spend some time each day in prayer and reflection on these passages. You may want read and reflect in the manner of lectio divina, placing yourself in the story and allowing the Spirit to speak to you personally through the words.
Secondly, I would be honored to take with me any prayer requests you might have so that I can offer them at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. This spiritual practice has been going on for eons and I invite you to be part of that tradition. You can e-mail me or send me a prayer request and I will collect them all and take them with me and pray over them as I place them in the Wall..
As I prepare for this pilgrimage is, I also want to share that we have been strongly encouraged by the trip leaders to see this trip as a spiritual as well as physical pilgrimage. Since pilgrimage implies leaving behind the familiar, we have been asked to leave our computers and usual means of communication at home. Thus, for the duration of the pilgrimage, you will not hear directly from me and I will not hear directly from you. But each day our leaders will provide an update by means of a blog. Please let me know if you would like to receive these updates and I will see that you get them.
Please keep me in your prayers over the next few days as I prepare for this adventure. Pray for me and my pilgrimage companions that this would be a transformative time and that our hearts would remain open to the work of His Spirit, that as we immerse ourselves in these physical surroundings, the Holy Spirit would immerse our hearts and minds in the living presence of Jesus.
In Christ,
Bryan
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