TODAY IN MISSION YEARBOOK
A tent with a new view
The hike to Diamond Lake is only 3 miles from the trailhead, but for pastors and leaders immersed in the hard work of organizing new communities, the silent beauty of the wilderness and the sparkling mountain lake where the group set up camp is a universe all its own. In the evenings after hikes ranging from 5 to 10 miles, bread baked on a Jetboil stove as the group read Scripture together and sang songs that echoed the natural call to worship of the woods around them.
In late September, a group of nine leaders of new worshiping communities spent five days backpacking in northwest Colorado through a trip organized by the Rev. Jeff Eddings, associate for Spiritual Formation & Coaching in the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement. The wilderness adventure was led by the Rev. Chris Brown, an experienced church planter and coach in the 1001 NWC network. In 2022, while serving First Presbyterian Church of Berthoud, Colorado, Brown became a bi-vocational pastor and set up Still Mountain Leadership and Life Coaching. Through his coaching practice, Brown offers outdoor excursions. “I like to practice coaching and spiritual direction outdoors because I’ve seen the ways nature opens up our minds and hearts to hear God in new ways,” said Brown.
“I wanted to offer the opportunity for 1001 leaders to get out in the wilderness because nature creates an opportunity to commune with God and with others in ways that are being lost in a world where we are plugged in 24/7 and endlessly looking at screens,” said Eddings. Our tradition has called church-planters and evangelists to new communities, “tentmakers” following in the footstep of the Apostle Paul, who was skilled in the tentmaking trade and traveled far and wide in the open air. The backpacking trip gave new worshiping leaders an opportunity to literally set up a tent and gain a new perspective on the exploratory nature of their ministry.
“Each day I found myself a bit more in tune with my place in Creation,” said Reed Conley, a commissioned pastor to Artisan Church in Lincolnton, North Carolina. He said it took time to adapt to the altitude and become less winded at 10,000 feet above sea level and on the long day hikes. “I saw signs of the vastness of God’s glory and creativity. Within the immense backdrop of natural wonder, my perspective shifted to remember that the decisions which are important in my life and ministry are only flickers of faint sound in a massive symphony,” said Conley.
Others found spiritual lessons in the practical logistics of the trip, like packing and unpacking or paying attention to safety. “Most of one’s time backpacking is spent zipping and unzipping things,” joked Dr. Adam Barnes, leader of The Freedom Church of the Poor in New York. “I learned how to better pack a backpack. I learned that moose are more dangerous to humans than black bears.” Barnes then connected practical lessons to the theological witness that our human fragility calls us to confess. “I was reminded that people are beautiful and struggling in all kinds of ways. I was reminded that God is bigger than we can imagine. I was reminded that God is also closer than we can imagine.”
“Showing up to enter the Colorado Rockies with a group of incredibly talented, Spirit-led folks that I had never met was a risk but was the kind of risk that offered a reward found only in the extraordinary healing of connecting with land and others,” said the Rev. Ashley Diaz Mejias, co-pastor of Voices of Jubilee, a new worshiping community that accompanies young people who are incarcerated and their families in Central Virginia. Diaz Mejias said that the trip helped give her space from the despair and deception of the system she has worked in every day for 10 years. “The system can convince you that perhaps we really are safest in exile, alone, separate or that, at our most essential, we are only individual collections of cells that are detached from one another, detached from the ecosystem that we conspire to extract resources from.” The trip reminded her to do “the work to cultivate wonder.”
Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Let us join in prayer for:
Deborah Bernard, Administrator, Office of the President, Board of Pensions
Toledia Bethel, Administrative Assistant, Mid Council Ministries, Office of General Assembly
Let us pray:
Our Father, we thank you for those who reach out to touch those in need of healing. Thank you for your saving grace that brings us all to abundant living and joy beyond this world’s measure. In the name of the Great Physician. Amen.