What's Saving Your Life Right Now? III: The Practice of Encountering Others: Community
April 21, 2024 • Sarah Champlin • Matthew 25:24–40
Each community I’ve been a part of has helped me uncover a little more of that secret. I expect this gradual uncovering will turn out to be a lifelong journey but here’s what I’ve learned so far: when we offer space that invites people to be fully, freely themselves—they show us God. Jesus tells us clearly when we feed the hungry—we feed him. When we welcome the stranger—we welcome him. Within every person lies the spark of the divine. Our practice of welcome, of community, helps us draw it out of each other. Christine Pohl another community connoisseur, believes that hospitality is at the heart of Christian Life, drawing from God’s grace. She says that we respond to the welcome that God has offered us and replicate that welcome in the world. When we replicate that welcome, we can’t help but see God everywhere.
Sarah Champlin Introduces Herself
July 23, 2023 • Sarah Champlin
Hello Kenilworth Union Church! I am so very pleased to be here. Though I’ve had only one official week in the office, this feels like the culmination of many months of planning and preparation. On your end, this has looked like a nine-month search for the right fit for this ministry. On my end, this has been a process of years of study and hands-on ministry work to prepare for you. I have been busy getting my Master of Divinity at Boston University, directing the youth program at a large church outside Philadelphia, and leading mission experiences with young people in both domestic and international settings. Youth ministry is something I take very seriously and have ever since I was a youth myself growing up on the North Shore. Church was a vital place of refuge for me as a young person. When I struggled to navigate the halls of New Trier, my church was there. The church was a place that I felt known and held by the whole community, and free to express myself when I was figuring out who God is and who God was calling me to be. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how homey it feels at Kenilworth Union already in such a short time. I had the privilege of going on the IMPACT trip to Puerto Rico in June, where 81 amazing youth and adults pulled me into the fold of this incredible, Spirit-filled experience and said without hesitation, “Hi, we just met you, and you’re one of us now. Now get in our van.” This past month, I’ve kept returning to this one verse of Psalm 139: “You hem me in, behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.” This verse makes me picture Kenilworth Union Church as a quilt, and God as the grandmother in the rocking chair sewing my fabric patch into the pattern. My prayer in the coming months and years is that I may become a sewing needle in God’s hands, helping to stitch together the youth in this church so that they can experience the love of Christ in a spiritual home where they feel known, and held, and free. Thank you for having me.