From the Pastor: Believing Again

Dear Church Family,

This week, Brooke and I returned from Holston Annual Conference, where we attended as clergy and David Frost, Alice Lucas, and Jennifer Mongold attended as laity representing our church and district. At the conclusion of Conference, it became official that Brooke and I have been appointed for another year of ministry with you at Gray United Methodist Church. This will be our seventh year serving among you, and we do not take that lightly. We are thankful for the privilege of continuing to love this church, serve this community, and seek Christ together with you.

Annual Conference is always a mixture of things. There are business sessions, reports, worship services, conversations between sessions and around tables, moments of celebration, and sometimes moments of honest grief. It is a time when we are reminded that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Gray UMC is not alone. We are part of a connectional church, joined with other congregations across Holston and around the world, trying by the grace of God to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

But more than anything else, this year I came home with a word stirring in my heart.

A Word from Conference

Our guest preacher and worship leader for the week, Rev. Dr. Stephanie Moore Hand, challenged us to be “Empowered by the Holy Spirit” to “Love Boldly Together.” That phrase has stayed with me. Not just because it sounds good. Not just because it would look good on a banner or fit nicely into a conference theme. It has stayed with me because I believe it is a word the church needs right now.

And I believe it is a word I needed.

During one of her messages, Dr. Hand showed a clip from the movie Facing the Giants. Some of you may know the scene. A football coach challenges one of his players to crawl across the field, blindfolded, carrying another player on his back. The player thinks he can only go so far. The coach keeps walking beside him, shouting encouragement, refusing to let him quit, calling him to give more than he believed he had in him.

If you’d like to see the scene that stirred this reflection, you can watch it here.

It is an emotional scene. It is meant to be. But as I watched it, I found myself moved in a way I had not expected.

What struck me about that scene was not simply that the player tried harder. It was that he had accepted a limit his coach refused to accept for him. He thought he knew what he was capable of. He thought he knew how far he could go. But the voice beside him kept calling him beyond what he believed was possible.

In the clip, the coach keeps urging him, “Don’t quit.” And somewhere in that moment, I sensed the Lord pressing that same word into my own spirit — not as a word of condemnation, but as a word of grace:


And that is where the scene became more than a movie clip for me.

Because there is a difference between “doing our best” and believing that, by the power of God, more is possible than we could accomplish on our own. 
There is a difference between working hard for the church and trusting the Holy Spirit to work through the church. There is a difference between giving our best effort and believing that God can take our offering, multiply it by grace, and use it to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

More Than Holding On

That realization led me to see something in myself.

I realized that somewhere along the way, after the last several years of disruption, strain, uncertainty, and conflict, I may have begun to expect too little. Not because I stopped loving the church. Not because I stopped believing in Christ. Not because I stopped working hard or praying or trying to be faithful. But perhaps because, without fully realizing it, I had begun to assume that faithfulness mostly meant holding on.


Holding on is not nothing. There are seasons when holding on is an act of faith. There are seasons when simply staying faithful, staying connected, staying in prayer, and staying in love with one another is no small thing.

But the Holy Spirit did not come upon the church at Pentecost simply so that the disciples could hold on.

The Spirit came so that fearful people could become bold witnesses. The Spirit came so that ordinary people could speak the good news of Jesus Christ in ways others could understand. The Spirit came so that the church could become the living body of Christ in the world — loving, serving, giving, forgiving, proclaiming, and going wherever Jesus sends us.

That is what I needed to remember.

And I wonder if some of us need to remember it together.
It is easy, after hard seasons, to lower our expectations without even noticing. We may still show up. We may still give. We may still serve. We may still care. But somewhere deep inside, we begin to wonder if the best days are behind us. We begin to wonder if all we can really do is manage decline, preserve what we can, and try not to lose too much ground.

But that is not the story of the gospel. The story of the gospel is resurrection.

The story of the gospel is that God brings life where the world sees death. God makes a way where there seems to be no way. God takes ordinary people and fills them with extraordinary grace. God plants seeds that become trees. God moves mountains. God does immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

That does not mean everything will be easy. It does not mean every plan will work. It does not mean the church will look exactly like it did in another generation. Faith is not denial. Faith does not pretend there are no challenges.

But faith refuses to believe that our challenges are stronger than Christ. And so, I want to invite us to believe again — not in ourselves, not in nostalgia, not in programs, property, or the way things used to be, but in the living God who has not abandoned His church, who has not finished His work among us, and who still pours out the Holy Spirit upon the people of God.

Believing Again

This connects deeply with the journey we have been on at Gray UMC. A couple of years ago, we talked about being “All In” — giving ourselves fully to the life and mission of Christ’s church. This year, we have been talking about being “Rooted” — rooted in Christ, rooted in the Word, rooted in grace, rooted in love, rooted deeply enough to bear fruit.
Those two ideas belong together.

To be rooted in Christ is not to stay safely hidden underground. Roots are there so that life can grow. Roots are there so that fruit can come. Roots are there so that when the winds blow and the seasons change, the tree remains alive, strong, and fruitful.

So what would it look like for us to believe again?

• It would look like praying with expectation, not just habit.
• It would look like worshiping as people who expect to meet the living God.
• It would look like taking spiritual gifts seriously, trusting that the Holy Spirit really has equipped each of us for the common good.
• It would look like giving generously and serving joyfully, not simply trying to keep an institution alive or fill slots on a calendar.
• It would look like making room for new people and loving our neighbors boldly, sacrificially, and together.
• It would look like asking, again and again, “Lord, what do You want to do in us that we cannot do on our own?”

I do not know everything God has ahead for Gray United Methodist Church. I do not have a perfect map. I do not have all the answers. But I do believe this: Jesus Christ is Lord. The Holy Spirit is still moving. Grace is still real. The gospel is still good news. And God is not finished with us.

So let’s believe again. Let’s pray with expectation, serve with joy, give ourselves with renewed trust, and love boldly together. And above all, let’s trust the Lord to do in us and through us more than we could ever accomplish on our own.

With hope and gratitude,
Pastor Aaron