Connecticut, Church and Moving Forward.

Not many people knew but last night was our last “official” night at St. Paul’s Collegiate Church. We didn’t want any fanfare so we were glad to go out with a handful of friends afterwards to relax and get a few margaritas. It was an odd night though, anti-climactic in a sense, almost as if we were slipping out the back at the end of a bad indy film.

Once Ash and I were back in the car we started going over the memories that were resurfacing. We remembered Imagine Christmas, The Alumni Center (and how long it took to set that place up week after week), Craig Dinsmore leading worship, Steve Barry leading worship, Ben preaching and doing communion, going to Friendly’s with friends after the service, leading the Children’s ministry, making videos for the services, the Coventry Project, weeping and praying on Good Friday services…new community…

The list goes on. We’ve been there a while. Ash was there even before I was, but we were both pretty much there from St. Paul’s birth and participated in our own ways. We would not have met, gotten married or become the people we are today had it not been for the impact of that community on our lives. I am still feeling the effects of a bittersweet realization that our time here has come to a turning point. As with every important step in our lives (our engagement, our marriage), it seemed fitting that Ash and I were serving communion. We served each other through tears then sat back down.

As I was driving this morning I realized that this is the first time I will be living outside of Storrs. I’ve lived in Connecticut my whole life, and 95% of that was spent on a particular road in Mansfield Center. I’m going to miss it. Of course we’ll be back from time to time to make sure that Starbucks is still brewing good coffee and that Uconn is still doing road and building construction…

We’re not “moving on”. There’s nothing to “move on” from. There have been high times and low times here- but there is certainly no jumping ship mentality. There is no lets go somewhere better. Simple put, we are dong the best we can trying to discern God’s prompting and tugging leading us to Northampton. A better way of framing this is “moving forward”. The Christian life, if fully realized, has a tendency to yank us out of our comfy chairs and into the mess of the world- exactly how it should be.

So we’re moving forward into the beautiful mess of the world. When we get sad, or when friends start to tear up, we remind them that Northampton is only a 45 minute drive from Hartford.

Saturday night we will be sleeping in an apartment overlooking Main Street in Northampton. We will have several big windows that allow the sights and sounds of the city to infiltrate our senses. Monday I officially start work. Ash will work from home, or Haymarket, or the Yellow Sofa, and we will begin moving forward. Day by day, person by person, prayer by prayer.

Connecticut, we’ll miss you. Beautiful mess, here we come.