On this day in 2010 (that’s twelve years ago for the math-challenged), I began my tenure as Rector of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church by celebrating Sunday morning Eucharist in our beautiful stone sanctuary.  I had no clue where to sit or stand in the small space by the altar.  Having been ordained a priest only four months earlier, I still was unfamiliar with leading the liturgy at all.  I knew only a handful of names to go with the faces of the couple dozen people who looked back at me from the pews.  And thank the good Lord, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  If I had been aware of my own ignorance, my own naïvete, I may never have taken the job.  But thank God I did.

That Sunday, these were among the first words I preached to the Thankful Ones:

“I am very excited and glad to find myself with you, eager to work with and among you to strengthen this community as it accomplishes the work of Christ in the world.  But, I will admit, I’ve also had my share of nerves and anxiety.  After all, the work of Christ in the world is not easy; it’s not even always obvious and while I have faith that God’s will for us is always fulfilled and that, by God’s grace, we will accomplish that which God sets before us, I can’t help but feel a little bit nervous about how exactly it will all work out.”

Oh my!  How it has all worked out is waaaaaaaay better than I could have imagined. 

In the Small Churches, Big Impact Collective, we talk a lot about an ideal world in which the Church would finally recognize that the work of small church ministry is a unique kind of calling.  In such a world, lay and ordained ministers would be encouraged to discern whether or not they have a particular call to small-church leadership and those gifted for such work would be developed and valued for their role. 

In my case, that’s not exactly what happened.  What happened, instead, was this: throughout my discernment process and years of seminary, no one ever asked me if I might be particularly well suited for small church ministry.  I was “raised” in the Church in large parishes and had very little experience in anything else.  But, by God’s great providence, I landed, fresh and green, at Thankful doing part-time paid ministry in a parish with an average Sunday attendance (when I got there) of about 40 people.  And what a blessing it has been – for me and for my Thankful Ones. 

As it turns out, I am particularly well-equipped for this small-church work.  In part, because of my nature and my unique set of gifts and talents.  And, in part, because Thankful has molded me into the priest they needed.  Over the past dozen years together, we have loved each other into who we are today: priest and people yoked together for God’s mission in the world.  And the yoke is not a burden; it is delight. 

Because that is what we do – delight in one another!  Which is how it should be in God’s kingdom.  In the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer, we pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness so that, ultimately, we might learn to “delight in [God’s] will and walk in [God’s] ways” in order to best glorify God in the world.  As human beings we often fail at that – at aligning our own wills and our own ways with the will and way of God.  But, the mutual ministry I have discovered with my Thankful Ones offers daily a glimpse of God’s kingdom – an example of what “success” in delighting in God’s will looks like.  What a delight it is to do God’s will with and among these people.  What a gift it is to know that they delight in me as I do them.

Last Sunday, we distributed “Star Words” during the service as we celebrated the start of the season of Epiphany.  These words, written on star-shaped paper and drawn randomly from a basket, are a gift of grace to guide our spiritual lives for the year ahead. 

In my concern to ensure that every person in church received a Star Word, I completely forgot to take one for myself.  So, after everyone else had gone home and my family waited for me in the car, I ran back to the sanctuary and unlocked the sacristy door.  The nave was quiet and dim.  The incense of the recently-extinguished candles still hung in the air.  The altar flame burned in the corner above the celebrant’s chair.  The remaining poinsettias in the windowsills cast their bright red greeting along my peripheral vision.  Enveloped in a sense of my own belonging in that space, I reached into the basket and pulled out a Star Word.

“Shepherd.”

What a gift.

These Thankful people are mine.  I am privileged and honored to have been their spiritual shepherd from a time when I hadn’t yet found a staff. 

And I am theirs. They have shepherded me into the Thankful priest I am today and I am overcome by the grace – theirs and God’s – that has enabled such growth within me. 

And together, we give thanks to the God who is the source of it all.  The Lord is our shepherd.  We shall not want.  We do not lack.  Our cup overflows.  There is abundant love, abundant good, abundant grace, abundant growth. I couldn’t be more thankful.