Interwoven Roots

Blog Post by the Rev. Dr. Craig Howard
Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy Transitional Leader
choward@glpby.org
 
From left, Rev. Craig Howard, Mayor Hal Patton, and Rev. John Hembruch.

Interwoven Roots
I spent Sunday with the Edwardsville, First Presbyterian church family as they broke ground for their new church building. As the crowd huddled together on this bright sunny and windy day, the excitement bubbled over into spontaneous applause and expressions of joy throughout. The congregation has been meeting in a school the past several weeks as part of their transition from their 133-year-old former structure. Even moving to a new church building can be a mix of joy and sadness. One member of 45 years shared how she is still adjusting as she is releasing her memories and history from the old, while accepting with anticipation the new.
In my remarks, I shared how a church is like a tree in a great forest. And like new trees in a forest, each new church is the expression of hopes, dreams, and visions of an older congregation.
I took my remarks from the book, Deeply Woven Roots, by Gary Gunderson. Gunderson writes, “It is hard not to look up in awe into the high reaches of a deep and healthy forest. But the true story is in the dirt, the roots. And what is forest loam but fallen trees? Everywhere you look in a natural forest you see trees on their way to loam and soil on its way to the sky.”
I envision our presbytery as a great forest with tall and strong trees, and some smaller trees as well. But the connection is in the intermingling of the roots. This is where new trees are found growing. We are a forest rich in the soil of our past which combines the evangelism of Giddings with the social justice of Lovejoy. We stand on the shoulders of congregations that have gone before us, blazing a vision of ministry and mission in this region of the country. It is an ever-evolving forest as some trees fall as new ones take root.
Finally, Gunderson writes, “. . . Any one tree has to grow where it happened to sprout, hoping to bear the fruit it can. . . And while it is a good thing to put down roots, grow into the wind, and rise high into the sky, it is also good to know that even in our falling, even as our individual memories slip behind, we will be part of the whole.”
We are a presbytery of interwoven roots. We are a presbytery where every congregation matters; every congregation is a part of the whole.
Rev. Craig M. Howard