Belonging to God at a New Address

Then the Lord told Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1)

When Beverly, my wife, and I moved from Goshen College to Evanston, IL in the summer of 1985 (just in time for the Chicago Bears Super Bowl season) for graduate school I felt a familiar anxiety. Growing up I was a new student in a new school and community in 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th grades. Each move was at first scary and then became a blessing. Even knowing this after college and two years of work in public accounting did not lessen the anxiety. What I did was wait to tell my then current employer I was leaving until I had signed the housing agreement with the seminary. I needed to know the next place (address) we would be living before making the next move.

Addresses are important. They give us a sense of security. Addresses represent places we can be reliably known. We can be reached or found there. They are places of identity, and places to rest and be renewed. Even our computers have Media Access Control (MAC) addresses which are used for connecting to a network. There also are famous addresses: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC; Michigan and Trumbull in Detroit (Tiger Stadium) or Clark and Addison in Chicago (Wrigley Field).

Biblical addresses and place names are a little different though. They are more relational than geographical. In Genesis 26 there is a story about Isaac (Abraham and Sarah's son) and his people digging three wells. They named the wells for the interactions and experiences that happened there: Argument, Opposition and Room Enough. Jesus went to Simon and Andrew's home and healed Simon's mother-in-law. No street address is mentioned in Mark's Gospel.

When I did the Children's message on this theme, I asked the kids if they knew the street address of their grandparents. No one did. But they knew where their grandparents lived. They knew the house and its rooms and yard because of their loving relationship with the people who live there.

The call of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12 (re-named in Genesis 17 in relation to becoming the parents of many nations) marks the beginning of historical faithfulness for Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It is the beginning of people trusting in God's guidance and going to new places...without knowing the next address:

"It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith--for he was like a foreigner, living in a tent" (Hebrews 11:8-9a)

John Wesley reflected that "We have here the call by which Abram was removed out of the land of his nativity into the land of promise, which was designed both to try his faith and obedience, and also to set him apart for God." Abram and Sarai represent God's people who are willing to move to places of promise that may not, and probably don't, have definite physical addresses, at least at the beginning.

With the emphasis on their relationship with God and God's call or claim upon their lives, every place they moved was a place where they belonged to God.

White Pines UMC has had different addresses since our beginning in July 2004. We moved from 159 Maple Street in Rockford, the address of our parent church, Rockford United Methodist. Our first office was at 5359 Plainfield Avenue in a former gun shop and tanning salon, and we worshiped at 6895 Samrick Aveune Private, better known as Chandler Woods Charter Academy. Our next move for office space in December 2005 was to 2350 Belmont Center Drive, Suite 300; three doors down from BC Pizza. And as of Sunday, September 7, 2008, our new worship home address is 6555 Jupiter Avenue in Belmont, better known as the Wolverine World Wide Family YMCA.

The move and expansion to two services has grown out of prayer, conversation, developing relationships, servant evangelism, and shared ministry over the last two and a half years. We now enjoy the benefits of the YMCA's strong commitment to healthy children, families and communities with a thoroughly equipped facility for child care, worship and fellowship.

We are at the Wolverine World Wide Family YMCA because out of our relationship with God and involvement in ministry we began meeting some wonderful people there, sharing ministry programs, and then actively wondering and planning for an expanded relationship. And what has come from all of this is our new address for worship.

We are in our next place of promise, a new place for us to belong to God and invite others belong to God there as well. I am even more deeply committed and want to be more faithful in this invitation:

If you are seeking a home for your faith and family, I want to be your pastor and invite you to let White Pines United Methodist Church be the next place where you belong to God.

Peace, Pastor Jeff