Resilient Community, this year’s Reconciling in Christ (RIC) theme, allows us to celebrate our first year of being an RIC congregation while also reminding us that we need to keep moving toward the goal of true inclusion. It focuses our attention on how community bonds and relationships sustain us. When we work together for justice, communities are stronger; when we have unity rather than uniformity, the Body of Christ is whole (1 Corinthians 12). Just before his death, Jesus prayed for his disciples – of every time and every place – to be one (John 17). To be prayed for by another is to know one’s life is cared for and has value to the one praying. Here is the astoundingly good news: Jesus prays for you, and for the Christian community. Jesus loves each of us deeply and our lives are bound to the God who loved us before the foundations of the world.
