Pastor's Corner

“Happy Birthday to you, happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, God bless you. Happy Birthday to you.”

The Northwood Congregational Church has its wonderful tradition of placing a penny in the Birthday Angel for every year of our lives at our birthday time. And then we sing this altered version of “Happy Birthday.” At first I wondered at the appropriateness of having this custom be a part of our regular worship. And I know there are some who choose not to share their birthday celebration with us, and that is okay.

But the longer I have been here, I have realized how important that is to so many people in the congregation, the least of which is our children. To share in the celebration of the first birthday of a child we have baptized is a real joy because we celebrate the addition of this life to ours. I am continually amazed at how honest people are in claiming the richness of their forty or fifty plus years of life. And what wonderful words for anyone to hear; we claim for you God’s blessing to be upon you. I now stand firmly in the group that acknowledges the importance of this custom.

On October 12, we will be celebrating not just the birthdays of our congregation members, but the twentieth birthday of the church itself. Two decades of baptisms, weddings, and funerals, worship services and communion, children being born and watching them grow up. You have been led by at least eight pastors, and you have grown from an initial membership of 28 members and associate members to 158 active members at the church’s twentieth birthday.
I find that as I get older, birthdays have become a day to indulge in the things I love to do; to treat myself. And they become a time of reflection and thinking about what I want to do from here. Perhaps that is a good pattern for us on our collective twentieth birthday. Let us indulge in the fellowship of one another, laughing about the things we did together, thankful for the foundation of dedicated people which this church has been built upon. Let us recall the life changing events and the hard work of people to reclaim the historic sanctuary and build a beautiful new addition.

Mixed in with those wonderful memories are also remembrances of loss and conflict and disappointments. No one gets to be twenty years old without those experiences of life as well. As we remember, we must include these memories, for they can become the foundation for the hopes that come from thinking about where we want to grow from here. That is how we become a congregation that learns from both its successes and its disappointments and so can be a church that thrives into its thirties and forties. We must be thinking about ways to include our newer members and finding leadership to build upon what has been done so successfully here. We need to examine how we are serving people outside of the church with both our money and
our talent, for God called the church into being to live out the Gospel for all of God’s people. And we need to challenge this church to provide us with more opportunities to grow in our relationship with God, the foundation of all that we do here.

So happy twentieth birthday, Northwood Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. I am delighted to be counted among the many who call this place their spiritual home. And I count upon God’s continued blessings to be upon us as we negotiate the next twenty years of our live together as sisters and brothers in Christ.

-Gayle