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What does it mean to be people of hope?

We are an Easter People. Let us gather for Annual Meeting 2025 with that in mind.

By The Rev. Phil Hodson Designated Conference Minister

Everywhere I’ve gone this past year, in visioning workshops and Sunday morning worship, I’ve been inviting us to consider what it means to be a people of hope—a people who offer a winsome, relevant, vibrant alternative voice to what we see happening around us—to the division, the anger and the anxiety.

We are called to offer something better.

I believe the gospel’s core is love grounded in relationship.

We worship a Divine who is three-in-one, a constant interplay of relationship that extends out to the world and interacts with not just humanity but the whole of creation, seeking that which is good, just and flourishing.

Since late January of this year, we have found the opposite portrayed everywhere we look. To varying degrees, we have become fearful and reactive instead of hopeful and proactive.

I am regularly asked what we are going to do as a conference and denomination in response, and this remains my answer:

We must offer an alternative vision, one that is truly countercultural because it is rooted in love that exists in relationships.

We’re living that out in many ways as the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Individually and collectively, we have opportunities to lift our voices for justice through the work of the United Church of Christ’s Public Policy & Advocacy Office and the Action Alerts they post regularly.

Our congregations are supporting Church World Service through direct gifts.

Our churches are exploring what it will mean to be a sanctuary for those in need in these difficult days.

A few weeks ago, I sat with a vibrant activist in the United Church of Christ and asked them what they were up to at that moment. Their reply took me by surprise.

They replied that they were caring for themselves and taking time to rest and renew—for they anticipate a long road ahead.

I, too, see that long road ahead and hope we will follow their lead where and when we need to.

Otherwise, we’ll be worn out by Tuesday, which is exactly what others want of us right now.

We need to pick our spots carefully, respond in real-time to the needs of the communities where we serve, and hold space for our own spirits to draw strength for the journey.

As we prepare to gather in Yakima in a few weeks, this is my invitation to all of us: May we come together to be grounded. Rooted in our relationships with one another and God.

We must focus on strengthening the ties that bind us, sharing ideas about how our congregations can engage in our communities for the greater good, and committing to support one another in stepping forward and slowing down to gather breath for all that lies ahead.

We are an Easter people, but Easter doesn’t come without pain. This season of Lent is one of challenge, denial, suffering and strife—not unlike where we find ourselves so often when engaging the world around us.

So let us draw strength for the journey, let us come together to praise God, to lean on one another in mutual support, and let us listen for Spirit’s leading in those spaces where we can, individually and collectively, lift that countercultural, hopeful, winsome, and relevant voice of excellent news for our world that so desperately needs to hear it.

 

Pacific Northwest Conference United Church News Copyright © April 2025

 

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