Puzzles and Pieces

Over the years, Sarah and I have put together puzzles over holidays or times with family and friends.  We’ve never been hard-core “puzzle people”…like we didn’t have a puzzle table or special puzzle mats to build on or any of the other puzzle accessories people collect.  We’d do it here and there and enjoy it.

We hosted our extended family for a reunion back in October, and when they were here, we got 2 puzzles of the area for people to put together.  My family loved them!  Fun puzzles, cool design, and doable in the short amount of time we were together.  On one of the puzzles, we got to the end, and there was a missing piece.  There were nearly 40 of us…so it is not out of the question that someone took it to get the pride of dropping in the final piece.  The people that (nearly) finished it did it late the last night and searched high and low to find the missing piece.  No luck.  Many assumed, myself included, that my younger son had taken it so he could have that privilege…he did start the puzzle days before, so it was a logical conclusion he was saving the final more for himself.

The next morning, we were cleaning up and packing up, and right before we put away the (nearly) finished puzzle, we slid it slightly, and the table had slight gaps between the wood pieces…and there between the wood, there it was.  The final piece.

My son was cleared of all accusations…and we could finish the puzzle.

We extracted it and dropped it in the puzzle.

Complete.

Our journey of faith often feels a bit like assembling a puzzle.  We get it because we are excited about the design.  We may start with enthusiasm…but after flipping the pieces over and trying to organize pieces by color and design, we start to lose momentum.  We may get so dialed in we can’t tell where pieces go or how they fit.  We may even convince ourselves that pieces we look at aren’t actually even in the puzzle and don’t matter.

I believe the only way to accomplish a puzzle is stepping close and stepping back.  Drawing in and then looking at the overall picture.  It is a constant back and forth.

Our faith is the same.  We get excited, then lose momentum.  We get in the minutiae of navigating our life and faith and daily decisions and we aren’t sure we want to continue in this following Jesus.  We start to wonder why certain areas or practices are a part of our faith tradition…or if they even matter.

The real help in our faith journey is to dial in close and then step back and look at the larger picture.  Draw in and then move back to see from 30,000 feet.

The constant back and forth helps us see the forest and the trees.

Over the past 4 weeks, we’ve been looking at big overarching ideas.  We’ve rallied around main ideas of the faith that both the Church at large believes and we here at The Chapel believe is vital for our faith.  We’ve talked through the idea of the Bible, the Trinity, the Good News of God, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and our call to follow him and learn his ways.  These are important big-picture concepts that are necessary to see and understand our faith.

That’s the big picture on the front of the puzzle box.
The next 4 weeks, we’re going to dial in to some specifics around the idea of fasting.  We are going to see some clear examples of fasting in the scriptures and see what it meant from them then and what it means for us now.

That’s that small section in the corner of the puzzle that doesn’t seem to make sense…so you hope someone else does it instead of you…

 

I won’t answer every question you have around fasting, but I am excited to see what God may have for us as we try one of the spiritual disciplines Jesus did.

When we were looking for that piece of the puzzle on our family reunion, we knew it was there…we just couldn’t find it yet.  People assumed someone took it or that it was hidden.  It just took us some time, but we found it.

We always want to do our best at The Chapel to help you find what you are looking for.  Some of you have asked if we have a clear statement of faith, so you know what kind of church you are worshiping with.  And in fact, we do!  As a very unique…sometimes I refer to us as the “weirdest church”, we know we are an ecumenical Christian community, meaning we have people from lots of different traditions and denominations.  With that, we want to be clear who we are as a community of faith, as a body of believers, what we believe and hold dear. So if you are curious about what we believe, check out the statement.  Like we share every week, we unite around the idea that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, and we are called to be his disciples as we follow him and his ways. No matter if a person is local, from another community, or worships with us online, we hope that the transformation that happens in following Jesus not only changes us, but transforms the world around us.

God’s Kingdom come, God’s Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

This Sunday, not only will we be beginning a series looking at fasting, we will also share in communion at 9 a.m.  It will be about 15 minutes where we will reflect on the sacrament of communion and invite all who would like to share to the table together.  We will then have coffee and pastries in the Grove area for people to enjoy between the services…so…that part is very not fasting.

Lots of other great things coming up that I am excited to share about.  We’ll have upcoming events, dates, and details in our next edition of The Tower…so make sure you check that out!

Full transparency, Sarah’s parents got us a puzzle table this year for Christmas and it is awesome…I didn’t know I wanted it.  It’s got puzzle drawers and a fancy covering that keeps your pieces in place.  It is very cool.  Sometimes things in life are such a blessing that we don’t even know we want or need.  Our hope is that The Chapel continues to help you grow in faith and you experience things you didn’t know you wanted or needed as you follow after Jesus, abide in him, are changed by him, and embody his ways for the glory of God and good of others.

See you Sunday!

Like always, if you are out of town, under the weather, or just need to worship from home, you can watch all of our worship services on our live-stream on our website, thechapelatseaside.com,
on our Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheChapelAtSeaside 
and our Vimeo page, Vimeo.com/thechapelatseaside.

Blessings,

Andrew