The Pastor's Windshield article for July 2023

I haven’t watched a lot of the classic sitcom, “Cheers,” but I do know the refrain of the opening song. I wonder if you remember it? 

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name

And they’re always glad you came

You want be where you can see

Our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name

Now, if you frequent a bar like “Cheers” so much that everybody literally knows your name, that’s probably not a healthy thing! More seriously though, don’t you appreciate being in a setting in which you’re known and welcome? Isn’t it nice to be called by name? Don’t you love it when someone lets you know they’re glad to see you?

Being a place “where everybody knows your name” is a good goal for a Christian congregation like ours, wouldn’t you say?

I hold in my hands the first draft of St. Matthew’s new pictorial directory. It’s a simple printout of names of individuals, couples, and families with our photos and contact information. And it’s a tool to help us learn just a little bit more about one another.

I want to challenge our members to use this directory to learn as many names as you’re able. Then, when you see those folks, call them by name. Help us make St. Matthew an even more warm and inviting church than it already is.

Our new directory, coming in this 25th year of St. Matthew’ ministry, is another step in looking ahead to our next 25 years. In the coming years, the individual faces will change. New faces will be added. Faces will mature. Photos of some faces will remind us of saints who departed to be with Christ.

We confess that our Lord’s church isn’t built on you or me, or on any other individuals, past, present, or future. It is built on Jesus Christ our Lord! He is our one Foundation. He is the Rock on which we stand firm, no matter what may be happening around us in this troubled world.

Peter called us Christians “living stones … being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). Paul used a metaphor for the church of one body and many members: “all the members of the body, though many, are one body … For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). 

I would suggest an additional metaphor for the church: we are a people whose faces, names, and lives reflect the loving face of Jesus. 

A photo in our church entryway is designed with this in mind. Each individual photo from St. Matthew is blended into the portrait to become part of a much more important image, that of Christ Jesus.

It's the same for us. Each one of us who is part of the life of this congregation has been united with the other members to reflect the life and love of Jesus, both within our fellowship and in our service to those outside of the congregation. Knowing this, let’s continue to learn one another’s names and stories within our congregation, and then together, let’s share the great name of Jesus and reflect Him both on our individual faces and in our personal acts of witness and throughout our shared life as His church.

In Christ’s peace,

                        Pastor Kory Janneke