Pastor's Message - May 2025

~ Showing Up ~

“Don’t stop meeting together with other believers,

which some people have gotten into the habit of doing.

Instead, encourage each other, especially as you see the day drawing near.”

~Hebrews 10:25

Dear Members and Friends,

Let’s talk about showing up…showing up for others, showing up for yourself, showing up for your church. We had a beautiful Easter celebration at Bower Hill, just a couple weeks ago. There were 187 people in the building; 56 of those were children whom you may not have seen in the sanctuary. There’s always such an uplifting, positive spirit to the worship service when the room feels at least half full! The fragrance of daffodils adds to the joy. Our attendance for Easter Day in 2019 was 273, but let’s not go there. “Comparison is the thief of joy,” right? Sociologists and glossy magazines like The Atlantic have had much to say about how Americans have stopped attending church since the pandemic. The politicization of the evangelical church has made us all look bad–even those of us who are not evangelicals. But most do not point to that as the main reason for the decline in church participation. Most sociologists believe the pandemic simply taught people the pleasures of staying home–not just from church, but from a lot of extracurriculars. I must say, we’ve felt the downward trend in participation here at Bower Hill. A lot of people don’t want to give up their affiliation with the church, but nor do they want to show up on a Sunday morning. Let me make a case for showing up:

The best thing you can do for someone you love is to show up for them. Whether you feel like it or not, you try to catch your child’s softball games. When your kid plays the part of a singing flower in the school play, you show up for that, too. You might have other things you’d like to do that evening, but you sense the profound importance of being there. When a friend is in the hospital or your mother’s having surgery, you visit. You don’t need to take a card or a bouquet; all you really need to do is be present. Your presence is the best gift. Family holidays might be fraught with political tensions and old rivalries, but love brings you back every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, most Easters.

If you waited until you “felt like” showing up, you might never go anywhere. It’s by showing up regularly, time and again, that you start to feel the right energy. Let me say that another way: You don’t need to be in the right “space” before you show up; showing up regularly will put you in the right space. Then, after weeks, months, years of showing up, you’ll find that you’re a different person in a different place in life–all because you pushed through with love and showed up regularly. Your relationships will be deeper, your inner life will be richer, and your sense of belonging and connectedness will give you strength to endure periods of isolation or confusion.

And so, my message very simply is this: Show up. Show up for yourself. Show up for those you love. Show up for your church. We need you here, and frankly, you need to be here. That’s to say, you need to be the person that you become by showing up here. Your future self and your future church are cheering you on, and I am too. What do you say, can you give us at least two Sundays a month?

Christ’s Peace,

~Brian