You may have seen our Trinity Lakeside mission on our home page: To joyfully participate in God’s story of loving the world. To celebrate what is good, beautiful and true. To know our neighbors and welcome newcomers. To offer the hospitality of an unhurried presence and listening well. To worship together in Word and sacrament. To order our lives around loving God and loving others. To grow together in life and faith.
This statement expresses the ways which we believe God has called us to be in Lakeside. With the enablement of his Spirit, we believe that our mission is to embody Christ’s grace and truth in this community. In peaceful, thoughtful and unhurried ways. Ordinary ways. To follow our Lord in living lives that are different from the world, yet in the world, for the sake of the world. Lives that are enlivened by God’s Spirit and oriented around his vision of healing, restoration and flourishing for us and for all the world.
The artwork above depicts Jesus and the woman with a flow of blood (Mark 5:25-34). Jesus is on his way to heal a child who is gravely ill. A desperate outcast makes her way through the crowds and touches the fringe of Jesus’ garment. Jesus notices that power has gone out from him and stops. He lingers with her and listens to her story–twelve years of chronic illness, all her money gone to finding relief, cast out of society as unclean because of her illness. Invisible.
Jesus is en route to heal a dying little girl and the situation is urgent. Yet when this woman reaches out to him, he doesn’t see her as an interruption or inconvenience. He sees her suffering. Jesus responds with compassion and brings her healing. He acknowledges her publicly, that she might be restored into the community, no longer trapped on the margins.
Our Lord sees and responds to us in the same way today. God’s presence, both then and now, heals–physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally. As recipients of new life in Christ, as persons experiencing ongoing healing and restoration, God welcomes us. He invites us alongside him as wounded healers* for the sake of the world. We pray that you will join us on our journey of delighting in who our Lord is, and participating in what he is doing among us today.
There are three ways that you can join us on mission: pray, participate and partner with us. See the Join Us page for more. Or, contact Rev. Markene at markene@trinitylakeside.org.
The term “wounded healers” comes from Henri Nouwen. Artwork by Julia Stankova (c)