from the pastor's desk
2021: Returning, Rebuilding and Reimagining our Church, Anew!
Dear Flatbush-Tompkins Church Family:
Happy New Year 2021
As we Passover into the New Year of our Lord 2021, let us first pause and thank the most high, God, for bringing us through all the tumult of 2020. As we bind our wounds, mourn our dead, yet finding the faith, hope and courage to move on, let us also pause, and have a moment of blessed silence for those in our families, that did not live to see the new year. Many of our families experienced loss in the last 12 months and I am very sensitive to that reality. Indeed, my own family was not spared loss, thus I mourn as you mourn. I also want to thank you for all that you have contributed to FTCC in 2020, in terms of your time, talent and treasure, you are the wind beneath the churches’ wings.
Yet as we venture into this new opportunity of 2021, we should be inspired and optimistic about the winds of change that are blowing in the world. At Flatbush- Tompkins Congregational Church, we too should be committed to change. Change for the better, change for the future.
I am asking you to join me this New Year, as the focus and theme of our ministry will be, 2021: Returning, Rebuilding and Reimagining our Church, Anew!
What will church look like in 2021? What should FTCC look like, what are we committed to do to reinvigorate our church in the immediate future and for the long term? How do we maintain and cherish old customs and traditions even as we expand, implementing and embracing new ones? These are immediate and pertinent questions before us.
What will church look like post COVID? We, as all other churches will be grappling with this question this year and in years to come. While we must be wise about future plans, we must also have a determined and even zealous commitment to return to a vibrant and active ministry. In other words, WE must be committed to the future of our church, and it is WE that are vested as a congregational church to make this commitment come to fruition. We have the blessed assurance that God wants his church to thrive, thus we know that God is with us in every effort to restore our church to its former level of activity and vibrance and even exceed anything that FTCC has ever seen!
Finally, what does Church Anew really mean, I do not exactly know, and I am sure, you do not either, however, that is the operative question that should be on our minds in 2021. We cannot be complacent, and we really should not after all that has happened during the last 12 Months, be limited to dreams of returning to church exactly as it was on our last Sunday together in March before the shutdown. Our ordeal and mutual ministry together in the last 9 months, has changed us forever, thus let us roar forward in 2021 with optimism, hope and excitement to rebuild the walls of FTCC, bigger, deeper, and better than they have ever existed before. As we have reopened our doors, as we embrace our theme, 2021: Returning, Rebuilding and Reimagining our Church, Anew, I pray that the good Lord, will be with us every step of our journey and as we look back over our steps at the conclusion of 2020, we will see one set of footprints in the sands of this year of our collective church life, for HE, will have carried us through this rough and uncertain period.
The Footprints Prayer
One night I had a dream…
I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord, and
Across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; One belonged to me, and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of my life flashed before us, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that many times along the path of my life, there was only one set of footprints.
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
You would walk with me all the way;
But I have noticed that during the
most troublesome times in my life,
There is only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why in times when I
needed you the most, you should leave me.
The Lord replied, “My precious, precious
child. I love you, and I would never,
never leave you during your times of
trial and suffering.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.
Sincerely,
Rev. Conrad B. Tillard Sr., M.Div., Th.M.
Your Pastor and Friend
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