Fr Robert Hendrickson
Dear Friends in Christ,
Preparing for a summer trip with wild children is, in many ways, the perfect metaphor for the spiritual life and life in the church.
It starts with high hopes and a color-coded packing list. You tell yourself, “This time, we’ll be ready.”
You imagine peaceful road trip songs, healthy snacks, and everyone cheerfully cooperating. That’s the spiritual equivalent of promising yourself you’ll finally wake up early for prayer and actually read Leviticus all the way through.
Then, the chaos begins.
You can’t find the sunscreen, one child insists on packing only socks, and someone has already eaten the granola bars you hid “for the trip.” You get halfway down the driveway before someone needs the bathroom, and five minutes later, someone else has dropped a shoe out the window.
It’s all a little ridiculous—and exactly like church.
Church life, too, begins with beautiful vision. We picture ourselves as a joyful, singing, spiritually-focused community.
But then the sound system gives up the ghost during the sermon (again), and the heat is broken (again), and those weird people sat by you (again)!
This is the holy mess we live in.
Like a summer trip, the spiritual life isn’t tidy. It’s not Instagram-perfect. It’s a journey full of mystery, detours, spilled juice boxes, and unexpected grace. You start off thinking you’re the one in charge, that your plans will keep everything together.
But somewhere around hour three, as you listen to a chorus of “Are we there yet?” and try not to lose your temper, you realize something deeper: this chaos is sacred. It’s where love grows.
And it’s the same in church. Amid budget meetings and choir practices and potluck casseroles of questionable origin, God is moving. We show up with our mismatched bags, our impatient hearts, and our spiritual granola bars half-eaten—and grace meets us anyway.
The kids don’t remember how well you packed. They remember how you laughed when the tent collapsed. The church won’t be remembered for its flawless bulletins but for the way it held someone in grief, or let children feel at home, or stayed faithful when things got stressful.
So pack your bag (again) and don’t forget the snacks—or the prayers. God’s not waiting at the destination. God’s riding along, in the backseat, covered in crumbs, humming a hymn.
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Robert