by Michael Winters
20 years ago, Sojourn Community Church had our first public church service. At the time, I was starting my first semester of college. Now, 20 years later, there are a few young men and women who are in their first semester of college after having spent their entire childhoods participating in the Sojourn community. That’s amazing.
I’ve tried to write something that would be fitting for the moment, to reflect upon the meaning of 20 years, but others have done it well, (Mike Cosper: The Land of My Sojourn: Looking back on 20 years) and maybe the image below, which we made for the occasion, says what I have to say.
God has done far more abundantly than we could have imagined 20 years ago. We had wild imaginations, but not this wild. There is a power that is at work within us, the church. The Holy Spirit is working in a million winding movements none of us can map. We witness what we can witness. We give God glory in our time and we pass on what we’ve seen and heard to the next generation. Time keeps going. Amen.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” - Ephesians 3:19-20, NASB
Thank you to Chuck Heeke and Shaelyne Meadows, who helped make the above photographs. Thanks as well to the portrait subjects and all the volunteers who painted the signs.