Pastor's Letters

Eliot Family:

When I heard God’s call to urban ministry five years ago, I knew that call might mean serving churches in difficult financial circumstances. I wanted to be able to serve where God was calling without putting undue strain on a congregation and without putting my family in a precarious financial situation. I turned to my love and experience with travel to start Progressive Pilgrimage, a business that would meet both of these needs. As the call to Eliot became clear, I was grateful that the search committee and session were open to this “bi-vocational” model for ministry. They offered me a salary the church could afford along with six extra weeks of leave to manage and travel with Progressive Pilgrimage.

This fall, I am grateful to be starting my fifth year at Eliot. I am equally grateful that Progressive Pilgrimage is beginning to thrive. It is a joy to serve you and a joy to take groups of Christians to sacred places around the world. This year the travel schedule is heavily skewed to the fall and winter. You will likely notice my absence for two weeks in September and four weeks in October and November. I am working hard to ensure that the most important ministry needs are met while I am away. My colleague Rev. Whitney Hall, a hospice chaplain, will preach each Sunday I am away to provide consistency in worship. She will also be on call for pastoral care emergencies. Our deacons will be available for routine pastoral care. I trust our elders, lay leaders, and staff to keep programs running smoothly.

I am grateful for your support in this endeavor. In many ways we are a proving ground for how bi-vocational ministry might work in our denomination. I have included my full schedule below. If you would like to know more about the trips that I am leading, to pray for them, or even to join one someday, please ask! You can also visit Progressive Pilgrimage online at http://progressivepilgrimage.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. 

Grace and Peace, Pastor Heather

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Pastor Heather’s Travel Schedule

• October 21 – November 1
• November 2-16
• December 29 – January 9

This summer we have been trying some new things in worship at Eliot Church. We sat in new seats, sang some new songs, and experimented with more interactive forms of hearing God’s word. For five weeks we heard stories from the Bible and set them beside our own stories. In these weeks, we did a lot of sharing – getting to know one another and mining our lives for signs of God’s activity. For five more weeks we explored faith practices that can help us deepen our relationship with God and live more faithfully in the world. Instead of listening to sermons, we gave thanks, prayed, reflected, wrote letters, and rested together. Both storytelling and faith practices were intergenerational experiences where children, youth, and adults could participate fully and across generational lines.

While I received lots of positive feedback about our summer worship, I am sure there are some who disliked worshipping in Olney Hall, who prefer more traditional music or who did not connect with the interactive style of preaching. That’s okay! While storytelling and faith practices are valuable in their own right, so is trying something new and moving beyond our personal comfort zones, even if the results are not perfect!

This summer I have also been learning something new – how to drive a standard/manual/five-speed car. Friends who drive these cars regularly keep telling me they’re “fun to drive.”  But as a newbie, I find that it takes too much concentration to be fun. It’s a little scary (What if I stall in a busy intersection?), a little frustrating, (Quit honking at me; I’m trying!) and a little anxiety inducing (What gear should I be in now?!). At the same time, I like the idea of learning new things. I feel proud when I make it from first, to second, to third gear without any grinding or squealing or thunking. Realizing that I can learn this new thing increases my confidence that I can do other new and difficult things.

The session of Eliot church has also been wondering about what new things God might do with us and through us as we prepare to celebrate 150 years of Presbyterian ministry in Lowell. We’ve tried on a few possibilities. We’ve evaluated whether the things we have been doing for a long time still fit. There are no clear answers yet. In some respects we’re still grinding and squealing and thunking through the learning process. But trying new things – from creative worship to imagining a Young Adult Volunteer program to sharing our building more widely – helps us deepen our faith in a God who can do “abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine”
(Ephesians 3:20).

Growth may be uncomfortable. Trying new things usually includes some missteps and failures along the way. But we trust in the power of the Holy Spirit who has led us in the past and who is still doing a new thing among us today.