TODAY IN MISSION YEARBOOK
Mission Yearbook: Pastor challenges ministers to adopt rest as sacred practice at 1001 NWC gathering
As soft jazz filtered through Hyde Chapel at the YMCA of the Rockies, worshipers settled into a space transformed by woven blankets and wooden lanterns — a sanctuary carefully curated to embody the very rest it proclaimed.
A brown paper runner stretched the length of a narrow table, sprinkled with the faded yellows of dried aspen leaves and the scrawled prayers of those who gathered. Each handwritten plea answered a question asked a few days prior at the worship service that opened the week: “What is it you are seeking?”
The service featured music led by Dr. Jillian Harrison-Jones and a sermon by her husband, the Rev. Dr. Winterbourne Harrison-Jones, pastor of Witherspoon Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis. Two days before the conference opened, the couple had visited local thrift stores to transform the worship space with throw pillows and soft décor, creating what participants described as a comforting, contemplative atmosphere imbued with the spirit of local hospitality and natural harmony.
“What would happen if we honored the Divine within ourselves, the various dimensions of who God has called us to be, just as we honor the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine?” the Rev. Dr. Harrison-Jones asked as he began his sermon for the closing worship of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities national gathering. He challenged the 150 gathered leaders to embrace self-care as a sacred practice equal to communion and baptism.
“What would happen to our lives if we would adopt this new sacrament?” he asked.
His message capped a three-day gathering focused on “rest as resistance,” where new worshiping community leaders experienced extended free time, contemplative worship and the serene beauty of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
Drawing from Matthew 11:28–30 and the Magi's alternative route home in Matthew 2:9–12, Harrison-Jones framed the gathering as both warning and welcome. He referenced Christian contemplative and theologian Dr. Howard Thurman’s meditation on life’s fluidity, asking participants, “What do you want? ... Really?”
In Thurman’s recorded voice, played during the service, he reflected that “there is a dynamism in which all life, individual life is grounded and that purposes, therefore, goals, genes, ideals, can fulfill themselves because of the fluid, flowing character of all of life.” Life, he said, is not fixed, but fluid, meaning encounters with God’s love and call are both welcome and warning.
“Might this be the warning you have been waiting for,” Harrison-Jones preached, “that the ways that we live, our inabilities to set boundaries, our inability to reach out for help, the supermen and superwomen complexes that we carry? Could it be that God has allowed us to have this encounter, and has warned us that the way that we are going will only lead to destruction?”
Following the sermon, Harrison-Jones invited worshipers to gather in small groups to discuss concrete commitments they would take home from the mountain experience.
The Rev. Jemimah Ngatia, originally from Kenya and serving as the first African woman to be ordained in the PC(USA), said she was taking home this self-care sacrament.
“I needed to hear when I break the bread that this is self,” said Ngatia, who serves Neema Fellowship, a new worshiping community in Denver
Courtnye Lloyd of The Gathering, a worshiping community in Indianapolis, said, “Something that stood out for me was to think about what the rhythm looks like, but also to be intentional in developing a rhythm connecting with the land and nature.”
The message resonated with leaders navigating burnout and boundary challenges. Harrison-Jones defined self-care as “developing rhythms, rituals and routines that nurture the divine within.”
The service concluded with a poetic reflection by the Rev. Laura Beth Buchleiter, spoken against an improvised piano postlude echoing the closing song, “I Need You to Survive," by Hezekiah Walker:
“I was caught up in the novelty of my own existence and never sure if the next turn would create calm or chaos, constantly searching for meaning, for purpose, for roots watered with love. I was wandering,” Buchleiter said, describing the feeling of following a story arc so distant, “always a step ahead, always a step forward, always a step along, never, never stepping into the peace that had been promised.”
Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Life & Witness (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Matt Hinkle, Analyst, Information Systems, The Presbyterian Foundation
Patricia Hoehn, Production Clerk, Presbyterian Distribution Center, Administrative Services Group
Let us pray:
Redeemer Lord, please guide your church as it seeks to make your truth and love known to all peoples. In your name we pray. Amen.