Sunday, November 16, was the first edition of “Jesus Has Left the Building,” an outreach event which offered members and friends of First Church a chance to take part in experiences that underscore our purpose as people of God. Following an abbreviated worship service which offered some grounding for the event, some worshipers remained at the church building just long enough to assemble care packages before taking them to about one hundred people on the streets. But a little over a dozen of us departed the building immediately and met at St. John’s United Church of Christ (The Beloved Community), at 4136 N. Grand Blvd., in St. Louis City, where the Rev. Michelle Higgins serves as Pastor.

Pastor Michelle and her worship team offered a rich feast of sacred music and, grounded as the Pastor is in Pentecostal tradition, a “Prayer Room” with prayer in a variety of forms befitting the variety of people in attendance. Some prayed standing, some seated, some went forward to a kneeler, some had an evangelist pray over them. That evangelist “closed” the time with a pastoral prayer encompassing the “Room.”

Pastor Michelle’s children’s message emphasized the theme of Creation – St. John’s focus for the month of November – especially how nature can present itself unexpectedly but welcomely (like the worm she met on the pumpkin she had added to the autumn altarscape). Her adult message emphasized imagery found in the two Genesis creation stories – the importance of resting which God modeled (“Rest, not rage,” she reminded us) and the significance of the two trees at the center of the Garden of Eden. Humans are warned to stay away from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and encouraged to partake of the tree of life. The former tree leads one to judgment and condemnation of others; the latter indicates God’s true desire for us – life!

The group from First Congregational was welcomed and acknowledged. We were embraced, literally and figuratively, in a sanctuary which was definitely assembled and decorated in a time when the St. John’s community was singularly European in its racial and ethnic makeup. The stained glass all around included scenes from the life of Jesus, from birth to resurrection, and each character was portrayed as white. Decorative pipes of an organ no longer in use appeared as if they were just waiting for a musician to move into the console and play something by Bach or Handel. It is clear who this church once was, along with the neighborhood that surrounded it.

No more, though. Also in the chancel, affirming St. John’s as it exists today – which is a decidedly mixed congregation – were two panels, one depicting leading women in the Civil Rights movement and the other a star with abstract shapes emerging all around it, calling to mind the star sewn into so many African national flags and the Star in the East in Matthew’s gospel.

It takes more learning than I have, scientifically speaking, to discern how this congregation has so adeptly found its way forward. Theologically, though, all of us who worshiped there can assert, What a testimony this Body of Christ has, to have been able to find a way forward thus! They are transformed and, I have the sense, are continuing to transform – individually and corporately. This is a shining community of faith – worshiping, witnessing, and growing together!