INSIDE EVERGREEN—March 19, 2026
Last night at LifeTogether, I was reminded once again why I am so grateful for this biweekly gathering: it is a small picture of Christian life in community. There’s food to attract and facilitate connection. There’s opportunity for service and conversation. We worship with structure and variation. We seek God through the Scriptures and especially through prayer. We remember the needs of our own congregation and also other churches, our city, our world.
And we do it with a recognition that it’s not enough. We don’t pray with perfect faith. We don’t worship with total focus. We don’t love one another with full capacity. We have so much room to grow.
At the same time, we do not despair, for we are not the glue of God’s kingdom. He must advance the work. He must take our prayers and struggling faith. He must bring us back on another occasion. We depend on him, and we press forward in his love. This is Christian life in community.
The next time we’re scheduled for LifeTogether is April 1—no joke. And we’ll do things as usual, but with a twist. As usual, there will be dinner at 5:30; the youth will gather in their rooms; the liturgy will kick off at 6:30, with younger kids dispersing to their fun events after 10-12 minutes.
But then the twist: we’ll hear from the two men who have spent six months in training to serve as new elders at Evergreen. They will introduce themselves formally and explain why they want to devote themselves to this important work. I will also offer a few comments about the training process and the significance of elders in Christ’s church, especially within our tradition. Then we’ll pray together, as usual—covering a range of requests, growing our skill at praying out loud in a group, and ending at 7:30.
If you haven’t yet made LifeTogether a regular part of our commitment at Evergreen, here’s an invitation. I would love for you to discover what God is doing. In fact, this is a regular prayer of mine. Every other Tuesday and Wednesday, as LifeTogether rolls around again, I ask the Lord to bring many people to our gathering. It’s a parallel prayer to what I offer on late Saturday evenings and early Sunday mornings—that God would bring many people to worship. God made us for relationship with him and one another, and I am eager to see Evergreen continue to inhabit this beauty more fully. We need it more than we know.
As the powers of evil flex against our world, the Church stands as evidence that God’s kingdom will triumph. We are people of resurrection: the crucified-and-risen messiah defines us. Our gathering, then, advertises his greater power. In all the imperfections of our individual and corporate life, Jesus is at work. I look forward to sharing in that goodness with you at LifeTogether on April 1 and beyond.
Yours in Jesus,
Pastor Christopher