Rev MaryGean Cope

Tag: faith

  • The Heart of Prayer (Isaiah 44)

    My first wedding anniversary was spent on a youth retreat. Me in a cabin with the girls, my husband in a cabin with the guys. That’s what it is in the church—the whole thing is woven together with everyone else’s life.

    So when Rachel and Spencer Driver told us this is their first wedding anniversary, I gave them a gift of paper. Because first anniversaries are paper. And because they’re already part of us now, which means their anniversaries get woven in too.

    They’re our new director of student and family ministry. Rachel’s the one we’re paying. Spencer is also dedicated to ministry but—and I want to be clear about this—Rachel is the one we’re paying. They’re moving into the house across the street and they’ve already started showing up in ways big and small.

    And that’s what the church is, isn’t it. People showing up. Committing their lives to something together. Making it matter that we’re here.

    There’s a lot happening right now. There’s always a lot happening. People getting surgery, people recovering, people grieving, people celebrating. That’s the life of a congregation—all of that all at once.

    What holds it together is showing up. Showing up to pray for each other. Showing up to celebrate with each other. Showing up to grieve with each other. Showing up even when it’s inconvenient.

    Rachel and Spencer showed up. Now they’re part of us. And we show up for them too. That’s the deal. That’s how this works.

    Welcome them if you haven’t met them yet. Pray for them. They’re going to need it, because ministry is hard and they’re smart enough to know that. But they’re doing it anyway.

    That’s what I’m holding onto these days. People still saying yes to the hard thing. Still showing up. Still choosing to make their lives matter for something bigger than themselves.

    It’s not much. But it’s everything.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 32)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 32)

    We are here for God. Not the other way around.

    That’s a line from one of our anthems, and it caught me this week. Because most of us have it backwards. We come to church, we come to God, and we’re really thinking about what we need. What we want. What we hope God will do for us. And we turn our lives upside down in the process.

    We forget sometimes that we exist for God. That the whole thing works because God made us for a purpose beyond ourselves. You’d think that would be depressing, right? But it’s actually the most freeing thing there is.

    When you understand that you’re here for God—not that God’s here to fix your life like some cosmic customer service—everything shifts. The things that seem like the biggest problems don’t control you the same way. The disappointments don’t hit the same. Because you’re anchored to something bigger than your comfort or your success or even your happiness.

    And the crazy thing is, when you quit demanding that God make you happy, you actually become happier. Because you start noticing what’s actually good. You start being a blessing instead of always looking for one. You start giving instead of keeping score.

    That’s what it means to be blessed—not getting what you want, but understanding that you’ve been given something worth more than that. Understanding that you have something to give. And starting to give it.

    We are here for God. Let that sink in. Not here for what we can get. Here because we belong to something sacred. Here because we have work to do. Real work. The kind that lasts.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalms 6)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalms 6)

    You know that old country song? “I’ve got tears in my ears from lying on my bed crying over you.” That’s what Psalm 6 is. A person wringing out the couch every night, sick and desperate, calling out to God.

    This is one of the penitential psalms—those raw prayers where people are falling apart. The psalmist starts: please Lord, don’t punish me when you’re angry. Don’t discipline me when you’re furious. And all I thought was, yeah, that’s actually good parenting advice. Don’t punish when you’re mad. Because then it’s your anger coming out, not real discipline. It’s just harm. And this person, whoever wrote Psalm 6, they’re already suffering. They don’t need wrath on top of it.

    The thing that struck me is how thoroughly they’re falling apart. Have mercy on me because I’m frail. My bones are shaking. My whole body is completely terrified. We like to think we’re strong, don’t we? We think we’re invincible. But the truth is we’re all frail. Sometimes it just takes getting sick to realize it.

    And here’s what got me—the psalmist is sick, and not only that, but other people are piling on. There’s this blame floating around: if you’re sick, it’s your fault. You sinned, you didn’t pray hard enough, you didn’t believe strongly enough. We knew this back then. Even today you get drifts of it, that spiritual blame. And when you’re already down, people coming at you with that—it just does more damage.

    But then the psalmist says something that stopped me. “But you, Lord.” Just like that. Not “but I hope” or “but I think maybe.” It’s a statement of confidence in the middle of everything falling apart. But you, Lord. How long will this last? Come back to me. Deliver me for the sake of your faithful love. Not because I’ve earned it—the psalmist knows better than that. But because you are faithful. Because you love me.

    That’s the whole thing, isn’t it. When we’re completely undone, that’s when we need to remember God’s steadfast, stubborn love. Not our strength. Not our righteousness. Just God showing up.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 50)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 50)

    There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to be a good person all the time. From believing that spiritual maturity means having it mostly figured out. From thinking that following Jesus means becoming less flawed, less angry, less human.

    I’ve been noticing how many of our best people are burning out. And it’s not usually because they’re doing too much. It’s because they’re splitting themselves in half. Public self and private self. Spiritual self and emotional self. The person at church and the person at home.

    What if wholeness actually requires integration? What if the real spiritual work is not becoming a better version of yourself, but becoming more honestly yourself?

    I think about Jesus flipping tables in the temple. Jesus getting annoyed at the disciples for being dense. Jesus not always being calm and understanding. We’ve created this version of Jesus that’s never actually frustrated, never actually angry, never actually human. And then we try to be like that impossible version.

    But the real Jesus—the one in Scripture—is fully present in his anger, in his grief, in his exhaustion. He doesn’t transcend his humanity. He sanctifies it. He shows us that being human is not the problem. Being dishonest about your humanity—that’s where we get stuck.

    So what if spiritual maturity looked like this: More honesty. Less performance. More integration of your actual life. Less splitting yourself into acceptable and unacceptable parts. More bringing your whole self to church, to your relationships, to your prayers.

    That would be revolutionary. And a lot less exhausting.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Power of Love (Philippians 414)

    The Power of Love (Philippians 414)

    February is when everyone’s New Year’s resolution crashes. The gym gets empty again. The journal sits blank. And we start with the shame. “I can’t even keep one resolution.” “I’m undisciplined.” “Why do I always fail?”

    But what if the problem isn’t you? What if it’s that we’re trying to accomplish transformation through sheer willpower, and willpower isn’t actually how human beings change?

    I’ve been reading about how change actually works. And it’s never “I decided to change and then I did.” It’s way messier. It’s community. It’s naming patterns. It’s being honest about what you actually want versus what you think you should want. It’s sometimes failing spectacularly and then trying again.

    The theological word for this is grace, but we’ve made it so thin. We treat grace like a one-time get-out-of-jail card. “I messed up, Jesus forgave me, moving on.” But that’s not what grace is. Grace is God’s power working with you over time. Not erasing your struggle. Accompanying you through it.

    So here’s what I’d offer for whatever you’re failing at right now: stop trying harder. Get honest about what’s actually stopping you. Talk to someone about it. Stop pretending you should be able to do this alone. Because transformation is never a solo project. It’s always community. It’s always encountering the God who doesn’t love you for getting it right, but loves you exactly where you’re getting it wrong.

    That’ll change you far more than willpower ever could.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 111)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 111)

    I’m thinking about how we use busyness to avoid actually living. You know—staying so occupied with church stuff and family stuff and work stuff that we never actually have to look at anything hard inside ourselves.

    One of the things that’s becoming clearer to me is how many of us learned, way back in childhood, to deal with pain by just… not dealing with it. By moving on. By finding something else to do. And we spiritualize it. “God wants us to be joyful.” “Don’t let sadness control you.” And before you know it, you’re sixty years old and you’ve never actually grieved anything.

    The spiritual work—the real work—is going the other direction. Letting yourself feel what you actually feel. Sitting with anger. Sitting with grief. Sitting with confusion about God. Not because that’s the goal. But because you have to know what’s in there before you can let God heal it.

    I see people do this in churches sometimes, and the reaction is immediate: “Well, that’s worldly psychology.” No. That’s Jesus. Jesus sat with his grief. Jesus felt his anger. Jesus didn’t skip over the hard feelings to get to the resurrection message.

    If you’ve been taught your whole life that emotions are dangerous, that feelings mean you don’t trust God, that a good Christian is a happy one—that’s a lie worth examining. That’s a script worth questioning. Because wholeness isn’t about feeling better. It’s about being honest. It’s about bringing your whole self to God instead of just the acceptable parts.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 62)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 62)

    You ever notice how quickly we move on from hard things? We’re trained for it. Someone goes through something terrible, and after a few weeks we expect them to be back to normal. Back to functioning. Back to acting like everything’s fine.

    I watched someone this week navigate that transition—from crisis to “I guess this is just my life now.” And it struck me how much spiritual work happens in that middle space. Not the dramatic crisis that gets prayers and flowers. But the slow, hard work of deciding whether you’re going to let this break you or change you.

    Scripture’s actually full of people in that space. Waiting. Not getting immediate answers. Just having to decide, day after day, whether they trust God in the middle of the liminal. The in-between.

    I think we’ve missed something as churches. We’re great at crisis ministry. We show up for the emergency. But we’re terrible at the slow, grinding work of transformation. That’s where most of Christian life actually is, though. Not the dramatic moment. The thousands of small moments where you choose faith over despair, humility over bitterness, hope over exhaustion.

    That’s the real witness. That’s the real song. Not when everything’s resolved. But when you’re still standing, still trusting, still showing up to church, and you’re not sure you have any faith left. That’s where God works.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 139)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 139)

    I’ve been thinking about the word “sing” this week. You know, not in the surface way—like, “we should all feel better if we sing.” But the deeper thing. What it means to raise your voice when things don’t feel worth singing about.

    There’s a passage I keep coming back to, about singing in dark places. Not singing to make the darkness go away. But singing anyway. And I think that’s the real discipline of faith. Not having good feelings. Not figuring it out. But choosing to raise your voice—to the church, to God, to yourself—when the natural thing is to stay silent.

    We have people in this congregation right now who are in genuine pain. Surgery. Loss. Family stuff that’s messier than anyone wants to admit. And the church’s first instinct is usually to fix it or comfort it. But what if the real gift is permission to sing the lament? To say—without sugarcoating—”This is hard. This is real. And I’m going to say that out loud anyway.”

    That takes more faith than the cheerful singing, honestly. Because you’re not pretending. You’re just taking your actual life and offering it to God and saying: I’m still here. I’m still trusting. Even when it sounds more like a cry than a song.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • A Living Hope

    A Living Hope

    New Year’s Eve. Candlelight service. Which is funny because candlelight feels peaceful, right? Contemplative. But I got a call this morning from someone whose husband just had triple bypass surgery. Lying in the hospital on New Year’s Eve. And I’m sitting there holding that phone thinking about peace.

    Here’s the thing about December 31st: we all want to believe next year will be better. Cleaner. We’ll finally get it right. But that’s not really how God works. God doesn’t give us a fresh start by magic. God says: I’ll be with you in the mess. Even the parts you thought you’d escaped.

    I was reading about the old tradition of watching for the New Year at midnight—the whole thing about “year in, year out.” Like time is just this turning wheel and you get to stand at the threshold and imagine something different. But then the phone call this morning reminded me: you don’t get a fresh year. You get a year with your actual life in it. With people you love in hospital beds. With failures from last year still hanging around.

    The real gift—if there is one—is God’s presence in that continuity. Not some magical erasing. Just God saying: I’m here. Still. Again. You don’t have to start clean. You just have to start true.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    Christmas. You know, I’ve never been one to get sentimental about Christmas Eve services—all that soft lighting and nostalgia. But standing here on Christmas morning, listening to our people pray for the sick and the hurting and those facing surgery, I’m struck by something.

    We come to Christmas supposedly knowing the story. Baby Jesus. Angels. The whole bit. But I think we miss something essential, which is that Mary was terrified. She was a young girl with a baby. Joseph was trying to figure out what in the world was happening. There were no midwives, no family, just a barn and animals. And we’ve turned it into a greeting card.

    The real Christmas story starts with people in the middle of chaos asking God to show up. And the thing is—God did. Not with angels cleaning the barn or making everything nice. God showed up in the mess. Vulnerable. As a baby. Depending on a teenage girl and a carpenter.

    I keep thinking about the people we lifted up in prayer this morning. Those facing surgery. Those mourning. Those wondering where God is in the middle of their particular mess. That’s what Christmas actually is. It’s God saying: I know you’re scared. I know you can’t fix this. I’m coming anyway. Not to make it prettier. To be present in it.

    That changes everything.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope