Dear Beloved Community,
Easter morning has come and gone, but the good news still echoes: Christ is risen—risen indeed! What a joy it was to gather in worship on Easter Sunday, surrounded by blooming lilies, bright hallelujahs, and the warmth of your presence. Together, we stood in that sacred space “between grief and hope,” the title of our Easter sermon, and the tender truth we shared—that hope so often grows from the compost of grief. Just as decaying matter feeds new life in a garden, our sorrow can become the soil from which new possibilities take root.
This theme of “Everything in Between,” which guided us through Lent, continues to speak into our lives. We’ve spent these weeks exploring the liminal spaces—between despair and joy, wilderness and home, endings and beginnings. And now, in this season of Easter—a full seven weeks of celebration leading us toward Pentecost—we begin to lean into a new question: What does freedom look like?
Our Easter Season series is called “The Cup of Freedom.” Inspired by the overflowing cup of salvation in Psalm 116 and the liberation embodied in the risen Christ, we are invited to consider the many ways God is calling us—and our neighbors—into freedom. Freedom from fear, from shame, from systems that limit or oppress.
Freedom to be fully and wholly who God created us to be. As Easter People, we don’t just believe in resurrection; we live it out by dismantling what is death-dealing and cultivating what brings life.
And yet, even in this season of life, we carry the weight of recent loss. We are grieving the deaths of Pastor Denny and Rich Frank, Max Hoke, and others in our community who have left us too soon. These saints leave behind legacies of love, service, and presence that have helped prepare the ground for what is emerging. We mourn their absence even as we give thanks that their lives continue to bear fruit among us.
Signs of new life are all around. The church remodeling is moving forward—each layer of dust cleared away is revealing the beauty and possibility of what’s to come. We’re welcoming new faces into our congregation and witnessing fresh expressions of ministry beginning to grow. God is, indeed, preparing the way for new life.
In this Easter season, let us be open to what is blossoming. Let us drink deeply from the cup of freedom, trusting that God is still at work— transforming, liberating, resurrecting. We thank God for new chapters, new seasons, new growth, and resurrection.
With deep hope and Easter joy,
Rev. Duane Carlisle
First United Methodist Church of West Lafayette
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