I always welcome Spring, the longer days, the returning sun. Still, the change of seasons can be temperamental. Winter and Spring duel between snow showers and budding flowers, but eventually winter gives way. The seasons of life are much the same. We remember certain chapters with particular fondness, yet life itself would be incomplete without living each moment and reflecting on how we have grown and matured through all of them. Interim ministry is, by nature, seasonal, though the season may be brief or extended. For more than three years, I have lived this interim season with you. We have shared moments of laughter and tears, moments of common ground and divergent viewpoints, and through all of it we have centered our lives together in worship and in the movement of the Spirit. The Spirit moves through you in expected and unexpected ways, yet holds you together in the bonds of Christian love and fellowship. I came to Mountain Rise knowing you were a good church, with strong commitments to ministry locally and globally, to justice and solidarity, and to living out your witness as an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. As I take my leave at the end of April, I can say without hesitation that Mountain Rise is still a good church. A good church knows there is always work to be done. It does not rest on its laurels or retreat into nostalgia for what was. My prayer is that Mountain Risers trust the Spirit’s pull toward what you have not yet dared to become for the sake of the world around you. May you come together across diversity and difference. May you be propelled not by governance and the refinement of rules, but by the knowledge that God’s witness and community extend far beyond the limits of your own imagining. It has been my deep privilege to share this season with you. I leave with both sadness and gratitude, for these are not opposites. They are what it feels like when something has mattered. I am grateful for your trust, your honesty, your laughter, your faithfulness, and your capacity to sit with hard questions long enough to find the courage to act on them. You have shaped me as much as I hope to have contributed to you. As I depart, I do so with confidence in who you are and in who you are still becoming. The Spirit moves freely, breathing and making all things new. That is, after all, what Spring is for.

Blessings and Peace, Kelly Sprinkle