Thinking About Joy – St. Nick’s News June 20, 2025

Full St. Nick’s News for June 20, 2025

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy lately.

Not the kind that comes in bursts—loud, glittering, camera-ready. I mean the kind of joy that moves quietly under the surface of things. The kind that doesn’t announce itself but finds you anyway, like the soft song of birds rising at Outdoor Worship before most of the world is awake.

There’s a particular kind of joy I’ve come to recognize at St. Nick’s. It doesn’t shout or sparkle, but it stays. It lingers. It holds. It shows up in the eyes of someone who thought they were forgotten, and hears “I’m so glad you are here!” It curls up at your feet in the form of a well-loved dog during prayers. It drifts between the tables as laughter echoes over coffee and homemade bread after church. It arrives uninvited, but never unneeded.

Jesus spoke of joy like that. You may remember the story—one sheep goes missing out of a hundred. Most of us would accept the loss. That’s just life. That’s the math. But not this shepherd. He leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one. And when he finds it—when he lifts it and carries it all the way home—he doesn’t keep the joy to himself. He calls his friends, his neighbors, and says, “Rejoice with me! I’ve found what was lost.”

That’s what God is like, Jesus says.

And that’s what we are trying to be like here at St. Nicholas Hill Country Episcopal Church. A community built around that shepherd joy—the kind that searches, welcomes, and celebrates the found.

Our mission and vision as a church are shaped by that story. We are a people formed by love and sent out in joy. We believe in a church where everyone is welcome, everyone is loved, and everyone belongs—not someday, but now.

A church where the broken are blessed, where grace has room to stretch its legs, and where nobody has to pretend they have it all together to be part of something holy.

This doesn’t happen by accident. Joy takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.

It takes courage to trust in God’s goodness when the world demands perfection. It takes faith to believe that love is stronger than fear. It takes a community to remind us who we are when we forget—to look us in the eye and say, “You are not alone. You are already enough.”

That’s why we come together—not to impress God or each other, but to remember the deeper truth we so often forget: that we are already found, already beloved, already wrapped in the joy of heaven.

So if you’re tired of striving, or worn out from trying to belong somewhere, come and sit under our trees at 8am on Sunday or come and hear the noises of our babies and the beautiful music at 9:30am. Come and share a meal. Come and join the beauty and fun of Joy Camp/VBS. There’s a place for you here—in God’s story of love, in the community we’re building together, in the kind of joy that lifts us up and draws us nearer to the God who loves and adore us.

Because Jesus is still out looking for the one. And when he finds them—when he finds us—you can be sure there will be celebration.

And for us, at St. Nick’s, we call that church.

God’s Peace, Love, and Blessings,
Beth+