Acquaintance With Grief

Dear Caldwell,
About a year ago, a young family walked into the life of our church. Justin Rowell, his wife Silje and their two young sons had friends here. Justin happened to go on our annual trip last fall to Blue Branch Presbyterian Church, founded by slaves, in South Carolina. On the car ride down and back, he got to know several of our members and the heart of our church.

Justin and Silje shared a dream – to be a part of an intentional Christian community, families and individuals of all walks of life, living humbly together, serving, teaching, worshiping, eating, sharing their faith and extending the love of Christ to their neighborhood in whatever ways they could. They had experience in such communities reflecting life in the first-century church and they were listening closely for God’s guidance here in Charlotte.

Justin and I became friends in what some might think was an unlikely bond. Justin and Silje felt deeply that the purest form of Christian living has little to do with the “institutional” or “ecclesiastical” church – buildings and grounds, programs and committees, denominational connections and polity, planned fellowship events, mission trips, budgets or any other signs of highly structured and organized religion. As a product of the “organized church,” I, on the other hand, am deeply invested in reviving it in new ways for a new day. As Justin and I met frequently over the last year, we talked deeply about what really mattered about Christian community … and what often gets in Christ’s way. We also talked about how his and Silje’s vision and Caldwell’s appetite for new ideas might come together. Justin and I found, time and again, that the Holy Spirit was present and leading us to common ground and a shared vision. The Caldwell session embraced this opportunity to learn and, together, we applied to launch a New Worshipping Community (a new ministry, funded by the PC(USA) like Casita De Amor) based on Justin’s and Silje’s dream.

Senseless and profound tragedy stuck Justin and his family Monday. His wife and children were waiting at a stop sign when their car was struck by another with awful speed and force. Silje died instantly. As the Observer reports today, 3-year old Isaac died yesterday from his injuries, but not before he was able to give life to other children by donating organs. Several of you who heard about or saw news coverage of the accident have expressed your deep sympathy for Justin and his remaining son, Matthew, who was not physically injured in the accident.

You can register your interest in helping Justin move forward through a general website by clicking here. This site invites you to note how you might help – whether through time, talent or treasure. I hope you will. The church will also support Justin in a way that honors Silje and Isaac.

What they also need most right now is God’s embrace. So I ask you to pray that both may know God’s immeasurable strength and deep comfort as they begin to awaken to the shock and surrealism of what has happened. Pray also for the friends of the Rowell family who are part of Caldwell, particularly Erin and Ryan Denison and their children and Mike and Carrie Masto and their children.

We worship a God who was, in and through Christ, “acquainted with grief,” as you have heard me say before, a phrase that comes from the prophecy of Isaiah (53:3). Few of us have felt this kind of numbing and disorienting loss. Some may ask that familiar question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Others may question God in all sorts of other ways. That’s OK. Justin and Silje shared a dedication to exploring how their deep faith shaped their identity, purpose, security, community, freedom and peace.

Let us pray that same faith is sufficient enough to deliver Justin, Matthew and their friends through this inexplicable loss, a loss in which God weeps as much as we do. And let us honor Silje and young Isaac by living as they would live, by simply following the model of Christ Jesus.

Look for Caldwell This Week tomorrow with other news and events in the life of God’s church at the corner of Park and 5th.

In Christ,
John