Message From the Pastor - Seeking: Honest Questions for Deeper Faith

On January 24, after the death of Alex Petri, many in our Northfield community gathered for an interfaith vigil. We came carrying shock, grief, and questions. We lit candles. We stood shoulder to shoulder. We were reminded that even in uncertainty, we do not stand alone. 

That evening felt like holy ground — not because we had answers, but because we showed up. 

In many ways, that is what Lent invites us to do. 

This year, our congregation will journey with A Sanctified Art’s resource Seeking: Honest Questions for Deeper Faith. Lent is not a season of easy certainty. It is a season of courage and honesty. A season for slowing down. A season for bringing our real questions before God. 

Scripture is full of seekers — people who wrestle, wonder, doubt, hope, and ask again. And God meets them, again and again, not with quick solutions, but with presence. 

In a town like Northfield — where students wrestle with big ideas, where neighbors gather in times of loss, where faith and public life intersect — seeking feels like faithful work. We see it when neighbors help neighbors through the Community Action Center. We see it in the generosity of the MN FoodShare March Campaign, when our wider community joins together to stock and support local food shelves. Seeking is not only about reflection; it is about participation. It is about showing up for one another. 

Lent gives us space for reflection and lament. It invites us to ask: 

What is shaping my faith right now? 

Where is God in the midst of grief or change? 

What needs tending in my own heart? 

How might God be calling me to serve? 

The Lenten journey ultimately leads us toward Holy Week — toward the cross, toward sorrow, toward love that does not turn away from suffering — and then, in God’s time, toward resurrection. 

But we do not rush there. 

We seek. We serve. We walk together. 

As we move through these weeks, may we be a church that is brave in our questions, generous in our compassion, and steady in hope — trusting that the God who meets us in candlelight also meets us in wilderness and in dawn. 

Grace and peace, 

Donna