How Is it With Your Soul?

My daughter goes to preschool during the week. While she is there she learns her numbers, her alphabet, and perhaps most importantly, how to interact with her peers. She is learning language to tell us how she feels, what she needs, and how to address those things that she feels most intensely.

John Wesley had a unique way of checking in with his people.

John Wesley established groups called class meetings that met in geographically specific areas of the community. The purpose of these class meetings was to meet with those in the Methodist movement who were physically closest to you and share the deepest, hardest parts of your faith. The number one question asked of members was, “How is it with your soul?”

Each week Pastor Karyn, Pastor Dylan, and I meet together to talk about the previous week, look at what’s coming up...and ask this question. The first week I skirted the question - “my soul feels good,” I said, and passed the question to Pastor Dylan.

The second week I answered that my soul felt anxious. Anxious to see what could get started, to get programs off the ground, to meet more people. Anxious because of my days of preaching coming up. Anxious because I didn’t know what was coming up next. Just anxious.

Those first two weeks I noticed a pattern. Instead of answering how it was with my soul, I answered with what I felt in my body. Rather than taking a look inward and addressing my deepest feelings, I was pulling an answer that was easy to hold and easy to explain. I wasn’t really looking at my soul.

John Wesley encouraged his followers to look at their souls and answer that hard question: “How is it with your soul?” For Wesley, addressing your innermost soul feelings was a crucial part of being in the right relationship with God, with one another, and with the Church. As we explore what it means to be a Peace Church together, we would do well to remember this question.

Being an advocate for peace in our local communities and our world beckons us to ask individuals with whom we share this planet how it is with their souls. If we do not know what it is that the world is crying for, we cannot begin to address human needs. Much like my daughter, we are learning how to claim what our soul is feeling and what the souls all around us need.

This fall, we are going to have a few small groups meet together to ask this challenging question: “How is it with your soul?” If you feel like your soul needs a little bit of a check-in, or you’re just missing out on ways to connect deeply with others in your faith journey, I invite you to join us.

Together we will explore how our souls are feeling in our own bodies and in the world, build relationships, and learn what it is to be in closer connection with one another on our faith journey.

Peace,

Pastor Rachel