 Mornings are my absolute favorite time of day. I wake up at 5am, walk my dogs, and come home to some absolutely perfect cups of coffee, if I do say so myself. The world is dark and still and quiet–like a secret that’s all mine–and I soak it in. Sometimes with a podcast on in my earbuds, sometimes NPR or an audio book, sometimes piano music, and sometimes–more often than not lately–no earbuds at all. Choosing instead to let the beauty of the morning–and the sights and sounds of the changing of the guard from night shift creatures to day shift creatures–be the soundtrack to my morning.
One morning not too long ago, I was about midway through my morning walk when the light of my headlamp fell onto something unexpected. It was a message on the sidewalk in front of me–written in sidewalk chalk–that read simply, “You are beautiful.” Struck by the small but powerful declaration, I took a moment, pulled out my phone, snapped a quick picture, and kept walking. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that message in the dark. “You are beautiful.” How short and sweet, and how terribly complex all at the same time. It’s the kind of message that takes some softening into–especially in days like these and a world like ours that seems determined to harden us against it. I think most of us have spent a lifetime believing that beauty is something we earn. We tell ourselves we’ll be beautiful when. When the number on the scale drops. When we find the right partner. When we get the promotion. When we finally feel successful enough, accomplished enough, admired enough. When life looks the way we thought it would. Then—and only then—will the message will be true. The only problem with that logic is that the finish line keeps moving. You reach one milestone, and another one appears just a little farther down the road. You lose the weight, but now you’re supposed to maintain it. You find the relationship, but now you’re supposed to make it perfect. You get the recognition, but now you’re supposed to do even more. It never quite arrives. And somewhere along the way, we start to believe that beauty is conditional. That it depends on performance. That it belongs to other people more than it belongs to us. That it’s more of a “girl thing” than a “guy thing” so it’s not really a message that speaks to everyone. But what if the message wasn’t a goal? What if it wasn’t some next thing that we have to hustle for? What if it is just a FACT? You are beautiful. Already. Right now. Exactly as you are. Not because you’ve arrived or because you’ve fixed everything. Not because you finally checked all the boxes. But because you exist. And your existence is the very image of the Divine. And that’s enough. This isn’t just a sidewalk message, it’s a message written into some of the most powerful words in scripture (in my opinion). In the Beatitudes, Jesus blesses people just as they are, exactly where they are. He is especially blessing those who never seem to receive blessings otherwise. Who never seem to catch a break. Who may not be happy with who they are or have it all figured out where they are but who are loved and blessed by God all the same. Remember, that message was written on a public sidewalk. Out in the open. Where anyone could read it. Where it didn’t belong to one person or one group or one kind of life. The message is for everyone. It’s for the person who feels invisible. For the one who is exhausted. For the one who is carrying grief that nobody else can see. For the one who looks in the mirror and only notices what’s wrong. And yes—it’s even for the neighbor who always blows grass onto your sidewalk when they mow. It’s for the driver who just cut you off in traffic. It’s for that one person who always seems to get under your skin. The message is for them too. Not because they behave perfectly or they make our lives particularly easy. But because they–too–are human, and they–too–are made of breath and bone and story, just like the rest of us. See I think in a world that seems to increasingly mistake happiness for blessing, and that increasingly finds ways to exclude entire swaths of people from receiving blessing, and that does its best every day to tell us that blessing will come when we become that which we are not, that we all could stand to be reminded of a simple truth: That no matter who we are or in what situation we currently find ourselves, we are loved and blessed beyond reason and beyond comprehension by God. We are blessed by the Love from which we came and to which we will one day return. Or to say it another way: We are beautiful. Period. End of sentence. I wonder sometimes if the whole message of the Beatitudes isn’t very similar to the whole point of the message written in sidewalk chalk. Maybe both beauty and blessing are not things we manufacture. Maybe they are things we recognize. Things we practice seeing—in ourselves and in each other—especially when it’s hardest to believe. Perhaps our blessedness and our beauty are inherent–a part of who we are–just waiting for us to realize it and then live like it. So, my friends, if this week you find that you–like me–need to hear again your own blessedness and your own beauty whispered into your bones. If you find that the finish line keeps moving. That the mirror feels unforgiving. Or that the world feels louder than your own sense of worth. Take in the fullness of this reminder–written in bright chalk. Offered without condition. Just for you AND for anyone who happens to pass by: You are beautiful. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  About six weeks ago, I downloaded an app called Lectio 365. If you haven't heard of it, it's a beautifully designed daily prayer guide–morning, midday, and evening prayers, rooted in Scripture and contemplation. It's made by a community called 24-7 Prayer, and it's genuinely good.
I downloaded the app about midway through my Lenten journey as an act of deeper intention. I was going to be disciplined. Focused. Present with God in a new way. And I was–at first. Right out of the gate, I was all up in that prayer game. Morning prayer-check. Midday prayer–check check. Evening prayer–check check check. Three times a day, like some kind of monk who also has Wi-Fi and an unlimited data plan. But then I missed one. Then another. A meeting ran long and swallowed my midday prayer whole. I fell asleep during evening prayer–I mean fully, embarrassingly asleep, phone on my chest, mid-breath prayer becoming mid-breath snore. Then some days I'd open the app with good intentions and then just...not pray. The app notifications kept coming–oftentimes just sitting there like a beacon quietly judging me. It–more accurately, I–felt like a complete failure. In his book Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr speaks about failure in an interesting way. He writes, "When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us." For Rohr, failure is a parade, an unbroken line stretching across generations. But it doesn’t feel like that to me. To me, failure feels like a complete breakdown. A crumbling. An interruption. A referendum of sorts on my worth. Maybe it feels like that to you too? I don’t think Richard Rohr is trying to sell us on the idea that failure is full of fun, fanciful moments with candy being hurled at us from parade floats. I think he’s trying to help us find its rightful place in the human experience. Namely, that not one of us is the first person who has found themselves marching in the failure parade, nor will we be the last. Every saint, every sinner, every fantastic or fantastically terrible person of faith has counted themselves among the number in that parade–having fallen asleep during their prayers, having spoken words of anger instead of kindness during a tense moment, having started a new diet plan or workout plan only to be starting over again the following Monday, having disappointed the people we love. In other words, failure doesn’t make us unique or exceptional in the worst possible way. It makes us human. And–if we let it–it can soften us. It can loosen our grip on the illusion that we have to get everything right. That we have to be perfect in order to be loved just as we are. Failure can remind us that we belong to one another–not because of our successes, but because of our shared fragility. In a very real way, failure has a way of bringing us back down to earth. Back to the truth of who we are. Back to the long line of ordinary people who are trying, stumbling, learning, and trying again. Not perfectly. But honestly. And maybe that's exactly where God meets us. Not at the top of our game. Not in our most disciplined, check-check-checked moments. But in the stumble. In the snore. In the notification we ignored for the fourth day in a row. In the words we can’t take back. In the silence we chose not to break. Because if failure makes us human, and if our humanity is precisely what God chose to enter and redeem, then maybe our failures are not as far from the sacred as we think. Maybe the crumbling, the interruption, the missed prayer, the misstep–maybe none of that disqualifies us from the very thing we were reaching for in the first place. I still have the app. The notifications have all been turned off now, and some mornings I open it. And some mornings I don't. And I am more convinced than ever before that the God who made us for this long, stumbling, beautiful parade is far less interested in our perfection than in our willingness to keep walking. The check marks were never really the point anyway. The reaching was. And as long as we're still reaching–no matter how imperfectly or how inconsistently–I think that counts for something. Maybe it counts for everything… On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  Not long ago, on a Sunday after church, I found myself stretched across the engine block of my truck, changing out a spark plug and an ignition coil on the back side of the motor. I grew up working in the garage with my dad and my brothers, and I picked up a thing or two along the way. So, when my check engine light came on after a recent trip up north to visit family, and the code on the code reader indicated a misfire in cylinder 1, I decided that I would tackle the most likely culprits to the problem: The spark plug and ignition coil.
Garage work–as many of you know–isn’t particularly glamorous work. Laying across the engine isn’t particularly comfortable either. Even still, there was something familiar and energizing about it. There was grease on my hands. Tools scattered nearby. And a problem in front of me that needed a solution. As I lay there working the ratchet handle back and forth, a wave of deep sadness and deep gratitude came over me all at the same time, and I came to a very matter-of-fact realization: I don’t create things the way I used to. Yes, I write sermons. I write blog posts. I plan worship. I help shape community. All of that matters, and all of that is real work. But it’s different. I used to make things with my hands. Fix things. Build things. Figure things out in real time. I used to create solutions instead of just identifying problems. In truth, it’s been a really long time since I’ve done something that wasn’t “necessary,” but was still creatively generative. Somewhere along the way, I stopped doing that. Not because I lost the ability or because I stopped caring. But because life got busy. Grief came knocking on my doorstep. Ministry got demanding. Responsibilities piled up. And the first thing to go–as is so often the case for a lot of us–was creativity. The kind that didn’t serve an immediate purpose, but was purposeful all the same. That moment over the engine block is part of what clarified something for me. As I have thought about my upcoming sabbatical, a simple, one-word theme for that time away came to mind: Creation. Sabbatical, at its core, is about making space for something new to emerge, and in the United Church of Christ, sabbatical isn’t just a nice break for a tired pastor. It’s a theological practice rooted in Sabbath itself. In Scripture, the land was commanded to rest every seven years. Fields were left unplanted. Work slowed down. Not because nothing mattered—but because rest and renewal were necessary for life to continue. The same is true for people. And the same is true for congregations. A sabbatical is time set apart for renewal, imagination, and growth. Every five years (or so), the pastor has an opportunity to step back from the constant demands of ministry and rediscover curiosity, creativity, and joy. And the congregation has a chance to lead in new ways, to claim their own gifts, and to remember that the church does not depend on one person. Sabbatical is not about stepping away from ministry. It’s about strengthening it. And for me, this upcoming season will be an invitation to create again. To try things. To make things. To explore ideas that don’t have deadlines or outcomes attached to them. To spend time with some of the creatives in my life—people who make stained glass, who write poetry, who sit down with a blank page or a pile of materials and create something simply because it wants to be made. To spend time creating deeper relationships with God, myself, and with others. To spend time in creation–not simply barreling my way through it. To remember what it feels like to do something simply because it brings life. Not everything we create has to be useful. Not everything we make has to solve a problem. Sometimes creation itself is the point. So from June 1st thru August 30th, we will step into this season together—though not in the same way. I will be stepping into a time of renewal and creation. And you all will be stepping into a time of learning, stretching, leading, and discovering new ways to be the church together. That’s what sabbatical is for. Not escape or retreat. But renewal. So that when we come back together again, there is more life among us than there ever was before. And so that between us and through us there is–in some very real ways–creation again. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  It’s Holy Week as I write this, but you will read it during my traditional week-after-Easter vacation. I have just finished writing the worship service for April 26th—when we will welcome three new members into the life of St. Paul, and I am sitting in my office on a gloomy and rainy Maundy Thursday, and all I can do is smile.
My smile has nothing to do with adding names to a roll or our community getting bigger. I’m smiling because our community is growing in some quiet and beautiful ways—through people who are choosing to tie their lives to one another on purpose. That’s what membership is all about at St. Paul. It is not a special perk and it does not carry a privileged status. It does not come with a fast pass to anything. Membership at St. Paul is a responsibility. At St. Paul, membership doesn’t give you special benefits that others don’t have. Members don’t get better access to God. Members don’t get a reserved seat anywhere, and they don’t get to matter more than anyone else who walks through the door. What members get is a promise to keep. And people who will keep one with you. Because at the center of our life together is covenant. Covenant is one of those church words that can sound old-fashioned, but the idea is simple. It means we choose to belong to one another. We agree to show up for each other. We commit to doing the work of love together—even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s hard, even when life gets messy. In the United Church of Christ, covenant isn’t just a nice idea. It’s the backbone of how we function. We don’t have a hierarchy telling us what to believe. We don’t have a single creed that determines who is in and who is out. Instead, we have relationships. Our polity—how we organize ourselves—is built on mutual promises. Congregations covenant with one another. Pastors covenant with congregations. Members covenant with the church. And all of us covenant with God. That means belonging here is never about perfect belief. It’s about shared commitment. The United Church of Christ has long said that we are not a creedal people. That doesn’t mean we ignore the creeds or throw them away. It means we understand them for what they are: testimonies of faith, written by people trying to describe their experience of God in a particular time and place. The creeds are stories. They are witnesses. They are not tests. No one joins this church because they passed a theology exam. People join because they are ready to practice faith alongside others—serving, learning, growing, and sometimes stumbling their way forward together. That’s why, when someone becomes a member of St. Paul, the question isn’t: Do you believe all the right things? The question is: Are you willing to live this life with us? Are you willing—with the help of God—to support the mission and vision of this congregation? Are you willing to share your gifts? Are you willing to stand with this community as we try to love our neighbors, seek justice, and care for one another in a world that often feels fractured and tired? Membership is not about having faith all figured out. Membership is about saying yes to the work of belonging. And in a time when so much of life feels disposable—relationships, institutions, commitments—there is something quietly radical about choosing to stay. Choosing to invest. Choosing to be accountable to one another. That’s what we’re going to celebrate on April 26th. Not perfection. Not certainty. Not numbers. Commitment. Three people will stand before this congregation and say, in their own way: I want to be part of this. I want to help carry this community forward. I want to live this faith alongside you. And the congregation will respond with a promise of our own. Because covenant always goes both ways. We will promise to welcome them. To support them. To walk with them. To keep building this community together—with the help of God. That’s membership at St. Paul–not a privilege, but a promise. And truly? It still makes me smile. Hope to see you on the 26th! On this shared journey with you, Pr. Melissa |
Pastor Melissa enjoying time on her hammock.
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen was called as the pastor of St. Paul Congregational UCC in June of 2020. Prior to her call to St. Paul, Pr. Melissa worked as a hospice chaplain in the Ames, IA area, following pastorates at rural churches in Central Iowa and Southern Illinois. Pr. Melissa is a second-career pastor with a background in agribusiness and production & supply operations. She received her M.Div. from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO, and holds a MA Ed. in Adult Education and Training, and a BA in Organizational Communications. Archives
May 2026
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