John 15:1-8

What does it truly mean to be connected to something greater than ourselves? This past weekend, we looked back at 60 years that God has been faithful in this ministry, but also we were challenged to see how connected we are as one body. In John 15, Jesus offers one of the most vivid and personal images in all of Scripture: the vine and the branches. He is the vine, we are the branches, and the life we long for flows only through that connection. This passage calls us into a honest examination of how firmly we are actually attached. It is easy to admire the faucet, so to speak, without understanding that the faucet itself produces nothing. The water comes from a reservoir far greater than the fixture we can see and touch. In the same way, our gifts, our efforts, and our strategies as individuals and as a community of faith are only as powerful as our connection to the source. Sixty years of ministry stands as living proof that when people choose to abide, God does what only God can do. The question this raises for each of us is simple but searching: how connected are we, really?