{"id":14828,"date":"2017-02-08T16:21:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=14828"},"modified":"2017-02-08T16:21:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:21:16","slug":"musings-change-is-awesomeand-terrifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/musings-change-is-awesomeand-terrifying\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings: Change is Awesome\u2026and Terrifying!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>For the Kilpatricks, having a growing family is an awesome yet terrifying life change!<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>By <strong>Megan Kilpatrick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It occurred to me as I was thinking about this piece that this could very well be the last article I write for Musings and Younger Perspectives. I turn 35 this year; no matter how the Conference slices and dices it, I\u2019m old. At least, no longer young enough to be considered a \u201cYoung Adult\u201d. Bummer. Although I will say it\u2019s a lot easier to not see the gray hairs if you aren\u2019t looking for them J. Thanks to Jesse Love for inviting me to be a part of this milestone.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/PNWUMC\/Channels\/Channels_100_screen.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-14774 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/LINK_Channels.png?resize=696%2C227\" width=\"696\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/LINK_Channels.png?w=740&amp;ssl=1 740w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/LINK_Channels.png?resize=300%2C98&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/LINK_Channels.png?resize=696%2C227&amp;ssl=1 696w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So there\u2019s this story I once read\u2026.it was a long time ago so I\u2019m lean on the details\u2026maybe it came from some iteration of \u201cChicken Soup for the Soul\u201d? Anywho, the lesson of the story was told by a woman whose folks weren\u2019t particularly religious, yet they supported her going to youth group and church and being baptized. They told her (and her siblings), \u201cGo where you find God.\u201d She and her siblings took that advice to heart, and that\u2019s why among them there\u2019s a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Buddhist. They\u2019ve each found God in their own way.<\/p>\n<p>When I first starting writing for Musings and Younger Perspectives, I was a typical Young Adult: still figuring out family, career, how to be an adult, faith, friends, etc. We settled on the column name \u201cMusings &amp; Younger Perspectives\u201d because it was a catchy play on the Ministries with Young People acronym (and we Methodists love our acronyms). But it was exciting to have a place for people my age to have a voice, and to write about what our faith means to us as millennial in the <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/off-to-a-creative-new-start\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cNone Zone\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. All of us \u201cyoung people\u201d are all over the map in terms of theology, life experiences, and opinions, and it is so neat to read columns that others have written. I\u2019ve learned a lot from my peers!<\/p>\n<p>But time passes, as it does, and life is what happens when you\u2019re making other plans, according to the Beatles. I\u2019m married now, and have a family and a career. I\u2019m almost properly in middle age. Yikes! But I find myself thinking about finding God, now that I have a son more than ever. (And no, that does not equate raising our children in the church because we feel some sort of responsibility to doing that. That ship has sailed.)<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the thing: there\u2019s a lot of change happening right now\u2014not just in the church, but also in politics and everything else. It\u2019s either awesome or terrifying, depending on your perspective. And the Church is moving towards <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.umc.org\/who-we-are\/commission-on-a-way-forward\" target=\"_blank\">A Way Forward<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, because that\u2019s how time works and we can\u2019t stick our denominational head in the sand forever. Change is hard, and leads to a lot of uncertainty. But at the end of the day, no matter what happens to the Church-with-a-capital-C, my faith is going to be just fine, because I have gone where I have found God (and to get into specifics would be an entire column). And that\u2019s also why I\u2019m not worried about my son. It is my paramount duty to raise him as a Child of God, no matter where it takes him. I promised that at his baptism, and I mean it. No matter what happens in the next four years, or what the Methodist Church looks like after 2020, his faith will be solid. He\u2019ll go where he finds God. And I\u2019ll be a proud Mama when he does.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Megan Kilpatrick is a member of <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.puyallupumc.org\" target=\"_blank\">Puyallup United Methodist Church<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the Kilpatricks, having a growing family is an awesome yet terrifying life change! By Megan Kilpatrick It occurred to me as I was thinking about this piece that this could very well be the last article I write for Musings and Younger Perspectives. I turn 35 this year; no matter how the Conference slices [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":14829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-ministries-with-young-people"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/INSIGHTS_MYP_Megan.png?fit=741%2C486&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3Ra","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14831,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14828\/revisions\/14831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}