Dear Glen Mar friends,

I hope you have enjoyed August Family Worship as much as I have. Last week, Matthew Johnson did a wonderful job looking at transformation from the inside out. He used the illustration of Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out movie where the lead character, Riley, was going through many changes in her life – especially her family’s move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Through this external change, change and transformation happened internally that helped her to build meaningful relationships and be in her new community.

There are many lessons in this movie. I particularly love the lesson involving the role of sadness as a part of our change and transformation.  Yet, it is the emotion that we are most uncomfortable with feeling. And so, we try to hide it, lock it up, and cover it up; be inauthentic.  Relationship and community thrive in authenticity.

This week, we will learn about what it takes to build a snowman according to the popular Disney movie, Frozen.  We will examine what building Frozen’s snowman teaches us about relationship building.

I watched the movie Frozen for the millionth time this week. Usually when watching this movie, I focus most on the relationship between the sisters, Elsa and Anna. This time, I focused on the snowman, Olaf. Olaf is the epitome of life, and love. Olaf was created from the sisters’ imaginations as they were living life fully. But he went away for a bit when Elsa was told to hide her full identity, stopped relationship with her sister, and was alone and locked behind the walls of her room; she was no longer living. She was trapped by fear. Anna kept inviting Elsa to come out of her hiding and entrapment by singing, “do you want to build a snowman?” Unfortunately, Elsa ignored her sister’s song of freedom and relationship building. But when Elsa finally let go of fear and all the things that were keeping her from living; Olaf re-emerged. To build a snowman, we must let go of those things that keep us from imagining life and love fully so that we can be in relationship and community.

There are many things in our lives that keep us trapped, bound by fear, in hiding, and from living life and “life more abundantly.” We are trapped by stuff (pain, trauma, grief, idols, expectations, fear of unknown, etc.) and it keeps us from being in relationship. It keeps us from hearing the voice that says, “do you want to build a snowman?” It keeps us from hearing the voice that is inviting us into relationship, beloved community. But Jesus is calling us out and singing to us, “do you want to build a snowman? I can show you how.”

Come this Sunday to learn more about building a snowman of relationship while being invited to let go of those things that hinder us living and loving fully in relationship with God and each other; beloved community.

See you Sunday!

Pastor Melaina Trice