Pastoral Letter: Continuing the Journey - Growing in the Spirit
Dear Simsbury UMC family,
Over these past two weeks, we have been walking in the same direction. We began with Knowing God—not as mastering answers, but as turning our attention back toward the One who is already turned toward us. Then we asked where that attention rests: if we are turning toward God, where are we rooted? And we remembered that being Rooted in Christ is not a demand to become unshakable, but a trust that our lives are already being held by grace.
This week, we hold our third phrase: Growing in the Spirit.
“Growing” can sound like pressure—especially at the start of a new year. So let’s name this clearly: growing in the Spirit is not a self-improvement project. It is not a spiritual scorecard. It is the quiet trust that God’s life is already at work within us, shaping us over time.
Paul calls it fruit.
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
(Galatians 5:22–23, NRSV)
Fruit is not forced. Fruit is formed—slowly, often invisibly—through seasons we cannot control. That is why the Spirit’s work can be easy to miss. It does not always arrive with intensity. More often, it shows up as a change you only recognize later: a softer response, a steadier peace, a truer apology, a deeper capacity to stay present.
We know how this feels in real life. We turn toward God in worship—and then Monday comes. Responsibilities return. Messages pile up. The pace picks up. And without meaning to, we begin to push ourselves with the language of “I should be doing better.”
Growing in the Spirit invites a different turn.
Not “do more,” but “return.”
Return to Christ.
Return to grace.
Return to the place where we can breathe again.
So if you feel weary, please hear this: you do not need to measure your fruit this week. You do not need to prove that you are growing. Simply return to the place where your life is rooted—and trust the Spirit’s patient work beneath the surface.
The Spirit is not a distant power. The Spirit is God near us—close enough to shape our daily life, close enough to form Christ’s likeness in us. And that forming happens in simple places: a few quiet moments with Scripture, an honest prayer (spoken or silent), and the shared reorientation of worship. And it happens at the Table, where grace is not merely an idea but a gift placed into our hands—Christ given, Christ received, again and again.
The Spirit’s growth does not stay private. It becomes visible among us as a church—when we listen a little better, when we pause before we judge, when we carry one another’s burdens without trying to fix one another. This is what we mean when we speak of God’s Kin-dom: not winning, but healing; not pressure, but life becoming tangible in community.
So I want to offer our Simsbury UMC family one simple prayer for this week:
God, what are you growing in me today?
God, what are you helping me release today?
God, what fruit are you forming among us?
May the grace and peace of God rest upon your home and upon every place where your life unfolds. And may the Spirit form our church in love, until the life of Christ becomes unmistakable among us.
With you on the journey,
DH