This week I had the gift of a little time away to visit my daughter during her spring break as her lacrosse team traveled for a few out-of-conference games. There is something special about standing on the sidelines or courtside of a high school or college game, not just watching the sport itself, but watching the relationships that grow through it.

Collegiate athletics demand a lot: long practices, travel, early mornings, tough losses, and hard-fought wins. But what amazes me most every time is the power of the friendships that form through it all. These young women become teammates, but more than that they become one another’s support system, celebrating victories together and lifting each other up through the challenges.

What has been especially meaningful this year is watching my daughter as a third-year player step into a new season of leadership. I see her mentoring younger teammates, encouraging them, helping them find their place on the team. It’s a quiet but powerful reminder that leadership so often begins with friendship, with showing up for one another.

And the other thing I’m reminded of on those sidelines is just how small our world can be.

At one these games a few weeks ago, I struck up a conversation with the family sitting next to me. As parents often do, we began the usual sideline conversation: where are you from? how long has your daughter played? what brought you to this school?

When they said they were from Frederick, I laughed and said, “Well, that’s home for me too.” They asked what brought me to Frederick, and I shared about my call to serve as pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church.

Their faces lit up immediately.

“Our girls went to Calvary Weekday School!”

And just like that, the world felt a little smaller and a lot more connected.

Moments like that remind me of the quiet but powerful ways communities form. Sometimes we don’t even realize the threads that connect us until we stumble upon them on a lacrosse sideline hundreds of miles from home.

Those threads of connection are exactly what scripture points us toward this in week in worship.

In John 15:12–15, Jesus says:
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you… I have called you friends.”

And in Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 we hear:
“Two are better than one… If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.”

Friendship, real friendship, is sacred work. It’s about walking alongside one another through life’s seasons.

And when I think about Calvary, I see those friendships everywhere.

I see them forming around tables at our Lenten Supper & Study.
I see them in Sunday School classes where people share life and faith together.
I see them in mission teams serving side-by-side.
I see them in family ministry, where kids and parents grow together in faith.
And I see them in the joyful community of our Weekday School families, where some of the very first friendships in a child’s life begin.

Church isn’t just a place we come to on Sunday morning.

It’s a place where relationships take root, where people find companions for the journey, where faith deepens through friendship, and where we discover that we are never walking alone.

And sometimes, those connections show up in the most unexpected places… like a lacrosse field far from home.

Until Sunday, and all the days between,
Dr. Hutton