Today… right now even… New Horizons is passing by Pluto – 3 billion miles away. If all goes as planned the satellite will begin beaming back information and images this evening – at the speed of light the information will take 4.5 hours to reach earth – transmitted at one kilobit per second it will take 16 months to send it all! Creation is amazing!

This summer – every summer – our attendance at church is down. We will see some families only a few times – others not all. I wonder how folks could miss so much church. Why come at all if it is so easily missed? But the answer is a mystery to me…

I was amazed to learn knew Pluto’s size was a mystery. Now, with an early image from New Horizons, science is able to determine the size of Pluto, a diameter of 1472mi (+/- 6mi).  This seems important considering Pluto was demoted from Planet status after the discovery of a larger object, Eris, in 2005… only we now know Pluto is bigger than Eris. Ninth planet supporters are looking for someone to blame!

As a pastor my tendency is to blame the missing church members. “They should be more committed.” (In brokenness I always try to blame someone, anyone other than myself.) But if church is routine, so boring, no one minds missing – if no one is worried what will be missed… who is to blame?

Pluto was discovered in 1930. Amazingly in the 85 years since we have watched the planet make only 1/3 of its rotation around the sun! Of course without our knowledge, Pluto has made the rotation many times.

Worship, rather than dusty, should bring new revelation. It should be amazing. Not because of smoke and mirrors or fire – though we never want to rule out fireworks – but because we have come to worship the creator of planets and dwarf planets. And many more splendid things, so far away we do not even know exist.

With this Creator, we should not accept a dwarfed gospel. God has given us a message of love to make all of creation right. Love that reaches from here to Pluto. From here to your neighbor. Whether we know it or not, God’s love is on the move. Through Christ this world becomes amazing. Our worship should open up these horizons!