By Heather Mustain
Today marks 75 years of Wilshire’s faithful witness and presence to our community, our neighborhood and our world. We have spent the last few months remembering and reflecting on memories and milestones, ministry and mission, and although our journey hasn’t always been easy, with God’s grace, it sure has been good.
Throughout Scripture, remembrance is not simply an act of looking backward. It is a spiritual practice that helps God’s people move faithfully into the future. The biblical command to “remember” appears again and again because memory shapes identity, and identity shapes action. To remember is to reconnect ourselves to the story of God’s presence, faithfulness and calling so that we can live with courage and purpose in the present.
In the Old Testament, Israel is constantly instructed to remember. They are told to remember their liberation from Egypt, their covenant with God and the ways God sustained them through wilderness journeys. These acts of remembrance were not exercises in nostalgia. They were reminders that the God who had been faithful in the past would continue to be faithful in the future. When challenges arose, memory became a source of hope. Remembering God’s deeds empowered the people to face new realities with confidence rather than fear.
The practice of remembrance also helps communities tell the truth about their history. Biblical remembrance includes both celebration and confession. Israel remembered not only moments of victory but also periods of failure, injustice and unfaithfulness. Honest remembrance creates the possibility of repentance, healing and transformation. A community that remembers truthfully can learn from its past rather than become trapped by it.
Wilshire, our remembering is essential for our moving forward. Milestones and anniversaries invite us to celebrate the people, sacrifices and vision that brought us to the present moment. Yet remembrance is not about preserving the past unchanged. Rather, it is about discerning how the faithfulness of previous generations can inspire new expressions of mission and ministry today.
The biblical act of remembrance teaches us that the future is built not by forgetting where we have been but by carrying forward the lessons, values and stories that have shaped us. When we remember well, we discover that God’s work did not end in the past. Instead, remembrance becomes a bridge between what God has done and what God is still calling us to become.
Our future is bright, Wilshire. What will we become?