It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s a time for cookies, caroling, parties, gift-giving, family gatherings, (did I mention cookies?), but it is also a time in which we look with hope to the future. Sure, sometimes that hope is simply that we might get through this “most wonderful time of year,” but at our best it is more than that. Part of what we do as a church in both big and small ways is to look backward and forward. We look back to the birth of the Christ-child so that we might look forward to the coming kingdom, but we also begin to look back on the journey of the last year so that we might look with hope toward the future. Fortunately for us, as we consider even the last few months, there is much about which to be hopeful.
It’s been a big fall! We began this fall by debuting our new mission statement: feed more sheep. It was the result of many exciting and prayerful conversations with members of the church since the spring. The reaction of the congregation and community to this commitment has been amazing. It has been wonderful to see how individual members of the congregation have embraced this vision and have started to come up with creative ways to “feed more sheep” in both their daily lives and as a congregation. We spent three weeks looking at each word in the statement and listened together for how we believe God is calling us to live out this commitment as a community of faith. The administrative council has begun setting aside time during each meeting to consider how we are living into our mission to feed more sheep, but the ideas haven’t stopped there.
Practice makes perfect! One of the ideas that came out of our conversations together around our new mission statement was that in order to feed more sheep, we needed to be fed ourselves. As a result, we have decided to focus on a new spiritual discipline each month that is designed to help us find new ways of being personally fed. We began with the practice of prayer beads and will be looking at using a prayer labyrinth in the months to come. Not all practices work for everyone, but this is a simple way that we can help one another find the practices that do feed us so that we might be prepared to help feed others.
A new way of reaching out! One of the ways that we are feeding more sheep is through our new website. We launched it at the beginning of the fall and it has already become an important tool for both keeping our congregation informed as well as reaching out to the community. One of the features we added to the website in the last couple of weeks has been videos of our Sunday morning sermons. Already it has been a way for people both within and without of our community to be a part of our worship life when they can’t be present with us Sunday mornings.
We continue to share our gifts! In November, we held another Arts Night celebration for the church. This was the second time that we have held this event and it was just as successful as the first time around. There is something really amazing about inviting people to come together to share their creativity. We heard poetry, viewed paintings and bowls from people in the congregation, and even had a little sing-a-long led by Jim Carroll. In short, it was an evening which reminded us that when we create we come in contact with the creator.
There’s more to come! The good news is that there is much more ahead of us! We still have another couple of months in our commitment to raise our average worshipping attendance to at least forty people, but for the last few weeks our attendance has been well over fifty. We have continued to see growth in ministries like our Monday morning women’s group, but have also made plans for a new bible study that Ryan Krauss will be leading in the new year. Likewise, with the increased number of children now coming into our congregation, we will be starting a new Sunday School program in January. In short, we have much for which to be thankful and much to which we are still looking forward.
Let’s enjoy this moment. As Christmas continues to approach, let’s do our best to let go of some of the pressures that come from shopping, baking, wrapping, and worrying and simply enjoy this moment. The good news is that there is hope to go around and if this year was any indication, we have much to be hopeful about in the year to come.
Grace and Peace,
Stephen
