Thursday, December 17, 2009

Advent 2009 – Faith and Hope!

It’s been well over a month since I posted anything to my blog. So many things have been happening at work, at home, with family, at church, and spiritually.

This year Faith Church most certainly embodies the feelings of anticipation and hope that Advent brings! With our new pastor, Pastor Tom, in place, the Fellowship Hall reopened, and folks comfortably back in two worship services, things are starting to feel more normal. There is now an excitement about the tough work the Lord has ahead for us to complete our healing and discern our call for moving forward! I have seen so many parallels between Faith’s journey and the journey of God’s people in the bible this last year. The up and down relationship with God, the feelings of exile, and now the sense of something new coming just as those that were graced with the awareness that the birth of the little Christ child signaled a momentous new beginning revealed in such a humble setting. (No Tom, I do not think you are the second coming, but your arriving here in record time is surely a God thing. :-)

Spiritually my biggest event is that I decided to heed the call to become an Elder. I wrote about that struggle back in August (8/7, 8/12). Wow, that long ago? Faith responded by electing me! Training has been abbreviated this year but the North Alabama Presbytery training day was fantastic! Houston discussed the PC(USA) Book of Confessions and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Rosemary rap about the Book of Order! Rosemary also shared some of the actual beauty of the Book of Order infused in the first 4 chapters; a beauty that I recognized when I read it during my discernment (9/6). We also had a short talk from Maricarmen the presbytery’s new minister of New Church Development. I believe we all have a great deal to learn from Maricarmen about church transformation! We also had some training at Faith with Pastor Tom. It is going to be a joy to work with him as well as the other elders and deacons!

My other spiritual adventure has been launching the Faith Reach website. Faith Church started with a call to mission and that call is as steadfast as God’s love. We are called to reach out to those outside our walls as well as within. Faith has been active in many ministries yet it has always been hard to keep track of them without having to hunt down Frank. I felt the call to offer my time to set up Faith Reach as a place where information on those ministries can be easily found. It is intended to be a place of information, encouragement, and education in mission. The Faith Reach website has also recently led to starting a Faith Facebook fan page! Establishing this website and researching its ministries has shown me the vast array of outreach and mission opportunities available! The next logical step is to find an avenue to provide the training necessary to nurture folks in their understanding of and growth in mission. That is something I am looking forward to working on with Tom, Frank, and Philip over the next year!

May we all be enveloped in the warm glow of hope over this Christmas season and prepare ourselves for the work God would have us do in the coming year! And to start us out right please consider attending the 12 days of Christmas Prayer series starting Christmas Day!

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