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"I started..."
As we head into a New Year the temptation is to reflect on the year just past. This, of course, has been a year of tragic transformation. We have experienced a national shock in the events of September 11, and the aftermath of those events. Many times we have heard persons from news commentators to our President comment on the way in which the world can never again be the same. This is true in a dramatic way this year, and most of us have given sober thought to this reality.
This could be cause for despair and many do continue to find thoughts of these events troubling. But as Christians we are always called to live in confidence that God holds the future. The prophet Isaiah, in a time of troubling Babylonian exile, said to Israel, "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:18-19).
Cultural celebrity Tiger Woods appears in a television advertisement for his philanthropic Foundation that works with youth. The ad begins with one young person after another completing the statement, "I started..." One says "I started running," another says "I started dreaming," yet another says "I started thinking" On and on it goes with each young person focusing on the new thing that they have started in their lives. Then Tiger Woods comments, "We can all start doing something." When we truly believe, as Isaiah proclaims, that God is doing a new thing, we can all start something new with a sense of hope and anticipation about the future.
As a church we are starting new things as well, trusting that God is a God of this new day as much as a God of history and of the past. The Building Committee continues its work with the church planner to assess needs and possibilities for better use of our facility and options for construction. We plan to increase the ways in which we use technology in various forms of media for contemporary and traditional worship, education, and communications. We challenge even greater numbers of adults to participate in our small groups’ ministry for adult education and spiritual growth. We look forward to offering opportunities to discuss social issues such as interfaith concerns and world affairs. We plan to expand the ways in which the arts are valued and included in our church’s life.
But these community expressions of the new things God is doing in our midst are not enough. I challenge each one of you to take your faith seriously in new ways this year, beginning right now. It is too easy to just share a certain minimal "secular Christianity" as Ron Forrester discusses in his article elsewhere in the newsletter. Some of us inherited faith and have not made it fully our own; some of us have drifted along awhile without anything new in our life of faith; some of us know what we need to start doing and have just been reluctant to get started. Now is the moment! If you have questions about where to begin or how to get involved, ask one of us on the church staff. This can be a wonderful year in God’s kingdom.
Grace and peace,
Susan
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Questions
about Middletown United Methodist Church should be sent to the Church Office/td>
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7108 Fern Circle · Middletown, MD 21769
voice: (301) 371-5550 · fax: (301) 473-8090
TTY: (301) 473-9892 |
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