October 2017

Jottings...

I am always amazed at how the rhythm of life changes as we move from summer to fall. School resumes, schedules and programs change and traffic seems to get worse. We at Cole UMC notice changes too. King’s Academy is back in session, we have our fall worship series “JesusEverything” underway and there is lots of behind the scenes’ activity as we seek to end 2017 well and prepare for 2018.

As your pastor I am looking ahead already to Advent and also have my share of reports to complete for our Charge Conference – this year scheduled for Sunday November 5 following the morning worship service. We are also working with some conference resource folks who will help us reflect on where we are as a slowly shrinking church and where we want to head. We will have some meetings with our leadership in that regard and get the whole congregation involved too. Details will come later.

The challenge in all this is to stay focused on Christ and His Kingdom and what He is doing right in our midst. Paul talked about this in II Corinthians 4 from the perspective of his own ministry. From God’s Word for Today translation:

5 Our message is not about ourselves. It is about Jesus Christ as the Lord. We are your servants for his sake. 6 We are his servants because the same God who said that light should shine out of darkness has given us light. For that reason we bring to light the knowledge about God’s glory which shines from Christ’s face.

7 Our bodies are made of clay, yet we have the treasure of the Good News in them. This shows that the superior power of this treasure belongs to God and doesn’t come from us.

And

16 That is why we are not discouraged. Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day. 17 Our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine. 18 We don’t look for things that can be seen but for things that can’t be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can’t be seen last forever.

I don’t know about you but when Paul says “outwardly we are wearing out” I feel it! The reason we live in community in our faith is so that as we are tempted to be discouraged we can remember that God is at work in ways we can’t see. We just need to tune in and get involved.

- Pastor Brian