A New Rhythm - Opportunity & Invitation

The adventure continues!

Beginning this Sunday, 6/16, our GATHERING time will move to a 4PM start as we accommodate the request of our facilities partner, (and building owner) Rochester City Blessing Church, to move to a Sunday morning format after 20 years of evening worship. We bless them as they do so, and pray for their continued flourishing!

For us, this marks another pivot in our location/GATHERING strategy, among the many that we have seen over the course of our ten years together. As with any significant change, there is some natural uncertainty about what the path forward will feel like, and what its effects will be. But, God is GOOD, and we can trust Him with our future! He has plans for us; an undimmed purpose for our community and our shared life and work. Knowing this, I'm excited to see where the journey will take us, and how this shift - like all the others we have experienced - will shape us in ways we have not anticipated, to bear Kingdom fruit that we have not yet imagined.

I would invite you, as we grow into this new rhythm, to really take ADVANTAGE of it. Embrace the newness, and even the discomfort. Waking up to a Sunday morning, knowing that most of a day stretches before you until the time when we will come together for worship, how might you receive those hours as a gift and invitation from the Lord? Rather than either filling them with new commitments or frittering them away on mindless distraction, what if we took hold of this time with a renewed, intentional commitment to SABBATH rest and re-creation? To nourish our souls, and grow in intimacy with God?

Perhaps, spend the morning in quiet before the Lord, taking your coffee slowly, over a longer time in the Word than you might ordinarily be afforded during the week. 

Make a big breakfast and share it with family, or perhaps even a neighbor or two. Practice morning prayer with your household.

Take a walk through your neighborhood, or a short hike in the beauty of God's creation. Spend time with a friend.

Get into that soul-nourishing reading that you've been meaning to do, but never seem to find opportunity for. Take time for prayer. Enjoy an unhurried, meandering conversation with Jesus.

We are reminded that, in the end, how we spend our days IS how we will have spent our lives. And, it may well be that a small, un-sought-for shift like this presents us all with an invitation from God to spend a day differently than all our other days. From the beginning of time the Creator has written SABBATH into the fabric of the life that He envisions for His people; as both a command, and a profound gift. 

I do hope that we all might seek the Lord and find Him in a special way this Sunday, and every Sunday, as we both receive the day from Him in rest, and return it to Him in worship. And I look forward to seeing everyone for GATHERING at 4pm this Sunday!

With you, in Prayer and Expectation.

Pastor Chris