2024 is only a few months away, but it will be a significant year in the history of South Presbyterian Church. 2024 will mark the 175th year since our founding (195th for those hailing from New Life Presbyterian), and it will begin our second decade as a 100% missional church without the benefit of a centralized location (i.e. since we left the building).
To kick off that year-long celebration, we will be having a special Gala Celebration in September. You can learn more about that HERE.
It’s good to take time every now and then to celebrate what God is doing in and through us. As a faith community, we are often more involved with doing than with thinking about doing and overall, I think that’s a good thing. But to truly honor who we are as God’s people, we also need to stop every now and then and reflect on those accomplishments and challenges that we have lived through. God’s fingerprints are all over our journey, so let’s see if we can get a glimpse of where we are being led now.
In preparation for our Gala Celebration in September, I had the opportunity to compile a timeline of our last 175 years and it tells us a lot about who we are — what Spirit and faith are a part of our collective DNA. I encourage you to take a look at it if you haven’t already done so (click HERE for the annotated timeline) and as you see where the fingerprints of God are all over us in the things we have accomplished for almost 200 years, I invite you to ask yourself these questions that we will be asking ourselves as a community during the next year.
- Where is God leading us now?
What are we being called to do next? - How do you sense the Presence of God in the work that we are doing now?
- What is the mission or purpose of our “merry little band of believers” now? Do we continue with what we have been doing? Is God calling us to do something more (or less) with our resources?
- What do YOU need in order to continue your own spiritual growth at this time in your life?
- Over the last decade, we have discovered and created new ways of being church … new ways of defining who is a member (anybody can be, right? And a member of any of our Acts of Faith is a member of our faith community, whether or not they are a PC(USA) member or even a Christian. Jesus never turned anyone away and neither will we.) … new ways to financially support this ministry when there is no one place where everyone can worship on a Sunday morning … new ways of learning how to be together when we don’t have a single meeting place for all of us to congregate.
So … what do you find yourself having to redefine as a result of your association with South and the Acts of Faith Community? How is God finding new ways to speak to you?
These, and more, are some of the things for us to ponder and pray over in the days and weeks ahead.
The good news? We are not alone on the journey. Just like the Hebrew people in the wilderness, we are led by a cloudy pillar by day and a pillar of fire by night.
I feel like we should all sin a rendition of Roy Rogers’ “Happy Trails to You” as we start off into the next part of our journey together!
Blessings and peace,
Pastor Deb