You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
~ Psalm 16:11
In December I wrote that with Advent we had begun the Christian New Year. Since then, we have experienced the power and drama of the gospel story through our celebrations of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and finally Pentecost – the birth of the church.
That is precisely what we are experiencing at First Christian Church: a kind of new birth.
We know this partly because of the new life we’re seeing; new people at every gathering, new levels of generosity, new volunteers serving in new programs that serve the neighborhood in new ways. But mostly we know this because – as many of you have experienced first-hand – birth is messy and painful, and we are experiencing some of that too.
And, of course, new birth is joyful as well! But joy comes not from the easing of pain, or even in spite of it, but because the hope of the future embodied in a newborn is so overwhelmingly good. The promise of better things to come is what keeps us going through the labor of birth as well as through the much longer labor of life, guiding and nurturing our children as they develop to become fully grown.
As with any kind of labor, the most important thing is to breath.
In the Christian calendar, that long period of growth and development is represented by a season called Ordinary Time. Stretching from the end of May through the end of November, there are no great celebrations, no dramatic highs and lows of the redemption story; just a time to live, and grow, and learn to be full-of-faith in the day-to-day presence of our ordinary lives. During this time, we hang green banners in the sanctuary to represent the newness, goodness, and growth of ordinary life.
Throughout the course of this long green season, I’ll be preaching about what it means to follow Jesus in an ordinary way. Over the summer we will look closely at the Beatitudes in Mathew 5:1-11. Then, in the fall, we will explore the rest of the Sermon on the Mount in Mathew Chapters 5-7.
The big lesson, of course, is that all the truly good stuff happens in the ordinary times of life. The same is true for our church and we will be focusing on fairly ordinary things for the next several months at First Christian Church Oceanside:
Approving a new Board and budget
Creating better communication processes
Improving the volunteer support for our ministries
Making improvements to our classrooms
Continuing the journey to understand our mission
I encourage you to get involved. Find a group to learn with. Find a ministry to serve with. Commit yourself to becoming part of our community of faith in a new, ordinary way as we enter this season of growth together.
Sincerely yours,
Jason A. Coker
Senior Pastor