I confess I didn’t make it to midnight on New Year’s Eve. The Wonder Woman movie that Amelia and I rented finished up about 10:45 and that felt like a good enough showing for 2017.
That’s not to say I don’t relish this time of year. I truly enjoy looking back to see and celebrate all that God has done over the last 12 months, and even more, I love how the turning of the calendar lets people dream and cast vision for a new year. The possibilities of grace that are new every morning just seem especially clear when the year is young. This is especially true when it comes to our community of faith at Kairos. I am excited for the direction we are headed and what God might have in store for our church.
If I could put my hopes for 2018 into a single sentence, it is that our community feels called to see and engage the creative, concrete, proactive way of life that is faith in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my prayer is that you notice throughout the year ways you are encouraged into this truth, and as we begin the year, I want to quickly highlight a few of those ways:
- This Sunday we kick off a new six week sermon series called “Distinctive Christianity: A vision for 2018.” Using the Kairos vision frame, our community will explore the qualities that make following Jesus as unique and counter culture as it has always been. We are doing this not so we know how we are special or to hone our sales pitch for Jesus, but because we believe, it is only in seeing why and how Jesus matters that we are able to respond actively and participate in God’s story being told.
- Miriam is writing a devotional guide for this series to explore the themes of the Sunday sermon that anyone can receive via one weekly text message.
- On January 19th and 20th, all are welcome to participate in the Clarkston Mission Experience. You can receive more information and sign up here. We are offering this because we know true creativity and passionate engagement with Kingdom work only happens when we take the time to form relationships and learn about the lives and needs of others.
- In a few weeks, the Leadership Team will again be inviting people to discern and cast vision for how you can plan to generously order your finances in the coming year.
- On January 28th at 7:00 pm, Kairos is hosting a Made Known Memorial Servicefor all who have been affected directly or indirectly by infant loss. Because again, we truly believe each of us is called to take part in God’s work and often that begins by gathering together to grieve, mourn, call upon, and celebrate God’s healing of deep pain.
In all of these things, it is not our goal to begin the year by cluttering calendars and adding obligations. Instead, we see each of these things as taking seriously that, through God’s grace, we have been invited to center our lives around the story of Jesus. We hope that what we do as a church is an encouragement and challenge toward that truth, and I believe these opportunities at the beginning of the year will help us explore what God has in store for our family of faith in 2018!
Grace and peace,
Drew