November always brings a plethora of emotions and that got me to pondering:

• All Saints Day
  On this day we remember our loved ones who have joined the Church Triumphant. It is a time of sadness about our loss. It is a time of hopefulness about Jesus’ promise of homecoming for all of us. Maybe this year, part of your healing can be in remembering
  that others are in pain too. Maybe send a cheerful “Thinking About You” card to one or two other people enduring pain like yours. In my short time with you, eleven of our members died; many of our Christian siblings need you.

• • Daylight Savings Time
    This might be the poster child for the “We’ve always done it that way before” problem. Still being fairly new here, I often ask why we’re doing something. Too often the response is; “Well pastor, we don’t know why, but we’ve always done it that way before.” Oh how I long for that to be a phrase of the past. This year, when you turn your clocks backward in the wee hours of Sunday the fourteenth, please also think of some other time worn “tradition” that no longer makes sense; especially to new people we hope to attract to God’s work we do here.
  • Thanksgiving
    Each year at this time, I ponder the people in my life for whom I am thankful. I give thanks to God for My Dear Linda, for my parents Art and Peg, for my and Linda’s families, and for you, my siblings in Christ. I pray that all of us will always work together to make the love of Jesus known to those in our midst.
  • Advent

This is the church season of waiting…waiting and preparing for the birth of the one whom God sent to obliterate our wrong behavior and reconnect us with the God who loves us unconditionally. At Wednesday evening and Sunday morning worship services we’ll focus on four aspects of the impending birth and sing Christmas hymns. Sunday evening worship services will focus on Gifts of Advent as we read scripture and sing familiar Advent hymns – to be proceeded by a meal (come be fed in two ways; communally and spiritually.) I ponder how we might be changed if we enthusiastically participate, and invite our friends, neighbors, and enemies!

Christians are called to not be conformed to this world’s ways, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, for the sole purpose of discerning God’s will (Romans 12:2.) How will you renew your faith this November?

I look forward to hearing what you’ve been pondering.

Graciously, Pr. William