Dear Friends in Christ, October 3, 2010

In the month of October, we continue our journey in the season of Ordinary Time. It is also the beginning of the season of Harvest. It is the time of the beginning of the bringing in of the crops. We see with the large bales of cotton staged for ginning the seed at the mill across from the church. It is a time of ingathering.

Fall comes the familiar elements that we know: cooler weather, football, Halloween, and less time spent mowing the lawn. It brings a heightened awareness, that things are changing, from the heat of the day to the length of the nights, to the briskness in the morning that makes us more antimated.

This last Sunday we celebrated in worship the rededication of the Presbyterian Life Center. It was also a celebration of our “Home Coming” commonly known as Rally Day back in the 1950’s. It was a time to remember the long history of this congregation. It was time to reflect that the Church is made up of the people, and not of the bricks and mortar, and how we are apart of the greater Church and how members from other congregations have helped and assisted us in refurbishing the facility. It was a time to rededicate the Life Center. It was a time to remember all those who have gone before us, and the legacy they have left to us as the stewards of this congregation. It was a time to reflect upon the core strengths that have identified and sustained us as the people of God over the last 161 years. It was a time of worship and fellowship that is the glue of our Church.

It is also a time to remember not only ‘who we are’ but ‘Whose we are’, and that we are called into the greater community outside the four walls of the sanctuary. We are called to pray for the people coming to this community as growth begins to develop. We are called as a people to live out of our history, and into the future. We are called to continue the good work started in us back in 1849, and pay it forward to the next generation growing up around us.

So in this season of Fall, and Ordinary Time we are still called to be the people of God, in the midst of the world, spreading the love of God to all those we encounter.

Yours-In-Christ,  Jim