Holy Celebrations

Dear Church Family,

Holy Celebrations – they help us keep front and center why we gather as God’s people. Three stand out to me – Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. At Christmas we find comfort in the incarnation – God with us. We find that God comes to us through humble circumstances and we experience God’s love in that encounter. At Easter we are refreshed with the good news that our sins are forgiven and we can look forward to our own resurrection as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At Pentecost we rejoice in the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all those who believe and we recognize this as the birth of the church.

As a church we find ways to lift up these celebrations and to make these days more holy (set-apart) in our lives. We do this through creativity in our worship, through special music, in special times of gathering and fellowship, in aesthetically pleasing seasonal decorations, and through hearing the unique message preached through the reading of Scripture and the sharing of a sermon. But, we also do this by slowing down and changing our pace of life for the moment. We do this by taking a break from work and gathering with our loved ones to share these expressions of faith. Unfortunately, our culture has taught us instead to fill these holy moments with activity and they become times of stress, rather than times of joy.

As pastor at Noelridge, I have asked the question of how we might create a rhythm of celebration where we can both “do it all” and be intentional on not overwhelming our schedules.  As a result, we will be experimenting with the following proposed rhythm of celebration during the next two Advent/Lent/Pentecost cycles:

My hope is that in creating a rhythm our schedule feels a tad bit less crowded and more set apart for God.

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor Stasia