“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied: 
‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” 

 - Minnie Louise Haskins, The Gate of the Year

Happy New Year! This is our first e-news of 2019, and I hope it comes to you in the midst of joyful, continued Christmas celebrations. 

A new year is a gift. The promise of a fresh start, of new possibilities, the gift of another 365 days. We might not think of time in this way regularly, but Genesis 1 tells of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, and the ordering of creation according to days. In the beginning, God creates both matter and time. Just as the material stuff of reality is God’s gift to us, so too is the time we have. 2019, and whatever it holds, is part of God’s gift to us. 

What we will do with this gift? How will we use the time that is given to us? Each week in our worship the ushers bring forward bread and wine to the table. These elements are symbols of God’s creation, part of His gift to us. We return the gift to Him. This is done as we take up the offering, as we give back to God out of what He has given us. This is the logic of our worship: out of God’s abundance, we return to Him; we give back to him. At the start of this year, this great gift, how will we give 2019 back to God?

In Christ,

Peter+