Such a personal long time of working in the pressure of the week, all my working life, I confess this year's planning is a different sort of thing. November, the "loose end" of the Christian year, feels different this year.
We delayed All-Saints to November 7, so that suggested a blend of All-Saints and Veterans Day, which worked well. The text was the closing song from Habakkuk.
A theme coming in from the world around, for this year, is the whole theme of LIFE. What I hear around me is that "knowing Jesus personally" guarantees eternal life. What I keep encountering in Scripture is that faith-as-trust-and-obey-Jesus guarantees abundance of life right now. Last year's Revelation study, focused on the letters to the churches, opened some fresh doors for me on that one.
The Wesley hymns work well with that, never denying the eternal destiny for which the abundant life is a foretaste, but emphasizing that life in the right-now is the major theme.
I find that all wrapped in the word "incarnate" - the Word became Flesh and dwelled in the here and now, to change the here and now. There is a lot more present than future in all the narrative, and specially as the incarnation redefines what life ought to be, what God intended it to be, all mixed up with neighbors and the world around us.
Soon, we'll be moving into Advent. Blessings on the way!
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