As we relax following all our preparations for Christmas, and before we start to do it all over again for Easter, the church sets her sights on Epiphany…a much neglected season. And here’s a funny thing…

As we flip our calendars to December we also enter the season of Advent and a new Church Year cycle. There are two things I want to discuss as we do that

I mentioned a couple months ago that we’d be using the Red Paraments more. We used them for a couple extra weeks in the spring as we focused on the work of the Holy Spirit among us.

In John 15:15 Jesus says: “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

Even before our August Church Chat, my thoughts were turning around a single issue, which I had already written on—now tweaked—this month: making some permanent decisions regarding the layout of the sanctuary—aka the chairs & pews issue.

Growth is the focus of the long season between Easter and Advent. Typically we think of that growth as “spiritual”—developing depth and maturity as followers of Jesus.