August 6, 2009

New Crayons for a New Year

            The Jubilee year finds us once again in a place of new beginnings.  This is the week when everything “kicks off” again at Immanuel.  Kids are getting ready to go back to school (or already have), parents are filling their calendars with sports schedules and dance recitals, the weather (supposedly) is beginning to cool down.  The summer vacations are finished.  The summer attendance contest is over.  Music Camp, Crosspoint, Passport, Mission Trips, and Vacation Bible School have all been tucked away until next summer.  The pool party is just a few days away.  We wrap up our summer with this event because it’s a favorite, and it is a time for the whole congregation to be together.  We end our summer and begin our new year together in fellowship.  This is the time of year when everything seems new and fresh.

            I remember as a child going to buy our school supplies.  I loved that day!  New crayons, all perfectly sharpened.  New notebooks, waiting to be filled.  Picking out my lunch box or back pack that would get me through another year.  It was a chance to start over, to learn new things, to begin again with friendships forgotten over the summer.  As I headed into the building on the first day of school, new backpack full of new supplies, I could feel myself getting smarter already!  I just knew it was going to be a great year and that I would have so much to learn.  My excitement would bubble up as I saw my friends and we began comparing notes about our summers and our year to come.  The first day of school was always my favorite day of school.

            We have things to learn from that time, still.  The pace of life has changed and our priorities have probably changed, too.  No longer are we concerned about new pencils and empty notebooks.  We’re concerned about new cars and empty bank accounts.  Crayons and paper and the excitement of school just seems a piece of momentary nostalgia.  But that time taught us about a rhythm of life.  Every so often, we need to start over.  We need a chance to start with a blank slate, to have a chance to make straight A’s again.  We need to find the joy in a new box of crayons, so to speak. 

            This is the time for that.  Sunday begins our new church year, and every one of us gets a fresh box of crayons and a blank notepad.  We will spend the next year coloring in those pages.  What will our notebooks reveal come next June?  Will this have been a year where we gave God our best?  Or will it be a year where we do our work quickly, making careless mistakes?  Last year is gone and we’ll never get it back.  But this year!  This year is brand new and full of possibility!

            Maybe you’ve been thinking about your place in this family of faith.  Maybe you’ve felt God tugging at your heart about something.  The new year gives you a chance to think differently, to engage God in new ways, to color with a fresh crayon.  It is time to begin again. 

            The new year offers new programs for kids, new studies for women, new materials in Sunday School, choir kick-offs, handbells resuming, and countless other opportunities for you to be a part of this family of faith.  How you will choose to engage is between you and God, but know that this is your chance to begin again.  It is time.

            I want to encourage you to take this week of new beginnings and see what God might be doing in your life that you just haven’t taken the time to notice.  You’ll find God if you’ll slow down and listen.  In the rhythm of a new year, you’ll find the gentle lessons of the best Teacher you’ll ever have.  In the Jubilee beginning, last year’s mediocre grades don’t matter.  All of that is left behind, like the old crayons that now fill the “art box” at home.  You don’t have to cling to those things now – you’ve got a fresh new box of crayons!

            What will you draw for the Creator?  erin