May 2023
As we slowly emerge from the cold and snow of winter, some of us are good and
ready for spring and summer to finally arrive!
This May we’re launching into a new sermon series called Soul Reset: Breakdown,
Breakthrough, and the Journey to Wholeness. It seems appropriate to address this topic
as some of us are feeling down from a long and difficult winter, some of us are
experiencing or have been through clinical depression, some of us are looking for hope
and renewal in the coming days.
Paired with the sermon series will be a series of spiritual practices you are invited to try
out each day with the hopes that with your experiencing and experimenting with a
variety of spiritual practices you might find something that you want to use in your life
long term to help strengthen your connection with God and with your soul.
In conversations with some of the people who have been coming back to in-person
worship after a long absence, it seems that now is the perfect time to hit the reset button
and come back to worship, back to the church building, back to a relationship with God
that may have dwindled lately.
“Reset” is a word we’re all familiar with. We can reset our attitudes; we can reset a
circuit breaker. We can reset our computers. We can reset our relationships, our clocks,
our priorities. To reset is to move something back to an original place or position.
In the case of a factory reset, or hard reset, an electronic device—like a computer or cell
phone—is restored to its original state. Old files are erased, allowing for a fresh start for
the device. The clutter is cleared away.
As we anticipate the coming of spring, we can reset ourselves by clearing away the
clutter of chronic busyness, fatigue, apathy and exhaustion. For those of us who are
feeling parched and worn out, this season offers a new opportunity to reset our souls.
The month of May also brings our first Confirmation Sunday in three years. With our
two-year confirmation program being interrupted in school year 2020-2021, we are just
now coming to the end of this confirmation class of three students who have been
studying together for the last two years. I hope you will take the opportunity to welcome
them to our church on Sunday, May 21.
In the meantime, rest in these assuring words of Jesus: “Come to me, all you that are
weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)
~ Pastor Holly