A Letter from Pastor Derek - February

A February Face
That’s Shakespeare, by the way.  The quote in the title.  It’s from Much Ado about Nothing, which also sounds like a description of February.  Everyone grumbles about February.  It’s cold and dreary and we’re all tired of winter, but it’s not close enough to even think about spring.  The whole quote, by the way, is “you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness.”  Well, if that won’t perk up your day, or your month, I don’t know what will!
Actually, I like February.  It has my birthday in it.  And my mom’s.  And two of my favorite presidents.  So, it can’t be all that bad.  Plus, it is a good time to reflect and to plan and to think about what might be next.  At least that’s what I’m doing. Or am planning. 
Each year, in the fall or in the winter, I take a planning retreat.  The outcome of this retreat is a plan for worship for the rest of the year.  The process is to spend time in prayer and contemplation, reading and deciding.  I treasure this time as a way of reconnecting with God and listening for the leading of the Spirit as we seek to continue to grow into the church that we are called to be.
But I need you to partner with me in this enterprise.  First of all I need you to mark your calendars so that you will be praying for me during that week (February 19 through 23).  Just sometime during the day, I ask you to stop and ask God to speak loudly to me so that I hear clearly the guidance and the direction I need to bring to Southport UMC for the rest of 2018. 

 Secondly, I need your thoughts.  Over the next few weeks, stop and think what you think SUMC needs to focus on as we gather for worship and growing in our faith.  What issues do we need to address together and for which we need to ask for God’s guidance?  What themes or stories from the Bible do we need to examine or remember together as we come to worship our Lord Jesus?  What tools, what equipping do we need in order to be the church that makes disciples, that shares the love of Jesus in our 24/7 lives? Or what questions do you have in your faith that you would like to hear addressed from a biblical point of view? 

I’ve been listening for these past few months, and I have lots of ideas already.  But I’d love to hear from you.  So, send me an email or drop a note in my mailbox.  Grab me in passing – though if you do it on Sunday in the midst of a full schedule I’m likely to forget without follow up – and tell me what’s on your heart these days.  I really want to know.

I like February, even the dreary parts, because they give us time to sit down and give God thanks for the many blessings we tend to forget.  In fact, maybe, with all deference to the Bard of Avon, we need to redefine the February face.  Maybe it should be a face of blessing and of hope, a face turned toward the God who calls us and the Christ who claims us and the Spirit who sustains us for the journey, even through a cold and gray February. 


Shalom, Pastor Derek


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