New Year, New Insight, New Discoveries, New...

Happy New Year!  2026….2026!  After leaving the theater, I spent two years working with church youth groups in central Illinois to see if this sense that I was being called to the ministry was a real calling or not. Following those two years I enrolled at Christian theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. to obtain my M. Div.  Jodel and I moved to Flat Rock, IN. (town population 183) where I became a Student Local Pastor in the Indiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church serving the Flat Rock UMC congregation!  That was 1986.  So, this year marks my 40th year in leading churches.  Oy! Am I old!!  Still, it is a new year and I continue to be thrilled with being in ministry!  I can tell because I’m as excited and filled with anticipation for what God is doing in the church I serve now as I was back in tiny Flat Rock UMC all those years ago!!

As you read this column, we’ll have finished Christmas & Christmastide and are now in the “Season after the Epiphany”.  An epiphany, according to Mr. Webster’s book, is defined as, “a visionary moment when a character has a sudden insight or realization…”.  The Joy of Christmas moves to the discovery of what the Christmas event can mean in our lives.  Those new discoveries lead to a new awareness and are the “epiphany(ies)” that lead us into deeper discipleship as we seek to follow the Christ.

The first Sunday of this season begins with the story of Jesus’ baptism and the Last Sunday’s lesson is the Transfiguration where Jesus goes to the top of a mountain with Peter, James, and John where he is “Transfigured” and appears to the three disciples in his glorified state.  The Sunday Gospel readings through Epiphany center on stories from the early ministry of Christ.

While we celebrated the ancient story of the birth of Christ at Christmas, this new season following Epiphany can allow us the opportunities of “sudden insight or realization” of what the possibilities, outcomes, new ideas & new practices, and more intentional discipleship might mean for us as a congregation and personally for you and me! 

Science Friday on NPR is one of my favorite radio programs. On that show, the host looks at some of the top Science stories of the past week or month.  It’s amazing all the new discoveries and research that is happening and what the possibilities are for the future!  Just as Science Friday names the top stories of what’s happening in the world of science, so I invite you to think through what are the “Top Stories” in your life - and what might that mean for your spiritual journey in this new year, and how might this deepen your relationship with Christ and grow you as his disciple?

Let me encourage you in four responses to this season of Epiphany:

1) Make Sunday Worship a high Priority.  Come, gather with your faith family regularly building bonds of deep friendship and connectedness to your family of faith. If you do come very often already, take a role in the worship leadership on Sunday mornings as an Usher, Greeter, Lay Reader, Communion Steward, join the choir, help with the Tech Team, or help serve during the fellowship time following worship service. 

2) Read more scripture; if you’re wanting specific ideas, one that got me hooked on reding scripture was reading two of the gospels and seeing what’s unique to each and what’s similar between the two.  When folk come to me asking where they might want to start reading in the bible, I often recommend the Gospel of John, the book of James, or First John, or Isaiah. [Most anywhere is a good place to start – how about the beginning: Genesis!] 

3) Start or build on a devotional practice of prayer and reflection.

4) Begin or build on a health discipline of exercise and healthy lifestyle.

As we move into this season of new insight, new discoveries, new possibilities, new opportunities, and new awareness – may God lead us as a faith family while we seek to become the Resurrection People; living as Beloved Community as the Body of Christ we are called to be. 

Be God’s,

Pastor Jim