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Summertime Faith Growth

"For everything there is a season,

and a time for ever matter

under heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

        


Dear Christian users of time:

         

Now as we move into summer, we enter the church season called Pentecost. This year we will spend 26 weeks in this season of the church calendar. That is half the year. Half a year spent between the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth and the consummation of Christ as the King of kings and Lord of lords as he takes his seat upon the  throne of heaven.


This half a year also is known as the season of “Ordinary Time”. But there is nothing ordinary or common about these days. The actual name refers back to the Latin “Ordinalis”, which refers to the numbering in a sequential series, in this case the Sundays after the Festival of Pentecost. So it actually is about the counting of the days and weeks of our lives.


Each of us experience this movement through time. We are born and grow. We pass through different stages of life; from childhood to adolescence, to being a young adult and maturing. We attend schools and get jobs. We make friends and perhaps build families. We acquire things and maintain the places we call our own. We look back reminiscing over fond memories and hope that we have yet more to come. These are the days that count throughout our lives. None of them are just common or ordinary.


Each day, even in this summer season of Pentecost, is a time special, set apart as a blessing. Each day is a day to grow in faith, to walk with God and to share in the wonders God has created. Each day is a day to marvel and give thanks that each is distinctive and does in fact matter. During this “Ordinary Time” we are to not become lackadaisical but instead grow in our devotion life. It is yet another opportunity to read the Word and be in prayer. It is a great time to hear the scriptures in Worship, as the readings concentrate on the early church and the meaning of discipleship. May you live in this so called “Ordinary Time” in extraordinary Godly ways.


                                                                           In the peace and grace of God,                                                                                                                  Pastor Kirk Griffin