Rev. Stephanie Backus

Faithful friends,

O Come All Ye Faithful ... Oh, sorry. Don’t mind me. I’m just over here singing Advent Carols already. Why am I already singing songs meant for the winter? Well, I’m already planning our Advent services and for Christmas Eve. A pastor has many jobs – visiting and calling people, counseling people, going to meetings – those are all part of the job, but one of the biggest parts of the job is planning out worship services. Truth be told, I love all the things I do as a pastor, but planning worship is something I am particularly passionate about. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night having dreamt about a service that has not yet happened, and I try to scribble down everything I can remember about it because I know it’s God putting something before me. I had one of those moments this week. Not a dream, but I was working on something completely unrelated when I heard distinctly the verses of John 1. I don’t know what it was, maybe it’s that the choir I’m in is singing an arrangement of John 1 this coming winter, or maybe it was a God moment that I needed to hear, but I heard “In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God and the word was God.” And I stopped what I was doing to read John 1. John 1:1-14 is a really beautiful account of Christ. It is a birth story, sort of. It’s a creation story, sort of. It’s poetic, sort of. It’s transcendent. And I so clearly heard God telling me that this was our Advent worship. So I started planning our Advent services. I worked on our Advent Wreath candle lighting liturgy, and started humming Advent carols to myself in the process. Now, Alex is already in full-blown Christmas music. I know that’s very controversial and ordinarily I might agree that it’s too early to be listening to Christmas music, but if I’m planning for Advent and Christmas right now, I’m not going to stop him from listening to the joyous music of the season, too! So now we’re (mostly) planned through the end of the year for worship. In the fall, we’ll be exploring what it means to be people of God – how we are called to be when we follow Christ. We’ll do that largely through the parables Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew. I’m looking forward to going on a journey through those parables with you. Parables can be challenging, and Jesus tells some particularly challenging ones in Matthew’s gospel. We’ll hear Christ’s expectations for the church, for his followers, and for the Kingdom of God as a whole this fall. And during Advent, we’ll dive deep into John 1 and Isaiah. Peace and blessings to you and yours this season, Pastor Stephanie

Peace,

Pastor Stephanie Backus

Stephanie.backus@gmail.com 573-418-2123