Richmond's Rumblings

Richmond’s Rumblings

 In looking through our November, December, and Advent schedule, I am ecstatic as to how active we are! It seems as if we have special events each Sunday between the first of November with All Saint’s Day and our Christmas Eve service on December 24. There are activities scheduled for the men’s choir, our children’s performances, our Ladies’ Luncheons are apparently attracting new attendees, while we as a congregation have been visited by several couples and individuals throughout the summer! It’s awfully hard not to put an exclamation point after every sentence in this article, but it is exciting what we are experiencing as a people of God in Neosho.

All to the point, it is clear that God is doing something among us and through us. I might even venture to suggest that people around our area are getting word that what we offer is rooted in accepting relationships rather than, as it was with many of us perhaps, affirmation only after we recited a series of expected statements whether we might have worries about them or not. Several people may well be unaware that we hope that people will ask questions, seek their own way, and understand that God moves within them differently than God does through the person sitting next to them in the sanctuary. We reflect, in short, what the Apostle Paul describes as his own experience of coming to a greater understanding of God in Jesus Christ through his letter to the congregation in Galatia (Galatians 1:17-20). Like Paul, we seek to understand that people need to take their own time and let God work among them in order to accept what has already been given. Part of what we are giving is the variety of activities between now, during Advent, and culminating with our Christmas Eve Service. God promises to be continually present, but more than as such, God promises to be moving, alive, and opening the path to transforming experiences (even subconscious ones, I think) for all of God’s children who are in our church over these next eight weeks. We are being given a wonderful gift, and I want to write some more exclamation points as to how we are seeking to live it!! God bless to you and those you love…

Shalom, Live Long, and Prosper,

Richmond