The Wisdom of Ecclesiastes reminds us of how God has created life to be lived by a certain rhythm. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…God has made everything suitable for its time… We do not always understand the rhythms of life and unexpected interruptions, but we can trust God to hold every season in holy hands and bestow upon it meaning and purpose.
I always welcome the arrival of summer and its change in rhythm with the long break from school, vacations, and reunions. BMPC also finds our congregational life enjoying a different rhythm of things. Lemonade on the Lawn replaces Coffee in the Court after Worship; the regular rhythm of church school classes for children and youth give way to Vacation Bible Camp and special mission trips; some working groups take a Sabbath rest and others use the slower time of summer to do advance planning for coming seasons.
The preachers and music staff have created a summer series to provide continuity for worship this summer. Even as we move into a season of many of us coming and going, this series celebrates God’s providential care in all the seasons of life. Based on the Old Testament stories we teach to our two and three-year-olds, with art work adorning our bulletin covers from the curriculum of our four and five-year-olds, we hope that worship will be a truly intergenerational experience as we explore treasured Bible stories many recall from childhood: the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and the basket, Hannah, Samuel, Daniel and the Lions, Joshua and the wall.
Our hope is that children who come to worship in the summer with their families will remember and relive the telling of these stories they learned in Sunday School, and that the child in each of us will be drawn into a deeper sense of God’s presence with us and our world. So when you are in town in the coming months, I encourage you not to miss one of the great classic stories of our faith!
