December 2025

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. - Isaiah 43:19

The Season of Advent, marks the new year in the church calendar. This is a season where we acknowledge the need for change. We call upon God to come help us. We hear the promise of God’s coming messiah.

 This season our theme asks the question: What Do You Fear?

 It didn’t take long for my own answers to come to mind, how about you? There is plenty to fear on the front of the newspaper every day: Soaring healthcare costs, rising prices because of the tariffs, Climate change, conflict, an uncertain economy and leaders who would rather fight than advocate for their people. Maybe you fear for the state of democracy, maybe you fear for the future of the next generation, regardless, we need a Savior more than ever!

 This fall, our Tuesday men’s Bible study has been reading through the book of Exodus. We’ve only just finished the call story of Moses. The thing that we’ve found there is the beginning of a pattern that we see repeated over and over throughout the Bible. Exodus begins with God hearing the cries in the groaning of the children of Abraham, the children of promise, groaning under the burden of their maltreatment as slaves in Egypt.

When God hears God‘s people cry out and chooses to act, what do you suppose the first thing God does is? When God heard the prayers, the “groans” of the enslaved Israelites, God acted by calling Moses. And do you know what the first thing Moses does is? The first thing Moses does is tell God that the call is just too big for a person.

 In the midst of fear and overwhelming odds, God calls and works through people like you and me. God leads regular people to issue a vision of hope and a new beginning. God calls faithful people and through God’s Word leads them out of fear and into God‘s new way of living.

 God called young Eli and the prophet Samuel. God calls Elijah and Jeremiah and Isaiah. In the stories will read in the season of Advent we will hear God’s call to Zachariah and John the Baptist and the young mother Mary.

In this season of new life in new beginnings at first will be having some big conversations about where God is calling us as a community, and what that new vision of new creation might look like in our own neighborhoods.

 We’ve called Our, Isaiah 43 mission team to begin the hard work of listening for God‘s call and discerning God‘s vision for the next step in our life and ministry. Each Wednesday in December, we will gather at a different church for Holden evening, prayer and fellowship with Faith-Lilac Way and Cross of Glory.

 Every year, whatever the situation, we are called to begin Advent with Hope. In this season of music and gratitude, in this season of promise, may you hear the Good News of “the Light that shines in the darkness.” May this be a season of new beginnings, new callings, and a celebration of a God who listens to us, cares for us, and loves us so deeply that God would come and dwell here among us through Jesus.

Thanks and peace,

Pr Colin