Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. - Psalm 25:4-5 It’s the time of year when students return to school fulltime, with more or less anticipation or groaning. It’s the time of year when teachers return to school full-time, with more or less anticipa-tion or groaning. The enterprise of raising up children in the way they should go occupies our community calendar, changes traffic patterns, affects bedtimes and meal times, in short, it changes everything. With less fanfare, the Church offers opportunities for students of all ages to seek instruction in the way we should go. Gifted, called, and willing folks prepare and present lessons and watch over their flocks to seek good outcomes for those they teach. Is this a season of anticipation for you? (or groaning?)

Discipleship is the ministry of raising all our folks to spiritual maturity and equipping them for the good works that God is preparing for them beforehand. Those are bigger goals than anything our schools attempt or accomplish. We should stop traffic, get to bed early, eat a healthy breakfast on Sunday and a big lunch on the day our growth group meets. After all, our ministry of Disciple-ship changes everything – for the disciple and for the church.

This month and next you’ll get a series of invitations to be a change agent – as a participant or as a leader in a small group, a teacher in Sunday School, a host to a group someone else leads, to sponsor an event that moves people toward growth and to pray for everyone involved in these good works. Please pray, be prepared, say “yes” to something new and do your part. In the next year, I’m pretty sure we’re going to change a bunch of everything.

See you in church!

Pastor Jim