Newsletter – Page 4 – Ark City United Methodist Church

One of my favorite contemporary Christian songs comes from Steven Curtis Chapman. It’s called, “The Great Adventure.”

Promises like the one from Jesus in Mark 11:24 make me nervous. In making this admission, I’m admitting two things:

My father-in-law, David Leeper, of blessed memory, had a dirt works construction company. Among other things, he made terraces in fields, dug ponds, and built locations for oil rigs.

You know the old adage: “Time flies while you’re having fun.” It’s true. It has been a year since I started serving as your pastor and time has flown by.

It is amazing to me that a year has passed already since I became your pastor. As I stop for a moment to take stock and to look down the road a bit, a nautical term comes to my mind: “steady as she goes.”

I am sure I am not the only person who is flabbergasted at how quickly 2023 is passing. Entering the month of May, we stand right on the edge of the summer schedule.

Spring officially began on Monday, March 20, at 4:24 p.m., our time. The hours of sunlight and the hours of darkness roughly match at about 12 hours.

It’s not common that we think of Lent as a time of joy. The Ash Wednesday service is solemn: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Every January, each UM congregation files an annual statistical report with our annual conference. Like the beginning of a new year, it gives us the opportunity to take stock of where we are as a congregation.

What are we doing here? This question provides our theme for at least the next several weeks in worship. It is a very important question to ask on a regular basis.

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