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Welcome to 2023! I don’t know about you, but 2023 looks like it’s going to be a big year for me! Casey and I are presidents of this year’s Northwest Christian Convention, which is exciting but also a lot of work! To be honest, however, the convention is not the most exciting thing about 2023 for me. The thing I’m most excited about this year is my new year’s resolution—or, should I say, our new year’s resolution. For the past 18 months I’ve been doing a lot of reading about evangelism, and I’ve reached a conclusion: evangelism is only part of the picture. As important as evangelism is, it’s only one part of the ultimate mission God has given His people:

“The most important [command],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29‐31, NIV)

Evangelism is part of the great command we have been given by Jesus: to love God, and to love our neighbors. This leads me to our new year’s resolution. I was struck by the fact that Turner Oregon labels itself “the good neighbor town.” If that’s who Turner is, then who should be the best neighbors in this “good neighbor town?” Shouldn’t it be the people who have been commanded to love their neighbors? So that’s my new year’s resolution for our church: we will become a congregation of people who are dedicated to loving our neighbors.

Now, notice how I phrased that. We are not going to be a congregation that loves its neighbors. We are not going to create a bunch of new programs so the whole church can love its neighbors as a group. We are going to be a congregation of people who love their own neighbors. Each one of us is commanded to love the people we live and work with. This is not about a church program—it’s about your everyday life.

We are going to pursue this resolution in several ways:

Sermon Series: this year our sermons will be dedicated to uncovering everything the Bible teaches us about why and how to love our neighbors. We’ll start in January with a series called “The Blessing” that will follow the first generations of God’s family (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob & Jacob’s sons) in their struggle to love their neighbors.

All Church January Class: during the month of January, we will spend the Sunday school hour gathering as a church to cast a vision for this new mission. On January 15th, 22nd and 29th we will gather together to talk about what it could look like for the members of Turner Christian Church to have a real impact on their own neighborhoods.

Sunday School Classes: our new Sunday School classes will launch on February 5th. We will be reading and discussing two books: The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak and David Runyon, and Placed for a Purpose by Chris & Elizabeth McKinney. We will divide into two smaller classes, but both will cover the same material. (If you’re wondering why we aren’t offering another class, it’s because this topic is so important that I want our full focus on it this winter. In the future we’ll go back to offering multiple options).

All Church Gatherings: during the winter semester we’ll take several breaks in our Sunday school classes in order to gather as a church and discuss our mission to love our neighbors. We hope to bring in speakers from our community who can talk to us about real, practical solutions to challenges in our town.

There’s more coming down the pike, but that’s enough to get us started into our new resolution. I hope you will embrace this new focus with me—I truly believe that this is the direction our church has been moving in since before I ever got here, and I am so excited to see what our congregation can do as we go out and love our neighbors!

Happy New Year!

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About Beauty!

“Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, Late have I loved you!” ‐Augustine, Confessions

Beauty often evokes a sense of longing. In a perfect sunset, when everyone we love most is seated around the same table, or when a sleeping child snuggles close, we feel the perfection, and we notice the dissonance. The moment will end. The child will wake. The sunset fades into night. The singer might hit a wrong note, the dancer might stumble or fall―eventually even the best performers will leave the stage. Beauty reflects a beautiful, creative, passionate God. Beauty’s imperfections reflect the reality of the brokenness of our world, and the sin nature. Beauty brings us to longing for the days when perfection will never end, where everything will truly be beautiful (Romans 8:19-23).

As the Christmas season fades, and family members head home, the coming winter months can cast a feeling of bleakness. We don’t often experience the gray of January and February the same way we do the lights of Christmas and parties, and the flowers and growing days of early spring. In beauty’s absence we might also long more desperately for Jesus, but sometimes our desperation can lead us down dark paths, rather than growing in things like patience, hope, and love.

What would it look like to invite beauty intentionally into your experience this winter? What would it look like to rejoice with family and friends all that God has made beautiful, all that God has inspired in humans, on the darkest days? As I am writing this I am listening to BWV 199, IV. Tief gebuckt und voler reue by J.S. Bach and performed by one of my high school classmates, Anna Schubert. Her soaring Soprano praises God in this beautiful confessional piece. My world is a little bit brighter right now, as I appreciate the beauty of her voice, and as I look out the window at winter trees and think about the world that God has made.

Some suggestions on encountering God in beauty:

1. Intentionally draw your mind back to the Lord as you experience beauty. Thank Him for what he has created! Share your thoughts with Him. If a verse comes to mind, linger on it. What might God be offering you?

2. What might you learn about other humans through their art? Can you grow in love, patience, gentleness or peace as you encounter their work? Discussing that which you find beautiful with others can also help create shared experiences for growth.

3. Intentionally share the experience. Watch the musical with friends. Grab your spouse for the morning walk. Read the poem aloud, listen to the favorite song together. Delight in and with community.

4. Be open to new experiences. God often grows us through the uncomfortable. Listen to the ways others experience beauty. Be open to music, art, and nature that’s not your preference.

Some beautiful suggestions:

Take a walk in a familiar place, and ask God to help you notice new and beautiful things about His creation.

Take time thinking about the physical beauty and beauty of character that God has given your spouse. Thank God for it. Consider sharing with your spouse what you appreciate.

Listen to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald perform What a Wonderful World.

Visit an art museum. Take a friend.

Read the poem Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales by Billy Collins.

Read Aggressively Happy: A Realist’s Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life by Joy Clarkson (available in the church library).

Read Psalm 148, and then respond to it. Maybe write your own song or poem of praise to God, or draw/paint a picture showing all creation praising their Creator.

For those that would like to share, I would love to hear about your experiences with beauty and how it has/or is deepening your relationship with God. Please don’t hesitate to email me, call the office, or chat with me at church.

--Rachel

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