Grace Presbyterian Church, Montclair, New Jersey

Menu for This Section

• Pastor's Pulse
• View from the Loft

Pastor's Pulse

by Paul Leggett, Pastor

Into the New Year

January 2007

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news” – Mark 1:15

There’s a famous New Year’s Peanuts strip where Lucy starts complaining that she doesn’t think the new year is really new.  She insists that nothing has changed.  “We’ve been given a recycled year!” she loudly protests.  It’s often the case with ourselves that we don’t think anything really new is happening in our lives.  We go through the passage of one year to the next and it can seem that the years just all slide into each other.  We often feel that the same resolutions we made last year need to be made again this year, but probably with the same negligible results.

These feelings are real but they aren’t the whole story.  This month we’re going to begin a study of the Gospel of Mark.  The gospel continually reminds us of the words of Jesus: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”  The kingdom of God has not yet fully come, but in the words of the apostle Paul it is nearer than when we first believed (Romans 13:11).  We need to remember that the new year really is new because all things are being made new in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rev. 21:5).  For that matter we are still living into a new century as well as in a new period of history with its own special challenges and opportunities.  As in every era we need to call people to “repent and believe the good news.”

There are some specific goals I believe we can set for ourselves as a congregation.  We need continually to do more to build up our worship.  Worship prepares us for all of life.  It needs to be empowering, comforting, challenging and provocative—all at once, somehow.  Yet in the Holy Spirit that is not only possible but it is to be expected.  We need to draw on many resources to both deepen and broaden our worship.  This should be one of our goals for 2007.

Another goal I would mention is the building up of ourselves as a community of faith.  We are a very varied and diverse congregation.  The congregation is not only split by two worship services but by a host of other activities and events both within the church and in the many events of our individual lives.  Yet as Christians we are called to be one body in Christ (Romans 12:4-5).  To do this we need to know each other.  This requires more than a polite “hello” on Sunday (or even on other days of the week).  It calls us to a form of intimacy where we can begin to do the work of “carrying one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).  We saw some of this at the conclusion of our Adventure in Faith weekend back in September.  However we need to do more, and at the same time we are all faced with the pressures of time and schedule.  Nonetheless, if we really commit ourselves to this goal in dependence on the Holy Spirit, we can know more of the “life in the Spirit” not only on special occasions but regularly.

Finally, we need to continue to lift up the goal of discipleship.  It is not enough to believe in Christ, to worship, pray and study.  We need to live out the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We cannot do this on our own.  We need each other.  We need to think of ways to hold each other accountable to the faith we profess.  As we go forward into this new year we do so with the confidence that the Kingdom of God is really coming nearer every day.  We need to be living into that kingdom right now.