Created. Called. Connected.
Posted 09/01/2023 by The Rev. Patricia Rose
As part of being human, we long to feel God with us and to feel deep connections with one another. We long to feel nourished physically and spiritually by the beauty and gifts of our precious home, planet Earth. And we long to give the best of who we are back to life, to shine, and to contribute.
We have been fashioned by God to have these longings. Like homing beams or lighthouses, they lead us to live into the freedom and love that God has given us to know. When we move toward fulfilling these divinely-planted longings, we become physically healthier and feel calmer, stronger, and more alive. As St. Augustine put it, we are restless until we rest in God.
This year’s formation programming theme is “Created. Called. Connected.” and centers around learning ways to follow these inner beacons to the Way of Love, the Way of Christ.
This theme taps into values and needs that are evident here at St. Paul’s. Programs will focus on how we cultivate being Connected with one another in the parish, in the community, with creation, and with God. We see our hunger for connection in the growing sense of disconnection, loneliness, and subsequent anxiety in our frenetically paced, media-driven society.
We feel our innate longing and need for connection with our earthly home, this precious gift created for us by God, as we face the mounting crisis of heedless ongoing human destruction of that home. Parishioners have expressed deep concern about this crisis and a desire to address it. Programs will focus on what it means to be Created, to be part of creation and stewards of creation, and to be endowed with gifts to be creative. We are able to endlessly create beauty, art, music, tides of comfort, innovations to protect and enrich life, and words of wisdom. So generous is our Creator as to entrust us with the gifts to be co-creators in the unfolding of God’s love on earth.
This speaks to the final part of this year’s theme: Called. We are called to serve life and love. Each of us is unique: there is only one of us that can give what we have been given to give. We matter. Our gifts are precious, and we feel enlivened when we contribute. It satisfies our heart’s desires like nothing else can.
These themes will be addressed in many ways in our Adult Forums. We will also offer a new small group series called Centered, which is designed to help us experience a deeper, more palpable sense of connection with God and one another, and thus with ourselves. This series will begin in October. There will be 9 sessions in which the same group members proceed together from beginning to end, building trust and depth, yielding plentiful fruit within us. The groups will share food, prayer, watch a short film, and discuss questions about God, belonging, and living a meaningful life. Group members will support one another in committing to intentionally follow Jesus’s Way of Love. It will be a rich opportunity to experience connection with God and one another. More details will follow.
Alongside these programs, there will be Bible study, men’s and women’s spirituality groups, contemplative prayer, and special programs along the way. Come join us to meet your deepest longings and follow Christ’s invitation to abide in love.
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