There comes a time in our faith journey where we are given the opportunity to reflect on what has come before us.
We spend time with the Bible, understanding our historical and theological context. We spend time in our communities of faith, learning and growing together to better understand our call to discipleship. We have a variety of ways to educate ourselves and share it with those around us, to learn from one another, and to grow in faith.
Sometimes however, it is important to go back to our biblical roots and talk about the ways that we are able to relate it to our modern context, the lessons that we can draw from our past to navigate our future.
The Kelseyville and Middletown United Methodist churches are going to spend our final months leading up to the Christmas season focusing on the ways that we are able to do just this, to draw from what has come before us through our lens of modern Christianity. We will be doing this by focusing on Paul’s letter to the church of Philippi, which gives us a rich variety of text that we can use to navigate our world.
Our opening Sunday of the Philippians sermon series, we will focus primarily on chapter 9 “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight” (NRSV).
As we prepare ourselves to take this 9-week journey into the book of Philippians, our intention will be to pull out the ways that Paul encourages those in Philippi to live into their faith journey. The first way that Paul describes is though knowledge. We have to be in a place where we are able to put the work in, a place where we want to go deeper and have more knowledge about our faith roots.
We live in a world where there is so much information that we have access to all the time, and sometimes having most answers right at your fingertips can be a little overwhelming. The more we spend in discussion and reflection, the more we will be challenged, uplifted, and rooted in what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
This week will serve as a starting point to where we are and where we want to go.
Melissa Hurley is Pastor at Kelseyville United Methodist Church and Middletown Community United Methodist Church. Please join us in Kelseyville at 9am or Middletown at 11 a.m. as we explore the book of Philippians and it’s relevance in our modern lives. All are welcome.
