Pastor's Note | Saturday, September 6th

I'll give you the bad news first: Summer is over.

And now the good news: Fall is here!

As students head back to school and adults return to a busy season at work, many of us mourn the loss of summer's long days, time spent leisurely laying (or actively playing!) on the beach - perhaps we even took time for a vacation. Whether you were able to travel or not, imagine with me, for a moment, that you enjoyed a European vacation during the summer months. 

Imagine touring the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, to view some of history's most famous works of art. Think of gazing upon Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, or St. John the Baptist, or Paolo Veronese's The Wedding at Cana. Each of them - and countless others - priceless works of art!

After a day or two (depending on how much you like art museums!), imagine trading crepes for pasta, and your sore feet getting some rest aboard a flight from Paris to Rome.

Arriving in the Vatican, imagine touring not a museum, but rather entering a chapel. But not just any chapel - the Chapel: The Sistine Chapel! Imagine staring up at the ceiling for as long as your neck can muster.

In the Louvre, you gazed upon countless masterpieces, each painted on a single canvas. The Sistine Chapel, however, captures the full sweep of human history. Randy Frazee, one of the authors of The Story, writes,

The Louvre and the Sistine Chapel - two different venues for creative expression. Both display astounding art. The Louvre tells thousands of unrelated stories. The Sistine Chapel, on the other hand, tells only one. On the surface, you and I - along with billions of other humans - are individual paintings hanging on the wall of some cosmic gallery, distinct and unrelated to each other. But if you look closer, you will see that your story is intricately woven into the same seamless narrative depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: God's story as recorded in the Bible. One story as seen through many lives.

As we begin our journey through The Story this Sunday, it is my great hope and prayer that we will recognize how our unrelated stories fit together, with one another, in the Story our God is writing - that we are a part of God's Story! I pray this will allow children and students and adults to engage God's story together. It is my hope that "The Whole Bible. The Whole Year. The Whole Family." would not just be a tagline!

So, again, the bad news: Summer is over. 

But, the good news: The Story is here!

If you haven't yet joined a small group for this powerful and engaging study, sign up today or stop by the table on the patio this Sunday morning! Don't miss out!

Curtis