From Pastor Kendra
December 2025
We are approaching the end of the year with all of the busyness and obligation that comes with it.
Our calendars are filling up. Our to-do lists are getting long. We are getting ready for company, getting ready to travel, or getting ourselves ready for a quiet holiday. We are cooking, cleaning, shopping, wrapping, mailing cards & presents, and running from place to place to get everything done. It’s exhausting. And at the end of it all comes New Year where we are expected to stop everything, minimize, organize, and head into 2026 efficiently with diet plans firmly in place. The shift always feels like slamming on the brakes with no warning. Realistically, I think a healthy balanced life lives somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. What does it look like to do less in a culture that expects us to do everything? Conversely, what does it look like to do more in a culture that expects us to purge everything and live in self-denial?
Christianity has a tendency to fall into both of those traps. We must be all things to all people while simultaneously minimizing & denying ourselves. The truth, however, is that Jesus calls us to do neither of those things. We are called to be the best versions of ourselves. Often that means looking different than those around us. We don’t have to be everything we only have to be us. Logically, we cannot truly be ourselves if we are denying who we really are in order to fit into some preconceived notion of what makes a ‘good Christian’.
Over the course of January, we will be looking at who we are as individuals and how we are called to serve Christ, each other, our community, and our world. What does it mean to be baptized, called, & sent forth to serve? How does the time we live in need each of us uniquely? Why does it matter? Instead of starting this year looking at all the ways society has told us we have failed, we will look at our strengths and plan accordingly. We will not be striving for a ‘new you’ in the new year, but the same you strengthened and called.