Call to Prayer and New Year Reflection
Special Call to Prayer
The news from Southern California is intense and frightening—many of us have family or friends who are in the path of the fires and damage from strong winds. Please join me in praying for the safety of the people affected, and also of the first responders who are working to save lives and property.
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who makes all things new…even the years!
I hope your Christmas celebrations were a blessing to you and yours. It’s such a busy season, but hopefully with some time for rest and connection. This was our (mine and Shelley’s) first Christmas working in different churches, which was quite the cultural change for us. It was busy right up until Christmas Eve, and we drove to the Los Angeles area on Christmas morning to spend time with our families.
And so we begin a new year…
In the devotional that I use, there is a prayer that I like for starting a new season or a new year. It was written by John Baillie, a famous Scottish theologian of the 20th century. Here’s what he prayed:
Give me grace, I pray, to know you so well and to see you so clearly that in knowing you I may know myself as completely as you know me; and in seeing you I may see myself as I really am before you…Help me today to keep my thoughts centered on the life and death of Jesus Christ my Lord, so that I may see all things in the light of the redemption which you have granted to me in his name. Amen.
I’m not sure I would have prayed that prayer if hadn’t been written for me. How about you? We don’t often willingly enter into that kind of careful self-reflection and self-examination, but it’s worth doing as a way of starting a new year fresh.
That’s my invitation to you. Make this your prayer as we all start 2025 together. There is so much good work and fruitful worship ahead—it’s good to make ourselves ready for it.
Blessings to you and yours in this new year,
Pastor John
About the upcoming messages… We’ll be entering into our annual series on what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ. If you’ve been around these past few years, you know the sentence that I’ll be saying each week: “A healthy church is built on a foundation of Jesus Christ, and expressed through Fellowship, Worship, Discipleship and Mission.” Those four expressions will be the focus of our next messages together.
One last note. Over this past year my recovery from heart surgery has been very positive—everything continues to go well and my prognosis is for many years of healthy life. I have, though, turned out to be a little more susceptible to colds and flu than I used to be. In the interest of staying healthy and being able to do my work as your pastor, I may be a little more careful about shaking hands and giving hugs. It’s nothing personal! I’m just going to try harder to keep from picking up the normal bugs and viruses that we all come into contact with. Thanks so much for understanding! JD