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Pastoral Reflections


Rev. Dr. Jack Haberer Beloved FPCA Friend,


Ah, the cool breezes of fall! Don’t you love them? Or perhaps on the day you are reading this, you are longing for such a cool break. Well, if not wafting around you today, they will be blowing shortly.


For those attending school, fall beckons with new beginnings: new teachers, new classrooms, new classmates, sometimes a new school or even a new home address. It’s similar for all of us in the church. Indeed, at First Presbyterian Church, this fall the newness is sparking squeals of glee.


After months of imagining and planning, we are unveiling a concerted, multigenerational, thematic approach to faith formation. At its core it bubbles up a theme: “Rooted in Christ: Growing as Disciples in Community.” Tis simple- sounding theme is so multifaceted that it will take a whole school year to dissect it.


Our preaching will do that week by week.


Ten again, we’re offering more than multifaceted preaching. We’re also rolling out a new way to do Sunday School, a.k.a. Church School. Our K-through-fifth-grade faith formation classes are now tackling topics each Sunday consistent with the sermons that parents and grandparents are hearing. Ready to have a good family conversation on the ride home and over lunch? Te “kids’ meals” being served in the classes are complementing the “big people’s meals” in worship services, thereby inviting cross-generational discussions.


What’s more, the program for these elementary children is “like VBS on steroids,” as Pastor Stephen Emick keeps saying. From storytelling to acting, from painting to singing, from sculpting to dancing, the learning activities are captivating curious imaginations and prompting sincere adoration of God’s heart (see page 10).


Allow me to be candid with you. I had barely arrived here last fall when I began hearing the refrain “I so wish we still had Youth Club here.” If ever one appeal summarized the sense


of the “good ol’ days” at FPCA, it was that longing for a return to that Tuesday afternoon-evening program for children. However, a steady shrinkage of Youth Club participation here and all across the country had prompted the shuttering of that effort. Lacking a clear alternative, its termination created a gap in our program calendar and a loss in the lives of children and their parents.


Te Faith Formation Team redoubled its efforts to formulate an alternative that wouldn’t get swamped by kids’ after-school sports, arts, club, and social activities. Tey determined to find a new sweet spot: just the right mix of learning, activities, and timing.


Tanks be to God, their countless hours of research and plotting catalyzed a new composite they have dubbed “DIG.” It combines the Rotation Workshop structure with a worship framework designed by and for our church kids and friends. And it will work all of that into the best time possible in the kids’ schedules—namely, Sunday mornings. Its implementation incorporates the giftings of parents and other kids-at-heart of all ages.


To be sure, the kids and tweens will be looking for your gifts to be put to work for their sakes.


Of course, this all comes on the heels of the build-out of our new playground, which we have erected for the children of church and city—as additional gifts to help children mature in faith and friendship, growing as disciples in community. Put it all together and we’re in for an autumn that will be marked not just by cool breezes or even the changing colors of fall foliage, but also by the energetic launch into new vistas of learning as ones Rooted in Christ: Growing as Disciples in Community.


Grace and peace to you and yours, I am about to do a new thing;


now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? —ISAIAH 43:19


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