With the approach of another program year and the changing of seasons, Bishop Brian Cole reflects on his favorite time of year, the changing of the calendars. What does it mean to make plans? To show up for church events? Find out in the latest Reconciling Thought.
Transcription
Hi, I’m Bishop Brian. I want to talk about my favorite time of the year. My favorite time of the year is now, September. I love calendars and I love planning. And, I love planning together and I love gathering together. And recently, my 2022 Episcopal liturgical appointment calendar, which will go through the end of the year, we received the new 2023 Episcopal Liturgical Appointment Calendar, which begins in Advent.
I love the switching and the changing of the calendars. It reminds me it’s September. It’s fall. Football season is beginning. Churches are regathering with intentional church school offerings. The diocese, we’re about to gather with a targeted invite to small churches around Invite, Welcome, Connect. Later in the fall, there’ll be an evangelism conference (Evangelism for a Whole New World). There’s a clergy conference in late October at Lake Logan.
There’s a discernment retreat for folks in process in November. There’s all kinds of ways this time of the year we are gathering. We gather again after a long, hot summer. So I would encourage you to continue to realize, gathering together, showing up, making that effort to show up is kind of a theological work, right? One of my biggest jobs as your bishop is to show up, is to come see you, is to travel to be with you.
And then, what happens, is the people who are there show up and we meet each other, we encounter each other. And since we are people who trust God to be in our story and to enliven our story, the Spirit is already there. So I show up. You show up. The Spirit shows up. And then God continues to move in our midst.
So often when we make use of our calendars, be right back, we make use of our calendars and we make these plans. If we’re not careful, we think we control things. Really, all we’re doing is making promises to show up or giving an intention to show up, trusting that really it’s the spirit that’s going to move in our midst.
God’s already out there acting in the world. You and I are simply being invited to see it and witness it, to celebrate it, to also grieve things that are changing, but to be open to what is emerging. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of this diocese. Thank you for the ways in which you engage in the life of your parish and know that as well as showing up, you will invite others that you’ll encounter for the first time who are showing up in your community.
Many of our towns and cities in East Tennessee are seeing new people show up and move and be with us. Many of them come with a story already of God or story of God in the Episcopal Church. So they might be looking for you. But knowing other folks maybe who are just needing to community, they need to have a place to learn, to listen, to belong.
So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this season of gathering, gathering again, intentionally showing up for each other, realizing God is already with us. Amen.