“In the Last Five Years…”
A lot has happened in my life in the last five years. Since January 2013, in my immediate family alone, we have laid to rest two grandparents; witnessed my mother experience a health setback; moved homes within Decatur and changed high schools for one of our children. Five years ago, I was blissfully running and exercising without complications with two years of continual back pain still two years off in the future. And yoga, currently a twice a week discipline, was another two years off in the future beyond that. In the last five years, we have sold one car and purchased another one. I started wearing glasses and had knee surgery as well. Five years ago, our daughter had not yet begun to play soccer or volleyball. Our youngest son had not started playing the piano and cello. And our oldest son was six inches shorter than I (and not six inches taller)!!
Perhaps the changes in each of your lives over that same time span mirrors those in my own. There may be ups and downs in your past when you look back over the last half-decade; additions and subtractions; changes of all kinds. If so, they also mirror the changes in our church. In the last five years we have undergone a significant renovation to our Friendship Center and West Entrance. We’ve remodeled the Flewelling Chapel. We changed the times of our traditional worship services and started a contemporary one. In January 2013, I had been in my position less than one year and none of the following people – Tina, Ashely, Yvonne, David, Vernon, Andrew, Lora, and Melissa – were on staff yet. In the last five years we have baptized over 25 people and dedicated over 12 infants and children. Yet we have also laid to rest over 50 members and witnessed a dozen more moving away to warmer climates.
I share this exercise with you for two reasons. First, as we said in worship on Sunday (basing our message on Psalm 48), the love of God is steadfast amid all of the changes of life. Even though the conditions of our lives may change over time, the ever-present love of God never will.
Moreover, did you know that it has been five years since we last had a pictorial directory of our church compiled? A lot has changed in our church family since then, as we noted above, as has the technology of church pictorial directories. One goal we have for 2018 is to create an updated one.
To that end, Kevin Miller (of the Public Relations department), Mike Munos (congregational president) and myself are looking to put together a team of people willing to work on this project with us. Bear in mind, those on the team will not do all the work on this pictorial directory. There will likely be many other volunteers we’ll bring in along the way for very specific roles. But for the time being, we’d like to find out who’s interested. Over the next two weeks we will be putting the team together. If you are interested in serving in this regard, please feel free to: 1) call the church office (428-4336); or 2) email ; or 3) email me directly ( ) and let us know of your interest. We’d love to have you help us on this important project.
Blessings – Michael