Pastor Joel

Fall 2026

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

––Revelation 21:5a

“I am making.” In the ancient common Greek vocabulary of the book of Revelation, this small sentence, this divine statement, is one word — “ποιῶ” — “I am making.” Neither I made in the past nor I’ll get around to making in the future but “I am making” here and now. Our spirituality as Christian people centers around one word: the one Word of God — the one Word proclaimed in sacred scripture — the one word made flesh in Jesus Christ — the one word, which still the Holy Spirit inspires in our midst here and now. God’s Word is a creative word, not because it has the potential to be creative, but because it has the character of being creative in all times and places.

The God who speaks to us, ultimately leaving this word “I am making” to echo in our spiritual ears, is a God who is characteristically creative. We know that God Is Love. We trust God to be gracious and merciful. We find God to be consistently creative. And our consistently and characteristically creative Creator is therefore a God we cannot pin down to keep in one place!

As we’ve welcomed this fall, we found a new holiday in our liturgical calendar: a feast of Creation in Christ. Jewish tradition recalls the anniversary of creation in the autumn of our northern hemisphere, celebrating the new year — Rosh Hashanah — in memory of the creation of our first parents. This autumn anniversary of creation is quickly followed by the Jewish day of atonement — Yom Kippur — and we might marvel at the connection between a creation God calls “very good” immediately followed by a new creation of a new goodness through atonement, mercy, peace, love, faith and grace. Our feast of Creation in Christ is similarly rooted in fidelity to this creative Creator: from Orthodox Christian tradition, we recall God’s creation of the cosmos in this season (officially assigned to September 1) and we immediately yoke all of creation to the re-creating work of God in Christ. “See, I am making all things new,” says Christ. “See, I am making all things new,” says God’s creative Word. What is complete is also making all things new.

I have been pondering our congregational acronym — SMLC: Supports Making Life Creative — SMLC: Spirituality Makes Life Creative. Both are valid. As a congregation, we engage a vital ministry for our community in support of creativity. We host music educators, dancers, recitals, concerts. As body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ, we stitch and sew and draw and sing and ring and plant and quilt and write. These are not tangential to our identity, but rather reflective of Christ — as much as it is reflective of Christ for us to support God’s children through ministries of preschool, Family Focus, scouting, the Refugio in Ecuador, children’s smiles in China, et cetera. Because we worship and follow and conform our lives to the one Word who says “I am making” we are a spiritual community that is bound to creative work. Creative in art. Creative in science and engineering. Creative in soil and water. Creative in learning and growing. Creative in play.

Christian creativity calls us to be compassionately constructive for the confronting and calming of contemporary concerns. What was and what will be belong to God’s past and future; we stand with God in Christ for all the Great I Am is newly making among us now. I witness Christ’s work in you and among our neighbors; it enthralls me to behold a continually new Creation in Christ through your faith and loving service, as our vision claims, “to embrace all in response to God.”

Yours in the refreshing peace of Jesus’ making, Pastor Joel