Beginnings

Well, we've done it. Before God and everyone. The cards have come in and the votes have been tallied. We've committed and been commissioned. Officially, we have a new budget, a new crop of committee members, and five new deacons to boot. As of this week we have received 45 pledges of financial support totaling $448,054.16 or 72.62% of our needed tithes and offerings for 2026. More than 70 members have committed to the work of the church next year by caring for our children, running the service live stream, serving dinners, and organizing our missions and outreach opportunities. There is still room for more—we still need more—but already we are preparing for the work and witness God has in store for the Highland Hills community next year. As I have thought about where our church is and the opportunities before us, I have come back to a blessing by John O'Donohue for beginnings. In many ways next year will be a continuation of our 70+ year history, and yet it is also the breaking of new ground, the sunlight on the horizon of a new day. I pray that we will find the energy to dream again of who and how God is calling us to be. I pray that we lean into the promise of this new year and allow the Holy Spirit to awaken within us a spirit of adventure and risk and new rhythms that we may come free of all we have outgrown and be more faithfully the church God is calling into. May the grace and peace of Christ go with us into this new and hopeful season.

For a New Beginning

John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.