My 2023 New Year's resolution is to only eat candy one day a week. Which will work out perfectly since we have so much Christmas candy laying around- my candy-breakfast, candy-lunch, and candy-dinner will get rid of that in no time. 

(Stole that joke from Eliot.)

I tend to get a large number of emails from 24 Hour Fitness right before the new year encouraging me to start up a membership with them again. I remember when I first joined, they told me they have all kinds of discounts in January because so many people join in the new year- and then by February the number of people actually using the gym drastically drops.  

There sure is a lot of pressure to have a New Year's resolution, isn't there? Add another activity, hobby, diet, job, etc. to your schedule and your life and expect to see it all the way through the year. 

On Sunday Pastor Mark Nsimbi is going to dive into Luke, chapter 10 to kick-off our new sermon series on spiritual disciplines: Creating Space for God. Mark will help us unpack the story of Mary and Martha. When Jesus visits their home Martha is busy and working hard to be hospitable to Jesus- and she actually gets frustrated at Mary, because Mary isn't helping Martha. Mary is just sitting and listening to what Jesus is saying. She's just...being in the presence of Jesus. To which Jesus encourages Martha to slow down and listen to him like Mary. 

Maybe we do have New Year's resolutions that require making more time for exercise, learning new things, or getting better at something- and we can do those things if we carve out time for them. But maybe also we can just carve out time to be in the presence of Jesus like Mary. And what would that look like? Would it be going for a walk? Listening to worship music? Praying or writing? Or maybe it would be just listening, like Mary? 

Mark says in his sermon summary that it's actually the slowing down that will allow us to process our inner journey, therefore helping us to keep from anxiety and worry. 

Let's start with Sunday. We'll worship together, pray together, and listen to the teachings of Jesus together. 

We'd love to have you. 

See you 10:30am in our sanctuary or online. 

Peace be with you,

Chelsea Maitland