Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year in the life? How about love?
Measuring in love seems absolutely right. Those words come from the song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent. And, I think it gives us exactly the right lens with which to look back over this one hundred and first year in the life of Ginter Park Baptist Church. This has been an intense year of transition and milestones as we stepped out in faith toward an uncertain future.
One year ago, as we celebrated our one-hundredth anniversary, none of us knew where we would be the following year. We didn’t know where we would be physically – where we would gather together to be church – and we didn’t know where we would be spiritually – what condition we would find ourselves in after enduring so much change. During worship on our one-hundredth anniversary Sunday our theme was “Living Into Our Future.” The songs, scriptures, and words of worship centered on our shared hope and faith that the God who has been with us from our beginning would be with us in those days and in all our days to come. As I pause to reflect over the past year in the life of our church, I give thanks for the many ways God has been with us. There have been blessings beyond what we ever imagined.
How do we measure a year? In people welcomed, forgiven, loved. In backpacks, and food drives, and in compassion for those in need. In prayers said, in marches marched, in young ministers trained up. In songs sung, and anthems raised, in bells rung. In laughter, in meals shared, in scriptures explored. In hellos and in goodbyes and in those precious moments beside the death bed of our dear ones. In packing lists, doors closed, tears shed, and in learning a new thing. In stories, in banners, in ashes. In candles lit, in flowers on a cross, in bread broken and in cup shared.
As we mark our one-hundred and first anniversary, I look forward to all the things God has in store for us that are greater than we can imagine. May this next year in our life together be a season of love.