One of the first people I ever talked to for any length of time that was connected to this congregation was Kathy Dailey. Kathy's name was given to Tracy and me by Dan Gillis as we began to make decisions about moving to Alabaster. Kathy works in the real estate industry and was pivotal in our finding our house in Grande View. As we traveled up and down back and forth on the roads of Alabaster, Kathy and I had ample opportunity to talk. A lot of our talk was about church. How does church affect your life? What does it mean to live and work as a Christian disciple? How do you apply faith to parenting? We had wonderful discussions. Those discussions made the rigors of house hunting more acceptable.

As we talked it never occurred to me that Kathy was not a member of the church. Not in an official way. Oh, there was no doubt that Kathy was joined with this congregation. This was her home. These were her people. This was her faith family. But, until this past Sunday Kathy had never made a conscious, disciplined decision to live out her life committed to the work of the kingdom as a member of a church. And that kind of commitment is important.

Commitment is important for all of us. At every level. As people of God we are to be committed to our families. To our work. To our activity in our cities and towns. To bringing about honest, effective government. To providing safe places for children to play and learn. To our schools. To our church. God's call of dedicated, disciplined discipleship is meant to reach into every corner of our existence and affect the way we live. In May of this year, I wrote about the importance of claiming Jesus as Mentor over our living. I have continued to be led in that direction of thought; believing that if we understand and embrace Jesus' teachings of radical change and offending grace and unending mercy and acceptance – well, there's no end to what we can accomplish.

This past Sunday we were witness once again to the power of God at work in ordinary people to accomplish the extraordinary. There's no telling what God will do through the life and ministry of Kathy Dailey. And no telling what God will do through the life and ministry of the whole people of God in this congregation. We do know this: Kathy is different because of God at work in us, and we are different because of God at work in her. A good continuation of that knowledge would be to see how great a difference, together, we can make in the world. And, so the story begins. Or, is continued. It is exciting to turn the page!!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Mark