St. Luke's United Methodist Church

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4851 S. Apopka-Vineland Road
Orlando, FL 32819
407.876.4991
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A Note from St. Luke’s Pastors-December 29, 2022

Posted on December 25, 2022 at 1:56 pm in .

Dear St. Lukers,

Happy almost New Year, and Merry fifth day of Christmas!

We pray you have had a beautiful holiday, and that you experienced the Christ child moving into your neighborhood, home, and heart. Thank you to all the musicians, volunteers, staff, and technical teams who made our Christmas Eve services so beautiful. Now it’s time to prepare for 2023! In fact, we are excited to be spending the first two months of the new year digging into a vision for our individual lives, and for St. Luke’s. Starting this week, we are claiming a year of 23 and ME, and 23 and WE!

A lot of us will be making goals, choosing theme words for the year, trying to find a new focus for what we want to accomplish, or who we want to become in this gift of a new year. What if instead of trying to accomplish all of these things through our own resources, we recognized and claimed our “faith DNA,” and who and what we have been wired by God to become? As individuals we are beloved, called, and created with distinct passions, or “holy discontent,” that God uses to get stuff done in the world! Healing, teaching, building, creating, listening, making, doing; all these actions God has paired with a passion, so when those gifts and passions are put together through the power of the Holy Spirit – lives are changed, things are built and created, vision comes to life, and God’s Kingdom is revealed. What if your goals are not just your New Year’s resolution…but a new you covenant with God?

In worship, our “23 and Me” sermon series kicks off on January 1 with a Methodist tradition: Wesley’s New Year Covenant Renewal service. Join us as we start the new year letting go of the past, covered in God’s grace, and surrender to God’s work in us, for us, and through us. We will be having one combined service at 10:00 a.m. in Founder’s Hall (and live on St. Luke’s Facebook page) and will start the year making a covenant with God to yield our lives to God’s use.

In the coming weeks we will continue to solidify that covenant work on our end with baptism renewal, discerning the stirrings of our heart, and learning to sing our unique songs of life. Then in February, we will discern together how God has brought us together in community as the uniquely called, passionate, and equipped body of Christ to understand our gifts as a church and how we can meet the needs of one another, and the community God has given as our mission fields. “23 and We” will be a time of strategic visioning to determine how we will awaken disciples and reveal the Kingdom in the next few years together.

We hope as you move into 2023 you have joyous and safe celebrations, taking in every good gift God has given you, and let Christ make residence in your hearts, homes, and lives. We pray you make faith and the disciplines of Learning in study, Living together in community and interdependence, Loving God in worship, and Leading your life with God’s story a priority for the new year. We will walk with you and give you the tools you need to grow in your relationship with God, so your 23 and ME can be as powerful a year as ever.

Grace and Peace,

Your St. Luke’s Pastors

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