Remember that feeling you had when the school year was coming to a close ... that last week of school when you did nothing but wait, excitedly wait, for freedom. That feeling isn't too far from the biblical meaning behind the Sabbath commandments. God gives two reasons for Sabbath: 1) God rested on the seventh day, so we should follow his lead and rest on a regular basis; 2) You were once slaves in Egypt, slaves who worked without rest, don't ever do that again to yourselves or anyone else. Eugene Peterson says this leads us to understand Sabbath as a call to contemplating God and social leisure, or as he says praying and playing.

So we built into the small group structure a rest season for the leaders. We also try and turn to some new things in the summer. Most of us don't get to flee into the wild woods of summer anymore, but we still want to focus on contemplation and social leisure. This summer we will be playing softball at Nickajack, there will be discussion groups around the city, continuing mid-week prayer services and a spiritual growth workshop.

Let me tell you one last story about holidays in our country. Holidays comes from Holy Days and so they are ultimately about feasts and fasts, playing and praying. One of our oldest holidays began in Texas on June 19th, 1865 and has come to be called Juneteenth. This marks the day the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas (the proclamation was made two-and-a-half years earlier). From that moment on, African Americans in Texas have regarded June 19th as a holiday and refused to show up for work. It is a day to remember freedom from slavery. Juneteenth is just around the corner, it is a good time to take a sober accounting of our world and then rest from our labors (since even God did) and rejoice in freedom (and make sure to extend it to others).

To get a glimpse of our scheduled summer events, check out our news & events page. Also, stay in tune with our bulletin board feature on this site. There you will find other events posted by members of our community and you can post an event yourself.