For everything there is a season, and each season has a beginning and an end. Our beginning was a small group of people worshipping in a dance studio, and on Sunday, February 12th, we will gather one last time as Christ South. While we naturally seek to understand why things end or what went wrong, it’s important to remember that the real story of South isn’t those two points in time, but all that happened in between.  

Christ South has been through so many up and downs, but through it all - we were a church.  We worshipped and prayed. We studied the Bible. We baptized babies and even a family. We built friendships grounded in faith. We watched our teenagers confirm their belief in the Church.  We gathered in fellowship filled with laughter. We mourned and suffered together through sickness and death. We supported our community with countless service projects. We were the church. We ARE the church.      

The decision to cease worship at Christ South has led to a roller coaster of emotions. So much love, energy, effort, and literal blood, sweat, and tears have been pouring into South for over 6 years. It’s not easy to trust in God’s plans when unexpected change shakes your faith. Our human nature nags at us to make sense of it but as Christians, we turn to the Bible in search of the answers that bring us peace. While my heart shifts between sorrow and gratefulness, I keep returning to Ecclesiastes:

What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. (Ecclesiastes 3: 9-13)

The gifts from God abound in and through the people of Christ South. On Sunday, we will remember and celebrate these gifts. We will be happy and rejoice. We will probably also cry.  We will lift each other up knowing that while this season is ending, a new season full of God’s grace and love is beginning. But above all, we will worship together and then continue to be the church.

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