I love the coming of fall each year. Maybe it is the change in the air, the return of familiar routines, or simply the promise that a new season brings. At St. Paul’s, fall always feels like a new beginning. Sunday School classrooms fill again. Adult formation returns. Small groups gather. Choirs rehearse. Ministries and outreach opportunities come back to life after the slower rhythms of summer.
And perhaps, in the midst of all of that activity, something else happens too: we put ourselves in the way of joy.
That phrase comes from Kate Bowler’s wonderful new book, Joyful, Anyway, which our small groups will be reading together this fall. Bowler writes about something most of us already know: life does not always turn out the way we planned. There are disappointments we cannot fix, losses we cannot explain, relationships we cannot control, and questions that remain unanswered.
And yet—joy still finds us.
Bowler distinguishes joy from the relentless pursuit of happiness. Happiness can become another project: something we think we can achieve if we work hard enough, make the right choices, buy the right things, or finally get our lives under control. Joy is different. Joy often arrives as a gift. It surprises us in the midst of lives that remain unfinished and imperfect.
I think the Church, at its best, is one of the places where we learn to recognize that kind of joy.
It happens when someone remembers our name. When a child asks an unexpectedly profound question in Sunday School. When we sing a song we have sung a hundred times before and suddenly hear it differently. When laughter erupts around a table. When someone sits beside us during a difficult season. When we pack food for a neighbor, learn something new together, pray for one another, or simply discover that we are not alone.
None of those moments makes everything perfect. But they remind us that even when everything is not perfect, life is still full of beauty.
Scripture tells us that we are “members one of another” (Romans 12:5). Christianity has never imagined faith as something we are supposed to do by ourselves. We need one another—not because community magically solves our problems, but because community gives us people with whom to carry them. That is why I hope you will find a way to become more deeply connected at St. Paul’s this fall.
Join one of our small groups reading Joyful, Anyway. Come to an Adult Forum. Try a Bible study. Join a supper club. Sing, serve, learn, pray, or volunteer with one of our Outreach ministries. Try something you have never done before. Sit beside someone you don’t know. Make room in your life for a new relationship.
Not because you need one more thing on your calendar. Because sometimes we have to put ourselves in places where joy might find us.
So as another fall begins at St. Paul’s, I invite you to enter this new season with openness. Bring your questions. Bring your gifts. Bring your worries and hopes. Bring the imperfect life you actually have. And show up. God is already at work among us. And sometimes joy is simply what happens when we are present enough to notice.
Welcome to fall at St. Paul’s. I am so glad we get to share it together.
Please take a look at our Fall at St. Paul’s page to discover all the ways you can connect, learn, serve, and put yourself in the way of joy this season.
Peace,
The Reverend Noah H. Evans, Rector