The First Baptist Church of Redlands
T A PE S T R Y
May 2022
Wo v e n To g e t h e r I n L o v e : C o l o s s i a n s 2 : 2
Issue No.5
May Flowers
A Message from Pastor Shawn April showers bring May flowers. Popular adage The groundwork doesn’t show, until one day. Corita Kent I’m sure about this: the one who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus. Philippian 1:6 CEB Living in California, we do not experience the truth of this adage as much as when one lives in a place with more overt seasons. April in Indiana is the season of mud. Even in a place where there is rain much of the year, April can be frustrating. It is a month where you can go from sunny 70-degree days to snow…all in the same week. It is a month when you feel like you are getting your hopes up that winter is finally over and then you walk outside to find a cold wind that slaps in you in the face. The early bulbs will come up, like daffodils and tulips, and then they freeze and die. But then comes May! In May the weather is perfect. The temperatures are more often in the upper 70s and there are fewer rainy days—and snow is very rare! And the flowers really start to bloom. My favorites, Irises, are everywhere and maybe you start to feel like April was worth it, if it brings about May flowers. As we enter May, the last full month before summer break, we can look back on a year that has been full of ups and downs, hard work, change, loss, meaningful experiences, and more. We continue to experience staff transitions, but we are blessed by those who have come on board during this time. Rhonda Bauer is blessing us with her gifts as she is leading the choir. The cantata was a wonderful addition to our Easter Celebration this year! Our own Abby Kishimoto has been mentored by Pastor Cheryl and has stepped into the job directing our children’s ministry with near
seamless ease. Joining Stephen Stark, who joined our staff in January, is our new assistant custodian, Brang Ying. And what would we do without those staff who have continued through all of these transitions, Nathan, Angel, Sally, and Isa! We are also blessed that it won’t be long until our search committees will be presenting candidates to fill our two associate pastor positions. May flowers! After months of analyzing information from the congregation, acquired through focus groups and surveys, we are now having fruitful discussions that will lead to some creative ministries in the near future. As we deal with the ups and downs of Covid, we are encouraged that there seem to be more ups than downs. In all of this, we have discovered new ways of doing things, new ways to reach people, and we have learned to adapt to changes quickly. We have discovered the gifts of people in our congregation that we didn’t know about before. We have also gained several new families into our congregation. May flowers! May 1 is my sixth anniversary with The First Baptist Church of Redlands. In some respects, I can’t believe it has already been 6 years. On the other hand, I feel like I have been here for a long time. This is really my church family! Who could have guessed that more than a year of that time would be spent ministering from our homes. No one could have imagined being a church family through a pandemic, seeing each other only on our screens and hearing each other’s voices only on the phone. But we did it—and are doing it. I am truly looking forward to what God has in store for us as we look to our Lord for direction into a long future. No matter what it looks like around us, God is going to do what God is going to do, with or without us. May it be WITH us! We have seen April showers. It won’t be the last time. But let us celebrate the May flowers in Jesus name! Grace and peace in Christ, Pastor Shawn