An evening of gratitude, fellowship, and honor for active-duty military personnel, veterans, their families, and all who support them. Enjoy a complimentary dinner, special music, and an inspiring guest speaker. Free to attend, but registration is required by September 16. Seating is limited.

Budget Gifts Received (8/16/26) - $5,606
MTD Budget Goal - $36,000
MTD Receipts - $36,724
YTD Budget Goals - $515,000
YTD Budget Receipts - $490,165
Reach $18,055  (Reach new year 11/1/25)

Restore, Renew, Rekindle
Amount Pledged - $410,062
Amount Given - $301,062
Amount Spent - $225,043

Come and kick off the fall with the Celebration Choir at our Tailgate and Trivia Night on Monday, October 12, 6-8 PM in the Cafe. Tailgate favorites like hamburgers, hotdogs, wings, sides, and desserts will be served. Our entertainment will be a fun-filled trivia contest led by a Trivia Master! The event is free but seating is limited and registration is required by Sunday, October 11.

We’re excited to make our music programming more accessible, joyful, and easier for families to enjoy!

Beginning Sunday, September 13, our youngest musicians will gather immediately after worship in Room 120. Children will enjoy a snack together before heading into their age-appropriate choir groups. This new format gives children a chance to experience the joy of music in a relaxed, encouraging environment while building friendships and community along the way.

Music is for every age! From our youngest singers to our youth musicians, we believe music plays an important role in the well-being, confidence, creativity, connection, and self-expression of children and youth. Each group provides an opportunity to grow in musical skills while discovering the joy of making music together.

For our youth musicians, we’re moving music programming back to the evening so that students can participate in music and then transition right into Fusion Youth!

Our goal is to provide children and youth of all ages and stages with a strong, joyful foundation for future musical ventures—whether that means singing in a choir, ringing handbells, learning an instrument, participating in worship, or simply enjoying music throughout their lives.

Come sing, ring, learn, grow, and make a joyful noise with us!

We’re looking for volunteers who enjoy baking or simply want to help make something special for our church community.  
Whether you’re an experienced baker or just love helping out in the kitchen, there’s a place for you.  We need volunteers to bake and prepare tasty treats for the Sunday morning Café, from cookies and muffins to cakes, pastries, and other homemade favorites.  
No signup necessary. Bring your favorite recipe in and help us make Sunday mornings a little sweeter!

While Fusion has taken a little break from our regular Sunday gatherings this summer, we’ve still found plenty of ways to have fun and stay connected!

On June 24, we kicked off our summer fun with some sweet treats at Papa Robb’s. Then, on July 24, we headed to DEFY Gravity Trampoline Park for an afternoon of jumping and adventure!

But we’re not quite finished with summer yet! Our final summer adventure is coming up on September 12 with Where’s the Adult?—a scavenger hunt at Concord Mills. Times and additional details will be sent out soon, so keep an eye out for more information. We can’t wait for one last summer adventure together!

Starting September 13, Fusion will return to our regular Sunday schedule!

 Dinner: 5:30 PM
 Programming: 6:00–7:00 PM

We’re excited to get back together each Sunday for food, fun, friendship, and growing in faith!

Want to help feed our students? Check out the buttons below to sign up to provide a meal for Fusion. Your generosity helps make our Sunday nights special!

We can’t wait to see everyone back at Fusion!

There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts through the noise of daily life and gets to the heart of who we really are: How do I know what I truly value? Not what I say I value. Not what I post about or talk about over dinner. But what I actually, genuinely, deeply value.
The answer may surprise you. It is not found in what you buy. It is found in what you are willing to give away.
The Difference Between Purchasing and Giving
Think about the last significant purchase you made. You exchanged money for something, and you received that thing in return. There was a transaction, a fair trade. You got something back. Now think about the last time you gave something away freely, expecting nothing in return. That second experience, however small or large, tells a far more honest story about who you are.
Everything we purchase is temporary. Everything. There is not a single thing any of us has ever bought that will last forever. Possessions fade, break, become outdated, and eventually disappear. But the things we pour our lives into, the causes we serve, the people we love, the generosity we extend without any expectation of return, these are the things that endure. These are the things that reveal the deepest truths about what we believe and who we are becoming.
Lived Experience and Shared Experience
We each carry what might be called a lived experience, the knowledge that comes not from books or classrooms but from our direct, personal encounter with life. It is unique to every person. It is real, and it matters.
But lived experience alone is incomplete. When we bring our individual stories into community, something remarkable happens. Our personal truths begin to expand. We encounter perspectives we had never considered. We find that the picture of what is true and what is good is far wider than any one of us could see on our own. This is the power of shared experience, and it is at the very heart of what it means to live in community with one another and with God.
Generosity lives at the intersection of these two things. It is born in the personal, in the quiet recognition that we have been given far more than we deserve. And it is expressed in the shared, in the ways we extend that grace outward to the people around us and beyond.
The Ancient Wisdom of Proverbs
Proverbs 3:5-14 offers a portrait of a life rightly ordered. It speaks of trusting God completely rather than leaning on our own limited understanding, of honoring God with the first and best of what we have, and of finding in wisdom a treasure that surpasses silver and gold. These verses are not a financial strategy. They are a description of a life shaped by the recognition that everything we have comes from a source greater than ourselves.
When we honor God with the first fruits of what we have, we are making a statement. We are saying that we understand where our provision comes from. We are saying that we trust the one who gives more than we trust our own ability to hold on.
Jacob's Ladder and the Resources of Heaven
The story of Jacob resting in the wilderness, his head on a stone, offers one of Scripture's most vivid pictures of this truth. In a dream, he saw a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. And he heard the voice of God promising to be with him, to keep him, and to bring him home.
When Jacob woke, he did not make a bargain with God. He made a response. Since God had promised to be present, since the resources of heaven were not locked away in some distant future but were available right here and right now, Jacob pledged his first fruits. His best. The top of what he had, not the leftovers.
This is the theological foundation of generosity. Heaven is not a far-off reward waiting at the end of a long road. The love, the provision, the sustaining grace of God is present with us today. And generosity is our response to that reality.
Love as the Fuel
Gold has value because people agree that it does. Remove the agreement, and the yellow metal pulled from the ground means nothing. Its worth is assigned, negotiated, arbitrary. But the love of God is not arbitrary. It is not subject to market conditions or human consensus. It is given freely, consistently, and without condition.
The Apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13 remind us that love does not keep a record of wrongs. It does not catalogue every failure and foolish decision. Instead, it rejoices in what is good, what is true, what is kind. This is the love that fuels a generous life, not obligation, not guilt, but the overflowing recognition that we have been loved in a way that no commodity can replicate.
Generosity Is Not a Feeling. It Is a Life.
It is easy to say we have generous hearts. It is far harder to live generously. But the truth is that what is in our hearts does not exist in any meaningful sense until it shows up in our actions. Generosity is not sentiment. It is not a warm feeling we carry around privately. It is what happens when we put something on a wish list for a child we will never meet. It is what happens when we pray for someone in a distant country who has lost everything. It is what happens when we choose to see the dignity in a person the world has overlooked.
Our values are not declared. They are demonstrated. And in a world that treats temporary things as though they will last forever, a life of genuine generosity stands as a quiet, powerful, and lasting witness to something far greater than anything we could ever buy.
The invitation is simple, though not always easy: give freely, give first, and give because you have already received more than you could ever repay.

One of the best things about missions at UCUMC is getting to see all the different ways our church family says yes to serving others. Sometimes that “yes” looks like reading with a little one at Freedom School. Sometimes it’s helping fill a Treasure Box for a classroom. Sometimes it’s helping families shop at Nourish Up.

None of these things has to be big to make a difference. When we each do what we can, God uses it to do something much bigger than any one of us could do alone.

As we wrap up a wonderful summer with Freedom School and look ahead to a busy fall, we hope you’ll take a few minutes to see what God is doing through REACH Missions - and find a place where you can be part of it!

What a summer it has been at Freedom School!

Over the past several months, we asked our church family to step up in all kinds of ways - to volunteer with our scholars, help prepare the space, provide supplies, lend a hand behind the scenes, and surround this ministry in prayer. And you did it!

Because of the generosity and commitment of so many volunteers, another group of children had a summer filled with learning, encouragement, friendship, fun, and the reminder that the UCUMC community believes in them.

Thank you to every person who gave their time, their energy, their resources, or their prayers to make Freedom School possible. Whether you spent hours with the scholars or helped with one small task behind the scenes, you were part of creating a meaningful summer for children in our community.

We are grateful for the way our church continues to show up for Freedom School - and we are already looking forward to what God will do next!

We have received so much support for our Treasure Box project for David Cox Road Elementary School, and we are incredibly grateful!

But we aren't quite finished yet.

We are working to fill approximately 50 Treasure Boxes for classrooms, and we have about 25 item sets still needed. The remaining items range in price from approximately $15 to $36.

That means we are really close.

In fact, we just need about 25 people, families, or small groups to each make one small purchase and we can finish filling these boxes!

Can you help us get to the finish line?

Use the link below to choose one of the remaining items and purchase it for our Treasure Boxes. Every purchase helps us put together a box that will be placed in a classroom at David Cox Road Elementary and used to encourage and support a children.

One person. One purchase. One Treasure Box.

Let's finish this together!

Thank you for helping us turn a simple box of goodies into a tangible reminder that children and teachers are seen, valued, and cared for.

Last year we began a simple ministry of blessing the teachers and staff at the Weekday School and Ignite Achievement Academy with a small treat each month as a reminder that we see, appreciate, and care about the important work they do.

From cookies to red hot apple cider to simmer pot bags, these monthly treats can be whatever works best for you or your group - and we're happy to help with the details!

September 6 & September 13

We'll be collecting food to help fill weekend backpacks for students at David Cox Road Elementary School. This ministry is one of the ways we have been able to walk alongside our school partner for so many years, meeting a very practical need for children and families. Stay tuned for a list of useful items!

You can also serve by helping collect donations as people arrive for church, or packing boxes after the collection.

September 27 & October 4

Our fall food collection will be held in partnership with the Girl Scouts and Nourish Up this year. More information about needed items will be shared as we get closer to the collection dates.

BIG NEWS COMING! Stay tuned for details about a WV Food Box Packing Party coming later this fall!

Whether you donate a box of food, purchase one Treasure Box item, volunteer your time, pack a backpack, pray for the people we serve, or make a gift to support REACH Missions, you are part of the mission.

Want to help financially support all the ways REACH Missions serves our community and beyond? Click the button below and then choose "REACH Missions" in the Fund drop down menu.

Thank you for being a church that continues to REACH around the corner and REACH around the world.

Every gift, every prayer, and every helping hand makes a difference!

Video Announcements

Musical Call to Worship: Even When the Lions Roar (from To Mars and Beyond)
Matt Guild, Director of Worship and the Arts and Congregation

Welcome: Kristi Miller,
Missions Team Chair, West Virginia Mission Leader, Communion Coordinator, UCUMC

Prayer for Worship: Kristi Miller

Hymn: UMH # 154 All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name (vs. 1, 2, 4, 6)
Matt Guild, Alisha, Choir, Praise Team, Congregation

Responsive Psalm: Litany for Back to School (Illustrated Ministry)
Kristi and Congregation

Back to School Blessing:
Janice Cloninger, Director of Generational Ministries;
Kayla Belk, Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries;
Pastor Donnell FitzJefferies, UCUMC

Passing the Peace: Kayla and Praise Band

Song: Forever (Tomlin) Praise Team, Congregation

Missions Moment: Kristi Miller

Call to Offering: Kristi Miller

Prayer of Dedication and The Lord’s Prayer: Kristi Miller

Offertory: Brethren, We Have Met to Worship (Arr. Pethel) Celebration Choir

Series Video: Right Where We Stand

Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-14 (NRSV) Kristi Miller

Message: Silver and Gold 
Pastor Donnell FitzJefferies, UCUMC

Altar Call: Pastor Donnell

Song: I Give You My Heart (Morgan) Praise Team, Congregation

Sending Forth: Pastor Donnell

Sending Forth Music: Praise Band

You are invited to learn more about UCUMC and become a deeper part of a community of believers who are committed to making a difference in the world and living out our faith by Blessing Others, Belonging in Community, and Believing in Jesus.

Welcome to this week's bulletin - the one place for everything happening in our church family. From kids to adults, small groups to special events, here's how you can get connected over the next seven days.

An evening of gratitude, fellowship, and honor for active-duty military personnel, veterans, their families, and all who support them. Enjoy a complimentary dinner, special music, and an inspiring guest speaker. Free to attend, but registration is required by September 16. Seating is limited.

You are invited to learn more about UCUMC and become a deeper part of a community of believers who are committed to making a difference in the world and living out our faith by Blessing Others, Belonging in Community, and Believing in Jesus.

Budget Gifts Received (8/9/26) - $12,609
MTD Budget Goal - $24,000
MTD Receipts - $31,118
YTD Budget Goals - $503,000
YTD Budget Receipts - $484,559

Reach - $17,955  (Reach new year 11/1/25)

Restore, Renew, Rekindle
Amount Pledged - $408,844
Amount Given - $299,844
Amount Spent - $225,043

Date: September 12th
Time: 1-2:30pm
Place: Concord Mills

Students are to meet Dee Price in the food court. She will be close to the Books-a-Million entrance. Try to arrive between 12:45-1pm so you can team up, see who you are looking for, and all teams get going at 1pm. Everyone will meet at Coldstone Creamery at 2:30pm and students can be picked up from the SEALife entrance. I know dropping off and picking up in two different locations may be a little tedious but my goal is to have the students come in one way while the adults hiding come in somewhere different so no one sees each other. **Parents you are welcome to stay and hang out at Concord Mills during this event and meet us at Coldstone at 2:30pm and take your student(s) home**

I am looking forward to seeing everyone and having a little extra fun before Summer is officially over! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

UC Kids Zone

What an incredible summer we've shared! Throughout the season, our UC Kids explored one big idea: God calls every one of us—no matter our age—to be good stewards.
We discovered that stewardship is about so much more than money. It's about using everything God has entrusted to us to love God and love others.

Summer in the City
From parks and cookouts to movies and baseball, we had a blast all summer long!  Connections were made, relationships were built, and University City was out in the community.  Check out the short video recap below. 

Looking Ahead
This Sunday is Back to School Sunday.  During the Worship Service, we will have special music and a special moment of prayer for all of those students and adults returning to school.  We also have a special prayer guide to share with you so you can pray for your specific school.

On September 13th UC Kids Zone begins breaking out into small groups again.  We have two small groups: one for Pre-K through 2nd Grade and one for 3rd through 5th grade.
 
Also, UC Kids Arts and Little Lambs programs resume with a new schedule.  We will provide a snack in room 120 right after church and programming will begin right after.  

Both schedules are below. 

Save the Dates
October 25 for Trunk of Treats
December 4 for Christmas for Everyone (Festival at UCUMC)

BACK TO SCHOOL LUNCHEON FOR DAVID COX RD. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
SALADS, SANDWICHES, FRUIT & DESSERTS
We need tossed salads,Chicken salad croissants, sandwich platters,Pasta salads & fruit!!
Oh, don’t forget delicious desserts, too.
 
Monday, August 17 - 11:00 – 1:30
David Cox’s Cafeteria
 Click here to sign up!

Reach out to Cindy Beasley with any questions. beasleyonthego@bellsouth.net.

Treasure Box Prizes
This fall, we'll be providing Treasure Box prizes for 50ish classrooms at David Cox. We've already got a good start, but we still need about 3 times what has already been donated. Every little bit helps!
Teachers use these small rewards to celebrate positive behavior, encourage students, and build classroom community.
Participation couldn’t be easier! Just click here to order from Amazon and your donated items will be sent to the Mission Team for delivery directly to the classrooms. What a gift for kids and for teachers who usually have to purchase these items with their own funds!

Everything Is a Gift: The Transforming Power of Gratitude
What do you say to someone who seems to have it all? What is the message of faith for the person whose bank account is full, whose relationships are thriving, whose career is flourishing, and whose every need appears to be met? This is one of the most pressing and underexamined questions in the life of faith, and the answer may be simpler and more profound than we expect. It begins with a single, small, world-altering phrase: thank you.
The Illusion of Self-Sufficiency
In any introductory psychology course, students encounter Abraham Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs. The framework is well-known: physical needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization. The idea is that when all these needs are met, a person can live a full and flourishing life. And here is the subtle danger embedded in that framework -- it is easy to look at a life where every tier of that pyramid is satisfied and conclude that God is simply unnecessary. That faith is a crutch for those who are struggling, a comfort for those who have not yet figured out how to provide for themselves.
Many people live with exactly this assumption. They grew up attending church, drifted away in adulthood, built careers, established families, accumulated security, and arrived at the quiet conclusion that religion had nothing left to offer them. They are, in their own estimation, complete.
But this conclusion rests on a foundation that cannot hold the weight placed upon it. It assumes that what we have, we have made. And that assumption is worth examining very carefully.
Did You Make Any of This?
Consider the air you are breathing right now. Scientists note that the earth's magnetic field holds the atmosphere in place, preventing oxygen from bleeding off into the vacuum of space. That is precisely what happened to Mars -- its magnetic protection weakened, and its atmosphere slowly disappeared. The fact that you have air to breathe is not something you arranged. It is not the result of your ambition or your intelligence or your connections. It is simply given.
Consider the water that sustains you, the food that nourishes you, the gravitational force that keeps your feet on the ground. Consider the capacity to sleep and wake refreshed. Consider the relationships that shaped you -- the people who held you as an infant, who taught you language, who cheered for you, who prayed over you, who invested in your potential long before you had demonstrated any return on that investment.
Did you create any of this? Did you design the processes that brought you into existence? Did you manufacture the love that surrounded you in your most vulnerable moments?
We come into this world with nothing but a cry, hoping someone is there to answer it. Everything that follows -- every skill developed, every opportunity seized, every relationship formed -- is built on a foundation we did not lay.
Hard Work Is Not the Whole Story
This is not an argument against effort or discipline. Most people who achieve anything in life work genuinely hard. But hard work alone does not explain the distribution of abundance in the world. People who work with equal dedication end up in vastly different circumstances. The teacher who shapes young minds for decades is not compensated the way a performer who makes audiences laugh is compensated. The nurse who tends to the suffering is not rewarded the way the investor who moves money between accounts is rewarded. Intelligence does not fully explain it. Connections help, but they are not the whole story either.
What we are left with, if we are honest, is something that looks very much like grace. The right moment. The right door opening. The right person appearing. Call it timing, call it fate, call it fortune -- but call it a gift. Because that is what it is.
There is no such thing as a self-made person. Every human being is the product of prayers offered on their behalf, tears shed for their sake, sacrifices made by people who may never have received credit. We are, each of us, the accumulated result of countless acts of generosity that we did not earn and cannot fully repay.
What Gratitude Actually Does
The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6 about a life that appears to have nothing, yet possesses everything. He describes servants of God who are treated as unknown, yet are fully known. Who seem poor, yet make many rich. This is the paradox at the heart of a life lived in genuine gratitude -- when we stop measuring by the world's accounting, we discover that we have been wealthy all along.
Gratitude does something remarkable to the human soul. It displaces the corrosive sense of deserving. When we genuinely say thank you, we are acknowledging that we did not earn what we have received. And in that acknowledgment, anxiety begins to lose its grip. The fear of losing what we have softens, because we recognize that what we have was given -- and the one who gave it is not running out.
The Scriptures remind us in 2 Corinthians 6 that there is an acceptable time, a day of salvation, and that time is now. Not after we have sorted out our finances. Not after we have secured our retirement. Not after we have achieved self-actualization. Now. The invitation is always present, and it does not wait for us to arrive at a place of need before it becomes relevant.
The Story Worth Telling
Gratitude is also the foundation of testimony. When you tell the story of how you were sustained in your hardest season, you give someone else permission to believe they can be sustained in theirs. When you acknowledge that your best moments were not entirely of your own making, you invite others to look for the same invisible hand at work in their own lives.
The gospel is not only for those who are suffering. It is for everyone -- the wealthy and the struggling, the satisfied and the searching -- because it speaks to something deeper than circumstance. It speaks to the fundamental reality that we are known, we are held, and we are given to.
The only response that makes sense is thank you. And in that thank you, a whole world of abundance comes into view.

Video Announcements

Musical Call to Worship: TBD (Arr.)
Alisha Brown, Music Assistant/Accompanist, UCUMC

Welcome: Matt Guild,
Director of Worship and the Arts

Prayer for Worship: Linda Long,
Pastoral Care Team, Welcoming Team, Usher

Hymn: HWC # 11 My Tribute (vs. 1, 2)
Matt Guild, Alisha, Choir, Praise Team, Congregation

Responsive Psalm: Psalm 111 (UMH p. 832)
Linda Long and Congregation

Message in Music: Praise You (Goodine, Cymbala)
Celebration Choir

Generational Ministries Moment: Kayla Belk,
Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries

Passing the Peace: Kayla and Praise Band

Song: 10,000 Reasons (Myrin, Redman)
Praise Team, Congregation

Call to Offering: Linda Long

Prayer of Dedication and The Lord’s Prayer: Linda Long

Offertory: Gratitude (Lake, Brown, Hastings) Praise Team

Series Video: Love Your Neighbor

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 (NRSV) Linda Long

Message: Abundance and Gratitude 
Pastor Donnell FitzJefferies, UCUMC

Altar Call: Pastor Donnell

Song: For All You’ve Done (Moen)
Praise Team, Congregation

Sending Forth: Pastor Donnell

Sending Forth Music: Praise Band

Welcome to this week's bulletin - the one place for everything happening in our church family. From kids to adults, small groups to special events, here's how you can get connected over the next seven days.

BACK TO SCHOOL LUNCHEON FOR DAVID COX RD. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
SALADS, SANDWICHES, FRUIT & DESSERTS
We need tossed salads,Chicken salad croissants, sandwich platters,Pasta salads & fruit!!
Oh, don’t forget delicious desserts, too.
 
Monday, August 17 - 11:00 – 1:30
David Cox’s Cafeteria
 
Click here to sign up!

Reach out to Cindy Beasley with any questions. beasleyonthego@bellsouth.net.

This fall, we'll be providing Treasure Box prizes for 50ish classrooms at David Cox. We've already got a good start, but we still need about 3 times what has already been donated. Every little bit helps!
Teachers use these small rewards to celebrate positive behavior, encourage students, and build classroom community.
Participation couldn’t be easier! Just click here to order from Amazon and your donated items will be sent to the Mission Team for delivery directly to the classrooms. What a gift for kids and for teachers who usually have to purchase these items with their own funds!

You are invited to learn more about UCUMC and become a deeper part of a community of believers who are committed to making a difference in the world and living out our faith by Blessing Others, Belonging in Community, and Believing in Jesus.

Join us for the 6th Annual UCUMC Camping Trip. We will camp in Fancy Gap, Virginia for the fifth time. Your registration cost includes breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, and supper on Saturday evening. It also includes all the S’mores you can eat! You will be responsible for your supper on Friday and lunch both Saturday and Sunday. There is a $20 per family Saturday only fee which covers your parking pass and food on Saturday evening. We look forward to camping with our UCUMC Family!

Budget Gifts Received (8/2/26) - $18,509
MTD Budget Goal - $12,000
MTD Receipts - $18.509
YTD Budget Goals - $491,000
YTD Budget Receipts - $471,950

Reach $17,817  (Reach new year 11/1/25)

Restore, Renew, Rekindle
 Amount Pledged - $407,554
Amount Given - $298,554
Amount Spent - $225,043

Growing Up: What It Really Means to Mature in Faith
There is a difference between growing old and growing up. One happens automatically, marked by gray hair, wrinkles, and the slow accumulation of years. The other is a choice, a journey, a daily decision to move toward something deeper and truer than where we started. Spiritual maturity is not measured by how long we have been sitting in a pew. It is measured by how willing we are to let go of the things that keep us small and step into the expansive, sometimes uncomfortable, always life-giving freedom that genuine faith offers.
The apostle Paul captures this tension beautifully in 1 Corinthians 13:11-13. He reflects on the shift from childhood to adulthood, describing how he once spoke, thought, and reasoned as a child, but eventually put those childish ways behind him. He then points toward something even greater, acknowledging that our current understanding is partial and incomplete, like a dim reflection in a mirror, but one day we will see and know fully. And through it all, he anchors everything in faith, hope, and love, with love reigning as the greatest of the three.
This passage is not simply about getting older. It is an invitation to examine how we are growing.
Childlike Versus Childish
There is an important distinction worth sitting with: the difference between being childlike and being childish. These two words may sound similar, but they point in very different directions.
To be childlike is a gift. Children approach the world with wonder, curiosity, and a genuine hunger to understand. When a child asks a question, it is almost always for the purest of reasons: they simply want to know. There is no hidden agenda, no attempt to score a point or prove someone wrong. They just want to learn. That quality, that open and honest pursuit of knowledge, is something worth carrying into adulthood.
Being childish, however, is something else entirely. Childish behavior is self-centered. It wants what it wants, when it wants it. It struggles to make room for others and tends to see the world in rigid, black-and-white terms. A childish faith demands that everyone believe exactly the same things, practice faith in exactly the same way, and walk in lockstep with one another regardless of where God may be individually leading each person. It mistakes uniformity for faithfulness.
Paul's encouragement to put away childish things is not a call to abandon wonder. It is a call to abandon the rigidity, the self-centeredness, and the narrow thinking that prevents us from growing into the full stature of what God intends for us.
A Faith That Makes Room
Mature faith is flexible. It is patient and kind. It makes room for others to become who God has called them to be, rather than insisting they become who we want them to be. This does not mean that everything in faith is up for negotiation. There are things that do not change. The centrality of Jesus Christ as Savior, the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the authority of Scripture as our primary witness to who God is and what God has done, these are not fluid. They are the bedrock.
But the songs we sing, the traditions we hold dear, the specific ways we express our devotion, these things can and do shift from generation to generation. A mature faith recognizes the difference between the unchanging core and the changeable expression. It passes down to the next generation not a rigid set of customs to preserve, but the tools to remain faithful to God through all the complications of life.
A good parent does not raise a child to be dependent on guarantees. Life does not come with warranties. It never has. Part of growing up, spiritually and otherwise, is learning to trust without requiring certainty. It is learning to say, no matter the circumstances, no matter what seems to be falling apart around me, God is still God. That trust is not naivety. It is the hard-won conviction of someone who has seen God work in the middle of uncertainty and come out the other side with their faith not just intact, but stronger.
Looking for the Good
One of the most quietly powerful habits of a mature faith is the discipline of looking for what is good. It is remarkably easy to find the negative. We are drawn to it. We seek it out, sometimes without even realizing it, and when we find it, we dwell in it until it colors everything around us.
But the negative, for all the attention we give it, represents only a fraction of the whole picture. God did not create us to live as collectors of bad reviews, about life, about others, or about ourselves. Mature faith trains the eye to look for God sightings, those moments large and small where grace shows up unexpectedly and the goodness of life becomes undeniable.
This is what it means to rejoice. Not to pretend that difficulty does not exist, but to refuse to let difficulty have the final word. To look at a hard season and still find evidence of renewal. To look at a broken relationship and still believe that God is not finished. To look in the mirror and recognize that something good was made there.
The Invitation
Spiritual maturity is not a destination you arrive at after enough years. It is a posture you practice every day. It is the choice to ask honest questions, to hold the unchanging truths of faith with conviction while holding the expressions of faith with open hands. It is the willingness to live without guarantees, trusting in the love and faithfulness of a God who has never once let go.
Paul reminds us that one day we will know fully, even as we have been fully known. Until then, we walk by faith. We grow. We put away what is childish and hold fast to what is childlike. We look for the good. And we trust that the God who made us is still, always, making something worth celebrating.