Dear Family and Friends of The Neighborhood Church,

Happiest of New Year days to you and yours! I’m not much of a poetry kind of guy. Oh, I put in my required time in on such during my college days, and I’ve tried to get into it at various times in my life—attending readings, mulling over books of it that people have “gifted” to me, even wrote some myself when I needed song lyrics to go with some new tune in my brain. But, all in all, I’m not much for it. But, I do remember one poem—it stands out as one from which I gleaned a life lesson in my early college years and adopted it as a sort of credo for my life. In fact, a whole school of thought and psychology emerged from it. You probably know it, too: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

For the next couple of Sundays, we will be considering the calling of the first disciples of Jesus. The calling was Jesus’…but the choice was theirs.

To say “Yes!” was to ponder leaving behind the familiar, the meaningful, the establishment, the culture. But ultimately, one answers this invitation to follow Jesus with one’s feet—you finally step away from some things and towards something new. It’s not a bad place for us to begin as we enter this newest year that God has given us. We answer with our feet—stepping out onto the path, the road, less traveled. It’s a road that does not promise to be easy, but full of purpose and meaning. This business of answering with our feet—stepping out and into the world for the cause of Christ—sets us onto a road that makes a difference.

Yes, we answer that invitation to follow with our voice. But, in order to get going, you get up and move forward. Happy New Year, and many happy new roads as we venture into God’s marvelous future!

Pastor Rick
Intentional Interim Minister