A recent church Fall Newsletter headlined, “Celebrating the Beauty of God’s Changing World” Now, at first glance this may seem like a harmless headliner. It sits on top of a beautiful fall picture of children catching falling leaves. Harmless right? It’s quite picturesque too. Yet, I can’t help to point out how this could be misread. There seems to be a revealing error being communicated here. A fatal error that points to a trend in our churches that has proven to be detrimental to so many. A celebration of gifts rather than the giver. A few years ago this might have never caught my attention and I would have excused it as an issue of semantics and simply displayed grace to the editor. (I’m still willing to dialogue with the editor, because it could be just a matter of retraction and correction.) Yet, this error will more than likely be smiled at as cleaver and cute (with children laughing, of course it’s cute) Yet the effort to make the season less about a Pagan ritual by throwing ‘God’ in the headline doesn’t necessarily excuse the headline as being an acceptable Christian statement. Without ‘God’ in the headline it would read “Celebrating the beauty of a changing world” sounds like a progressive political magazine now, right? Do you see my conflict yet? God is not changing, yet His world is changing. Is this something we should celebrate?

There is at least two types of changing here that could be expressed:1) The change that happens due to the amazing work of His son on the Cross - spiritual transformation or 2) The constant changes in life due to the effects of a fallen world. At this point your saying, well what about number 3….. oh and 3) Seasonal change. What’s being noted here is the celebration of the seasonal change, owned by God. Don’t get me wrong either, the statement has some sense of acknowledging that God is in control, but the object of the statement is the changing world, rather than the faithful God. Changing world (rather than changing seasons) is probably not the statement you want to use in the Christian context of celebration. Even at that “Celebrating the beauty of God’s changing seasons” still leaves the object of celebration as the gift rather than the giver.

Fall is a wonderful time of year and I’m thankful for it. For several reasons, but mainly because of the aching desire within me to get to the mountains for the fall colors, fire side chats and hot chocolate. So, I’m not really attacking those who enjoy the season change. I’m with ya on that one. Yet still, The subtly of this statement is too close to the reality that so many in our churches live out, worshiping the gift rather than the giver. Subtle… yes, reflective of a body of believers in Christ, no. If I could write it again it would read more like this: “Celebrating God’s faithfulness in a changing world” We celebrate because He is faithful to provide our every need, breath, life, water, food. We celebrate because of His continued grace and mercy on our lives. We celebrate because of the faithfulness of His Son. We celebrate because He is giver of good things. We celebrate because of who He is. We celebrate in thankfulness because despite the fall He was mighty to save, despite David’s sin He sends Nathan, despite Moses’ weaknesses He provides Aaron, despite Jonah’s refusal to go He provides salvation. We worship…HIM.  Sure, we take delight in his creation. We note it’s beauty. Yet, even as we take note of it’s beauty we turn to it’s creator and say, “Wow, God how great you are to give such amazing things!” It’s amazing how small we begin to feel in the reflection of something overwhelmingly huge! I might be reading a bit too much into the headline, but I do think that the timeliness of this is pertinent. So next time you see the beauty of the changing leaves or feel the brisk cool fall breeze on your face… Thank Him, Praise Him, Worship Him.