So let us not grow weary in doing what is right,  
for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. —Galatians 6:9, NRSV 

Dear friends, 

When I went to the CREDO conference put on by the Presbyterian Church (USA) in last year, I remembered times when I had felt closer to God, and I missed that sense of closeness. Through talks with the CREDO conference staff and personal discernment (there’s that word again) time, I put together a “Rule of Life.” I included a few spiritual practices I hoped would grow me spiritually. 

One of those practices was to listen to a sermon or some worship music once a week while I was cleaning. That evolved into listening to a sermon podcast, usually from Day1.org, once a week while I was driving to or from church. 

During the “Year B” CREDO program I attended a couple months ago, I started thinking about which practices from my Rule of Life had “grown fruit” in my life, and which I might want to uproot. The weekly sermon didn’t seem to have grown much of anything, so I took it out and replaced it with “do something for my soul every week.” 

But the Thursday I came back from the conference, I started wondering whether maybe that sermon podcast had “taken” after all. 

I wondered that because even though I had taken it out of my Rule of Life, I turned on the Day1 podcast on my run that night, on purpose, because it was there in my podcast player, and the opening Doxology did my heart good. I wondered whether the steady diet of mainline sermons had maybe changed me more slowly than I had noticed, and even helped me to enjoy worship at CREDO more the second year than I had the first. 

Friends, I preach about how when we make a move toward God, God makes a move toward us, but it’s nice to see it show up in my life, and I hope this story inspires you to test it out in yours. 

Blessings, 

Rev. David Schell