As we step into a new year together, we are beginning a six-week journey exploring what it means to live with Gospel-shaped courage.
Not the kind of courage rooted in bravado or swagger, but the quiet, faithful bravery of living day by day in and with God’s love. This is courage that rarely announces itself. It grows slowly. It takes shape over time as we learn who we are and as we help one another live from that truth.
Throughout this series, The Courage to Follow: From Baptism to the Cross, we’ll explore courage not as fearlessness or control, but as faithful resilience. Each week will invite us to consider a different dimension of courage—identity, vulnerability, listening, love, endurance, and humility— all grounded in scripture and enriched by many thoughtful voices from the wider Christian tradition. From the waters of baptism to the shadow of the cross, we’ll discover that real courage is sustained by grace and revealed in the humble way of Jesus.
We begin where the Gospel begins Jesus’ public ministry: at the Jordan River.
Jesus’ baptism is a threshold moment where heaven and earth draw close, where God’s Spirit moves, and where something is spoken that sets everything else in motion. The full story is not yet visible, but God’s dream presses up against the human world, spilling over in ways that will never quite be contained again.
And we begin with naming. Scripture reminds us that God has always been in the holy business of naming. From the opening chapters of Genesis to the waters of baptism, naming is not about classification or control. God’s naming does not assign worth based on performance, productivity, or usefulness. Instead, God names identity first. Before the path is clear, before the cost is known, before the journey unfolds. Identity comes before action.
That order matters. Especially in a world that is constantly naming us by what we do, what we produce, or what we fail to achieve. The Gospel offers a different starting point, one that invites courage to emerge not from striving, but from belonging.
This first week invites us to linger at the water and listen. To notice what happens when identity is received before anything is required, and what kind of courage that kind of naming might make possible.
As we enter this series, we also invite you into a simple practice, one that echoes the ancient wisdom of prayer and the everyday holiness of attention. Inspired by practices of naming and noticing shared by writers in The Book of Belonging, this exercise invites us to slow down and reconnect with the world around us.
A Practice for the Week: Naming as Prayer
Begin by slowing down. At some point in your day, intentionally shift out of autopilot and pause long enough to notice where you are and what surrounds you.
Then begin naming. Choose a few ordinary things and say their names aloud or write them down. Objects, colors, textures, and scents. You might name items in your kitchen, the trees along your street, or the sounds you hear through an open window. If you don’t know the proper name for something, describe it. Curiosity is part of the practice.
Next, make a list. Return to it later. Add to it. Notice how slowing down to name what you see grounds you in your body and reconnects you to the present moment. Each act of naming is a small affirmation: this exists; that matters; I am here with it all.
If you’d like, you can shape your list into a simple litany—spoken aloud, written as a poem, or prayed quietly. There’s no right way to do this. The practice itself is simply an act of attention and care.
We hope you’ll join us for worship this Sunday as we begin The Courage to Follow. We’ll be starting at the water, open to the Spirit’s movement, and ready to follow where God leads, even when we do not yet see the whole road ahead.
Come as you are.
There is courage to be found here.
