Like the first scenes of a movie, the earliest chapters of the Bible serve as the foundation for everything that follows, all the way up to our lives today. As created beings, we find our most authentic identity by focusing on our Creator. Thus, we want to start the year with such a focus, mining the first three chapters of the Bible for truths about God and what it means to be truly human in relation to him. We want to emphasize and reflect on what it means for us to be a beloved and purposeful creation. We will have the opportunity to reiterate the Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration overview of God’s Story, with this series focusing on Creation & Fall and the following two series’ focusing on Redemption and Restoration.

We invite you to read/listen to these first three chapters of Genesis for themselves. It’s not quite as ambitious as the Bible in a year, but it’s a starting place.

May we walk forward as people and as a church family with a greater awareness of these three foundational scenes, especially what they tell us about our Creator and ourselves.

• Know: God’s heart from the beginning is to make sense of this world and our lives.

• Do: Consider who I really am as the beloved and purposeful creation of a good Creator.