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This morning we launch a new beginning in our parish. After months of planning and prayer we begin our new family service.

This liturgy has been designed to serve the needs of families with young children. Although we have done our best to create an experience that invites children fully into worship, we cannot know how it will work until we live the experience.

We have lots to learn.

And the learning will involve more than just the new liturgy. All the worship services will be affected by this new beginning in ways that will surprise us.

The 8:00 AM service is learning to adjust to a new worship time and to changes in the liturgy. The 10:45 AM service may have to adjust to changes in the size of the congregation as some families shift to the 9:15 AM service. All worship leaders will have to learn how the transitions between the services will work.

The challenge of a new beginning can be significant.

In today’s Old Testament reading from the Book of Genesis, Abram has embarked on a new beginning. Earlier the Lord had called him from the land of Ur – from his country, his kindred and his father’s house. Abram left everything he knew.

He has arrived in the land of promise, and is now confronted with all things new. Here are new neighbors, a new geography, perhaps a new culture. The newness of his experience generates anxiety. He questions God’s promise.

When the Lord called Abram, he promised to make Abram into a great nation. And yet, Abram and his wife Sara continued to be childless. Abram confronts the Lord. Implied is the challenge that the Lord is unfaithful in his promise.

The Lord’s response to Abram can help anyone who faces a new beginning associated with the purposes of God.

The Lord responds to Abram’s fear with a new promise. The Lord says, “Fear not. I will be your shield and your very great reward.”

Notice what the Lord does not say. He does not say, “Don’t worry about it Abram. Everything will be all right.”

The truth is that when it comes to new beginnings, things may not always be all right at fi rst. Diffi culties and hardships come with new beginnings that one can never anticipate.

The Lord’s promise is not that everything will go perfectly. The Lord promises that he will be Abram’s shield. Come what may, if Abram remains faithful, the Lord will protect him and strengthen him to prevail.

In the end, the Lord says, “I will be your very great reward.” Faced with the challenge of a new beginning the fi nal hope is always the fulfi llment of God’s promise and his purpose. For Abram that means in his seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

In our new beginning the Lord remains our shield and our very great reward. Our hope, like Abram’s hope, is that in us – we who are the seed of Abraham -- all the nations of the earth will be blessed as our children grow up in faith to shine with the light of the stars of heaven.