In this month’s blog, Bishop David Bard reflects on autumn as a season of life and faith, encouraging us to keep growing and serving, no matter our age or season.
BISHOP DAVID ALAN BARD
Michigan Conference
This past summer set heat records. This year is likely to be the warmest year on record. I am writing this in the third week of September, and as I began this work, temperatures in Springfield, Illinois, soared into the upper 90s, prompting heat advisories. As good stewards of God’s creation, charged with tending and caring for this garden we call Earth, we have work to do. Human actions contribute to the changing climate, and we can modify our behavior.
Even as hot as this summer has been, we know that autumn will arrive in due course. I have already felt some of its cool breezes in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In Ironwood, overnight temperatures were in the mid-40s when I was there September 12-13.
Autumn. I love so many things about it — the crisp evening air, the changing colors in the trees, and the excitement that comes with new beginnings like football and school. Baseball ends with the World Series. In my life, I moved directly from high school to college to seminary to my first appointment in a local church. I remember the first fall in that appointment, when the cool, crisp breezes arrived and I felt a certain wistfulness about not starting a new school year.
Autumn is a frequent theme in music. “See You in September” is a 1959 song about young love and the possibility that it wouldn’t last between school’s end in the spring and its new beginning in the fall. One of singer-songwriter Carole King’s early hits was also about love and longing between school years: “It Might as Well Rain Until September.” If you have ever heard Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” you cannot help but celebrate the season with a little bounce in your step. A wistful, poignant feeling is found in the lovely song “Try to Remember”: “Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh, so mellow.” A beautiful jazz celebration of the season is “Fall” by the Miles Davis Quintet, a song that resonates deeply with me, but that’s a story for another time.
Then there is “Autumn Leaves,” another lovely song that reminds us that autumn is a prelude to winter’s cold. Autumn can carry with it feelings of loss. Johnny Mercer sang the song as a ballad. Cannonball Adderley offered a well-known jazz rendition, and Bill Evans another.
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to holdSince you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
Falling leaves remind the singer of endings, including the end of a love relationship. The song conveys a tender wistfulness reminiscent of “Try to Remember.” That feeling of loss, of time passing, and of the coming of a colder, more barren season makes autumn also a metaphor for a season in life.
I am in the autumn of my life, with more time behind me than ahead. The words of a poem I first heard in college now speak to me with greater poignancy: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”). I am a grandfather. I qualify for senior discounts, some of which I don’t even have to ask for. Some of you reading this find yourselves in that same season of life.
The church, in many ways, may be in the season of autumn, though church life does not follow seasons so cyclically. The United Methodist Church came into being in 1968 through the merger of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. We are almost sixty years old. The average age across our denomination is now older than it was in 1968. We are not locked into autumn as our defining season, nor are we destined for the cold and snow of winter as churches. We can reach out and engage new generations in the adventure of following Jesus Christ. We can introduce others to God’s love in Christ and to the journey of transformation — personal and social — that is living that love.
Here is what I most want to say in this essay: Even as we may be in the autumn of our lives, there is work for us to do. We are not ready to curl up and wither away. This is true for us as individual followers of Jesus in the Methodist way, and it is true for our churches. As long as we are here and our churches remain, God is at work in us and through us, touching the world. No matter our age or stage of life, there is always more growth in love, more wisdom to be gained, and more work to be done to make the world a little more like God’s dream for it. As long as our churches remain, people need to hear the good news of the gospel, and there are needs in our community that we might meet in the name and spirit of Jesus.
At its best, the church is a multi-generational community, and there is a beauty and energy about that. I am reminded of the words of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, reflecting on college. Whitehead wrote: “The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. . . . The tragedy of the world is that those who are imaginative have but slight experience, and those who are experienced have feeble imaginations.” We all benefit from the differing gifts of different seasons of life.
But as much as I appreciate Whitehead, I cannot wholeheartedly agree with him here, especially regarding the feeble imaginations of those with more experience. Yes, there is truth to that. As we enter the autumn of our lives, we become comfortable with the familiar, and our imaginations may shift into neutral. At the same time, God’s Spirit is always a re-energizing power, able to re-ignite our imaginations. “Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, CEB). A multi-generational community has synergy.
Yet we must never use our age and stage as an excuse to shirk our responsibilities to live out our faith, keep growing in love, engage the wider world to feed the hungry, care for the poor, heal the sick, promote justice, and foster peace, and to share good news. As we may hear time’s winged chariot, may we also always hear the whoosh of God’s Spirit as a renewing and revitalizing energy.
“There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The autumn of our lives may offer us the chance to reflect in new ways on all we have known and learned. Yet it is not a season to simply sit on the sidelines. “We are also begging you not to receive the grace of God in vain. . . . Look, now is the right time!” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). Now is always the time to be about the work of God in Jesus Christ, no matter the season of our lives or the season of our church life.
One final note: In about a month, we will have the opportunity to vote. I encourage you to exercise this important right, one we should never take for granted. This past summer, I read Rev. James Lawson’s memoir, “Nonviolent,” and was once again moved by the hard work of so many in the Civil Rights Movement to secure the right to vote. Allow me to share an extended quote from the book Building Beloved Community, offered by the Council of Bishops:
“Our concern for democracy must translate into faithful action. This includes supporting free and fair elections, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, promoting transparency in government, and fostering the kind of civil discourse that enables genuine dialogue across differences. It means building the kinds of communities — in our churches and beyond — that model mutual respect and shared responsibility that healthy democracies require. Most importantly, it means recognizing that our engagement with democratic institutions is itself a form of discipleship” (p. 53).
Pray. Ponder. Consider important values of the gospel. Vote.
The ministry of our bishop is made possible thanks to generous financial gifts from local United Methodist churches in Michigan through Ministry Shares. Thank you! Learn about the impact of Ministry Shares on mission and ministry in Michigan and around the world.
Last Updated on September 29, 2026