Pacifica Stories

Over the past several years, Pacifica has reflected on time and our place within it.

We began by Looking Up: lifting our eyes beyond ourselves toward God and the eternal. We then spent a year Looking Back: celebrating God’s faithfulness and remembering Pacifica’s first twenty years with gratitude and humility. Last year, we turned to Looking Forward: casting vision, embracing hope, and imagining what God might do in and through us.

This year, we arrive at the present.

Our theme for 2026–2027 is:

Be Present: Fully Here. Fully Known. Fully Alive.

In a distracted age, presence has become increasingly rare.

We live in a culture of constant motion, always remembering, recording, planning, scrolling, anticipating, achieving, and moving on to the next thing. We replay the past and worry about the future. We become fragmented, anxious, and disconnected. We are everywhere and nowhere at once.

But Scripture invites us into another way.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” - Psalm 46:10

Biblical stillness is not passivity. It is attentiveness. It is confidence. It is learning to stand firmly in reality because God is present and at work.

Because of the Cross behind us and the Resurrection ahead of us, we are free to live now. With the past and future in view, we enter the present with courage. We can be fully engaged in our classrooms, friendships, families, work, worship, and community. We can pay attention. We can listen. We can celebrate. We can forgive. We can create. We can serve.

We do not live trapped in regret. We do not live consumed by anxiety. We live in peace.

This year, Pacifica will ask:

• What does it mean to truly pay attention?
• What does it mean to love people who are right in front of us?
• How do we cultivate depth in an age of distraction?
• How do we become people of clarity, courage, kindness, confidence, humility, and wisdom?
• How do we engage the concerns of our day without losing our souls?

Being present does not mean becoming trapped in the moment or worshiping the now. Presence is not immediacy. Presence is not self-focused.

Rather, understanding our past and our future frees us from being addicted to the present moment and from believing that this world is all there is.

Our understanding of time is ultimately held together by something greater: the eternal.

 

So this year, we integrate and claim all elements of time as we seek to think and live well. We are thankful for the past, look to the future with hope, and reach for the eternal as we are fully present today.

 

Blessings,

 

Jim Knight