What does it mean to be a people of Emergence?
It has been a long and sometimes hard winter. I know our community is especially tender with two recent surprising deaths of prominent lay leaders, Tom Thaney and Claude VanderVeen, as well as many other illnesses and losses. I know I am ready for a thaw from the cold and am looking for signs of an emerging spring.
In March, Claude excitedly pointed out the growing snowdrop shoots in our garden. He was thrilled to see these emerging signs of coming spring poking their green noses out of the earth. Seeing the ground begin to thaw and little bits of new life rise brings hope. It reminds me that every season has its cycle, and even though the spring comes and goes, new life will emerge again.
What new thing feels possible in your life?
What is emerging in the lengthening days?
What is opening up in our congregation?
After a long fall of listening and winter of work, our Board is emerging from writing mode with a group of new Ends that will guide our ministry as a congregation. The Board will share these with the congregation at a Breaking Cookies, Building Community session on April 15. They will share their process with you, what they heard you say in hundreds of conversations they distilled and then discerned into eight (8!) Ends. These eight Ends are statements about who we want to become as a community, what we want to do with our ministry, and what difference we want to make in which people’s lives as a result of our ministry.
The Krug Gifts Allocation Team is creating a process for our members to connect their ministry at First Church to the Board’s Ends, and propose ministry projects that would make the Board’s Ends come true. To learn more, plan to come to the Board’s Breaking Cookies, Building Community session on April 15 at 12:30 p.m. in Max Otto Hall.
Holding each other in love and compassion, I know we will emerge as an even stronger, more inspired community!
With love, Jennifer