It feels like we’re barreling into February at full speed! Am I the only one that feels that way? There’s just so much going on at Faith Community right now! I suppose this is less of a spiritual pondering than an activity pondering as I look over the month in amazement at all that’s going on in our Faith Community.
As January drew to a close, the Exploratory Team brought back one of our Symposium speakers, Steve Kaizer, from the Presbyterian Foundation to work with us on “Project Regeneration.” Terry Kazakos, our Financial Secretary, along with Pat Kortlandt and others located all kinds of financial and church data to pass along to Steve’s colleagues at the Foundation to kick start the process. Your elders and a few others from the church met with Steve this past week, and will meet with him two more times between now and the end of April. In the meantime, we’re reading, The Sailboat Church together and will engage in 40 days of prayerful discernment near the end of February. We will report back about all that and invite you into our prayer and discernment.
Our next Living Waters for the World Mission Team leaves Sunday, February 4 at 5:30am for their next LWW purification system installation in Guatemala! We are so pleased that everything worked out for them to be able to go. We send them with our blessing and prayers and look forward to seeing and hearing about their trip! Go with God David, Mark, Jim, Sue, and Jacob! God is holding your lives!
This Sunday is also Scout Sunday. When was the last time we had one of those? We are excited to welcome Troop 407 to Faith Community, and to worship on Scout Sunday! Be sure to say hi and welcome them to the building and our Faith family!
We’re wrapping up our post-Epiphany worship series, “God Is Holding Your Life” as we draw closer to Lent. I hope you’ve enjoyed the theme of this series. I’ve enjoyed the time of spiritual pondering in worship, the silence and prayer for us to reflect on the Psalms and with one another. Please share with me or the Worship Committee how these are speaking to you (or not), so we know better for any future worship series we may consider.
Ash Wednesday is on February 14 this year. Ya gotta love it! We’ll begin a new worship series on Ash Wednesday as well, “Entering the Passion of Jesus: Picturing Ourselves in the Story,” based on the book by the same name by Amy-Jill Levine. We will focus our worship on the events of Holy Week over the course of the whole Lenten season, “freeze-framing” important moments from the last week of Jesus’ life and allowing us to imagine ourselves in the middle of the action. What new meaning can we find for our lives today by framing these moments and discovering our own place in this Passion drama?
Of course, you’ve also heard that we will hold another Congregational Meeting on February 11 following the worship service for the purpose of hearing the final report of the Pastor Nominating Committee and voting on your next pastor! And the rest of our new officers will be pulling up seats at our February board meetings!
Near the end of the month, our Community Life folks are sponsoring a trip to the First Congregational Church in Detroit for an experiential tour of the Underground Railroad. This is a life-changing opportunity, and I hope many of us will take advantage of it. Make your reservation on Sign-Up Genius now!
These are indeed, exciting times with lots going on. So get your Covid booster, your flu shot, and a shingles vaccine if you haven’t had them, because you won’t want to miss out on any of it! I’ll be holding our Faith Community in prayer in these days ahead.
Peace,
