Beloved Community,
This highlights newsletter is a much pared-down version of our usual newsletter. We want to focus only on those things that are most important to how we live our faith this week. (Okay - and slightly beyond.)
My hope is that you will read this through and choose to join us for one or more (or all?) of these gatherings. It is perhaps more important than ever that we remember who we are at our core - a beautiful bunch of God's beloved, trying to live our faith and be our best selves, despite all the challenges we've faced since March 2020.
It is one of my greatest joys to be living and serving with and among you. It is one of the most obvious signs of God's grace and presence to know that we have not let any of this change who we are in the ways that matter most. When called to be flexible, we have stretched beyond what we thought possible but not been broken. When called to innovate, we have been wonderfully creative but not lost sight of what helps us to know who and whose we are. When we've made our way close to something that feels more comfortable and familiar and then been knocked back, we've continued to live in the present and look ahead to the future.
And you know what? In whatever way it is that the Holy Spirit works - wild and free, as my former Bishop says - she has been with us all along the way, reminding us in big ways and small that we are who we are, called to do what we do. If baptisms and younger families are signs of vitality in the church (they are), then we have continued to realize the vision we discerned during my first year during these almost two years when it can feel like nothing has gone as planned.
Just today, I talked with three families who will have babies baptized here between now and the end of December. Three! In one day! And we know there is a fourth, a little girl whose baptism was delayed because of the emergence of the Delta variant. So, since the fall of 2020, we've baptized three of God's tiny beloved and will end the year with three more baptisms. And we hired Grace to coordinate Children's Chapel and Youth Group...
Peace & Blessings,
Paula+
