Siblings in Christ,

I am delighted to finally be starting officially in this new role as Interim Canon to the Ordinary. It has been such a gift to be partners together – the Lutheran New England Synod and the Episcopal Western MA Diocese – and now I get to live even more fully into that partnership.

As I’ve watched our congregations and judicatories work together across denominational lines, I have been in awe at the power of what can happen when we come together and share our unique gifts with one another. There is something in the intentionality of the work of coming together and that cross-pollination of ideas and experiences that creates new life and energy. My approach to ecumenism has long been not only to celebrate how much we have in common, but also to celebrate the differences - the gifts that enrich one another when we collaborate.

I think that’s true not just between denominations, but true anytime we genuinely offer ourselves to relationships with others. Whether it’s two people from the same congregation sitting down with coffee to get to know one another on a deeper level, two or more parishes collaborating on projects, congregations developing relationships with individuals and organizations in their community – when we approach relationship with open curiosity it is inevitably enriching.

That’s my hope for the church in the 21^st-century – the deepening of relationships between people and the deepening of our relationship with God. We have a God who over and over again chooses relationship with us and promises to be among us when we gather. We have the example of Jesus who met people where they were and saw them for who they were – the woman at the well, Zaccheus, the disciples, the woman who anoints him, Mary in the garden on Easter morning and so many others. Encounters that change lives and change the course of Jesus’ ministry.

I don’t have all the answers to what comes next, to what the church structures should look like as we go forward, what will happen as church attendance trends change, how the culture around us will change. Yet, whatever happens in the future, my hope is that we can continue to deepen relationships with one another, not just for the sake of the church, but for the sake of the world that so desperately needs to know God’s love and care and desire to be among us.

As I enter this role, that’s also my personal hope – to have the opportunity to meet you, get to know you, walk with you in this next period of time as we together explore what God is up to in our midst. I really look forward to the ways those encounters will be mutually enriching. I will be making an effort to reach out to get to know leaders and congregations over the next few months, but feel free to reach out to me, as well.