Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little;
when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where in losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. Amen
(attributed to: Sir Francis Drake, 1577)
Beloved Friends,
Wow. For the past 3 weeks we have met in between our 2 Sunday services for a time of conversation, and I am absolutely overjoyed by your energy, excitement, engagement and full participation; thank you dear ones. Each Sunday over 40 of us gathered together to get to know each other a little better and to start wrestling with where we find ourselves as a community of faith today and how to start discern where God might be calling, leading, nudging us towards. This past Sunday many of you wrote a “postcard from the future” and, again, I am delighted to see the creativity and imagination that is clearly alive and well among us. We are typing up all our responses and will find a way to make those available to the community shortly. Next week when I meet with our vestry we will have more conversation about next steps as well and I hope that we can together discern how best to keep this vision ball rolling; stay tuned.
Believe it or not, November is right around the corner, and during the month we will be focused on our Annual Giving Campaign. This year’s theme is: “Journey to Generosity” and we will be using some wonderful material made available by our church-wide denominational membership in TENS (The Episcopal Network for Stewardship), along with some additional resources I have to share- hoping that together they will create a month of generative and generous conversations and discernment about what it means to live generous lives grounded in God’s love. Of course the result will be an invitation for everyone to make a financial commitment to this ministry we share, but in addition to that it is my deepest hope that we will discover unexpected gifts during the process.
Finally, I hope that everyone who is able to makes an effort to “come home” to Trinity both this Saturday AND Sunday for 2 special liturgies. Saturday at 4:00pm we will welcome Bishop Mark Hollingsworth and the other churches of the West Mission Area as together we share the beautiful liturgy of Evensong. And then on Sunday we will combine our worship to one gathering at 9:30 for a festive Eucharist and welcome The Rev. Brad Purdom, Canon for Congregations as our guest preacher. Both services will be celebrations of our 175th anniversary- a wonderful opportunity to thank God for all the gifts received as well as a chance to pray together for our bright future.
Thank you all also for your many invitations for coffee, shared meals, visits to your homes and into your lives. I am enjoying each day as together we remember that we are lovely and loved by a generous and fabulous God.
May you never forget that you are loved.
Lisa