Celebrating Faith

I am inviting you all to a celebration of Faith and our neighboring churches on Nov. 3rd at 4 pm in the Great Hall. This annual celebration involves sharing what we are excited about from this year and approving the leadership slate and pastor’s salaries for next year. We are hosting 5 other neighboring congregations. They will also share what they are celebrating and their dreams for the next year. We felt like it was time to move from lament to joy about where God is leading the United Methodist church. Maybe we could even have table conversations about ways to do ministry together? Wouldn’t that be a wonderfully connectional conversation?

With this spirit, the other pastors and I have planned a meal. Faith is providing fried chicken and drinks and the other churches are bringing the side dishes. The District Superintendent will be leading us in worship with a devotion. I hope that you will attend with us. I have asked the church leadership to put this on their calendar but the invitation is to the entire membership. Please go to this form and fill it out to reserve a seat and food.

Some of you have asked where I was last Sunday and I wanted to share that I was on a Spiritual Retreat. Pastor Charla invited me to attend this event with 14 other clergy from across the country. It was a time of workshops, rest, spirit filled connecting and lots of swimming. It was in a beautiful tropical setting and I slept for the first two days. We ate lots of wonderful food and went on a tour of the murals in the city that was spell binding. I watched the early service online and then we attended a little English speaking Anglican church for worship. My soul enjoyed being in worship and not having to lead any of the parts. I had a deep tissue massage and discovered that my body was holding all kinds of pain that I hadn’t realized. It took days to recover and release the pain but I feel so much better now. I am concentrating on keeping my shoulders down where they are supposed to be.

Lastly, I am preparing for the funeral of a friend. Rich Dethlefs was a wonderful volunteer in youth Sunday school when I was the youth director here at Faith. I actually inherited he and Mike Eldridge who had committed before I came. Rich was the kind of person whose smile made you feel like the most important person in the room. He loved easily and deeply. His family and his faith were the center of his life and we were all blessed to have known him. As many of you know, his wife Kathy was our Office Manager for decades. She was the face of our church and kept us all organized. The service will be on Saturday at 11 am if you would like to come support this family as they say goodbye to their wonderful husband, father, and grandfather. Their loss is all of our loss.

I love you and God loves you!