Dear Friends,
Next week this country faces a transition in government that will undoubtedly bring significant change and challenge. With you, I look ahead with a mix of emotions and a sense of uncertainty about what lies ahead, and also with a sense of resolve to do what is given us to do. We are called to uphold values rooted in our baptismal covenant, to clarify our commitments and priori-ties as a parish, and to strengthen our connections to one another in loving and mutually supportive community. This work started long ago and now continues as we move onward into a new season. I trust that God is with us and will inspire us to keep walking in faith, persistence, and courage.
Monday is the national holiday for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King’s vision of Beloved Community is a compelling dream for a society in which all people live together in true freedom, founded upon principles of justice, equality, and peace. As St. Michael & All Angels, we are growing into the expression of Beloved Community that God calls us to.
Along with this note, you’ll find an invitation to participate in a special storytelling event on February 9, between the 9:00 and 1:00 services. There will be no 11:00 service that day.
This important gathering will be the first of three parish-wide engagements in our yearlong Stra-tegic Visioning process. Each date will have a different focus; this one is to look back and share our unique experiences of coming into this community during different years and decades. It is so important to have your experience, your perspective, your voice contributing to this work.
February 9 is also Super Bowl Sunday, and we know that for some this matters a LOT (and for others it doesn’t matter much at all). We worked hard to find a time that works for the most people. So– this event will be a “pregame event.” The VSC (Vision & Strategy Committee) are emphasizing that gameday theme in our invitation, to help us remember that the parish event will not conflict with the times of the game later in that afternoon. We are doing this to emphasize how much we want and need you at the gathering—so much so that we will cancel the 11:00 service for the day to make room for us all to come together during that time! Please join us!
Why is this important? St. Michael’s is a parish of many experiences and expressions. We continue to grow as a diverse community of nationalities and cultures, generations, sexual orien-tations, gender identities, economics, of religious backgrounds and even tenures at St. Michael’s. Our community includes folk with many passions, convictions, and commitments. We dream many versions of the future and hope for many outcomes in our work together. I am asking us to do this work, a step at a time, so that our plans for the future may be rooted in the best understanding possible of where we have been and who we are now. You know me as a leader who tries to listen deeply and long, to look for those at risk of being left out, and to call us together to be our best selves. We need this work as a basis for our moving forward into God’s future.
I am grateful to the Vestry for supporting this Strategic Vision work: contracting with the Kaleidoscope Institute to guide us; seeking support from Mission Endowment to fund us; calling a diverse group of faithful parishioners as a Vision & Strategy Committee to pray, learn and train as facilitators for this process.
We are excited to see where God leads us through this process, into a new season of life and mission together. I look forward to our gathering on February 9.
With you,
The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector
Email: scottp@stmaa.org
