When people ask what it means to belong to a community like ours, especially as they are reflecting on deepening their commitment, I often reflect on four elements that help weave the bonds between us. Here they are:
1.) Nourish Your Spirit
2.) Share Your Time and Talent
3.) Share Your Treasure
4.) Live Our Values Out Loud
There are many reasons why people cross the threshold of a congregation for the first time, but frequently the answer is connected to a place of nourishment. They are seeking worship and spiritual practices that can fuel hope, peace, joy, and inspiration. They are looking for a community to be able to make connections, foster friendships, and find people who resonate with their values and will take actions to make them visible in the world. They want mentors and teachers for their child(ren) who can help them grow in wisdom as well as knowledge and with an awareness that their authentic selves are more than enough. We all hope to find mentors like that in a community like ours at every age and every stage.
For a community like ours to exist and thrive, it requires all of us sharing what we can and with a spirit of generosity. We are a cooperative entity. Our spiritual community is co-created by the members and friends who belong to it and who offer their gifts to one another.
Some of these gifts are the volunteer resources that allow us to do and become who we are called to be. Here are some examples: our lay ministers, our ushers, our greeters, our teachers, our finance and facilities volunteers, our teacher for children and for adults, our social justice acting group members, our choir, our quilters, our board of trustees, our steering committee for strategic planning, and so many more people. By the way, not all the ways we share our time and talent are so formal – the person who welcomes a newcomer, or makes a meal for someone who is sick, or who volunteers to garden for a day, or who shows up for a protest with other members, or who sees that help is needed somewhere and pitches in. These all matter too.
As we kick-off our Annual Fund Drive for 2027, “Brighten the Light,” this coming weekend, it is important to focus on the portion of our collective gifts that come from our financial resources. Our financial gifts generate our ability to pay our ministers, program directors, administrative, facilities, and support staff, as well as the major upkeep it takes to tend to our historic property and center of community downtown. These gifts provide resources for singing, ringing, teaching, caring, preaching, celebrating milestones, justice building, communicating, broadcasting, cleaning, repairing, heating and more. We invite every one of you to participate and to reflect on what a generous gift looks like for your circumstances.
The co-creation of a community like ours gives people the chance to find others who resonate with their values, as well as the opportunities to make those values visible within our walls and in the world beyond. We put love at the center of our lives. We promote the inherent worth and dignity of all people. We practice an ethic of caring for the wellbeing of mother earth. We are learning how to build a Beloved Community where oppression is no more.
There are so many ways that people live our values out loud in their lives – through volunteering for community building and just causes; mentoring the next generation; tending our buildings and grounds with the environment in mind; visiting people in the hospital; raising ethical concerns at school, work, or the retirement community; crafting meaningful spaces for spiritual deepening, partnering with other houses of worship to defend immigrants and trans kin; protecting our democracy, and more!
We are a community where people can make meaning, make connections, and make a difference. All of this is possible when we 1.) Nourish our spirits, 2.) Share our time and talent, 3.) Share our treasure, and 4.) Live our values out loud.
with deep gratitude for your presence and your part in making this a brighter community than it could be without you,
Rev. Alison