On Saturday night, we are set to gather as a parish to celebrate who we are and the gifts each one of us are bringing to the table. We are gathering to celebrate the gifts we share with our community, and we are gathering to celebrate our friendships within the parish. We are gathering to celebrate the people of our parish by spending time together over a humble meal that celebrates the beauty of God’s grace.

Saturday night is a time for us to gather together to celebrate who Epiphany is today and who God is inviting us to continue becoming as we move forward together. It is a time in which we are able to celebrate relationship and to celebrate how we are responding to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

While Saturday night is the kickoff of our stewardship effort for the coming year, it is also a recognition that everything we do in the church is based in relationship with God and with each other. The focus on fellowship within our stewardship effort is a focus on the relationships that hold us together as a community. It is not a night of fundraising but a night of friendraising. We will be invited to sit with members of our parish in a rather random way in order that all of us might have an opportunity to get to know someone that we might recognize but have not had a chance to get to know. It is a night in which we will be invited to reflect on how God is already moving our lives individually and collectively.

Our vision statement begins with inviting relationship, and I love that our stewardship effort for this fall is also beginning with relationship. Our vision statement says, “At Church of the Epiphany, we invite relationship and commit ourselves to the work of becoming beloved community in which the broad diversity of humanity is celebrated.” It seems that the way that we are kicking off our stewardship effort is striving towards that in a meaningful way as we are invited to celebrate every member of our community by going deeper in relationship with the people who are sitting at our table.

The ways that we practice stewardship are ways that we live out the mission Christ has given to us, and they are ways that we participate in the giving and receiving action of the Trinity. By giving for the good of the community, we also are opening ourselves to receive the gifts of others within that same community. Though we will mimic the ways of the Trinity imperfectly and incompletely, we do have the opportunity to strive towards something that is, at a minimum, a dim reflection of the ways of God in our lives.

I hope you will join us on Saturday night as we come together to celebrate the broad diversity of Epiphany and as we seek to invite relationship within our parish.

In Christ,

Hunter+