Dearly Beloved,
What a gift it was to have our former minister and the current Transitional Conference Minister, the Rev. Erin Gilmore, bring a good word to us this past Sunday! I'm grateful for her framing of what it means to be a covenantal community seeking to live in right relationship with God, one another, and ourselves. I am also deeply grateful to everyone who donated socks to our annual sock drive, and to Anthony Stelwagon and our children for so beautifully blessing them! When we have a final count on socks, I'll be sure to share that. A thank you to Greg Greaves who facilitates and encourages us in that sock drive each year.
I want to share a few exciting things coming up in our congregation. The first is the All-Church retreat planned for April 10-12 at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. We hope that everyone who wants to go will sign up, and if finances are a hardship for your or your family, please let us know. We have funds from the Lilly Sabbatical Grant as well as from a couple of generous donors to cover the cost for you and/or your family. Please email Tracy Schumacher TODAY if you plan to go to the retreat as the deadline for RSVPing is tomorrow.
You are welcome to attend for one night or simply for activities on Saturday or worship on Sunday morning. We will have a worship service at the YMCA on Sunday, April 12th and you are invited to attend worship there even if you are not at the retreat. AND we will also have a hymn sing here at 800 N Lincoln Avenue on that Sunday led by our beloved Nicoletta Glantz.
I want to add a word of learning and apology related to the retreat. The retreat planning team and I simply looked at a combination of the church calendar and availability of spaces at YMCA of the Rockies and did not check possible dates with the Church Board or staff. In the future, we'll run dates by a wider group of people in the hopes to capture a few more of our people (we know that there are a number of folks who have family commitments that weekend and so cannot attend).
Our Faith Formation Board has been hard at work to plan our 2026 Leaders' Retreat. Please be on the lookout for additional details about that. We expect that it will be sometime in mid to late February, and we will have a guest leader guiding our conversation and learning.
Some exciting news: our piano needs replacing (our tuner as well as a professional piano appraiser have been consulted with regards to this), and a very generous donor has come forward offering to purchase a replacement for the congregation. Our congregation's music is such a gift to our community -- from the songs our children sang at 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve, to the band music, string trio, choir anthems, and congregational carols we sang together at the 7:00 pm service, to the weekly sung responses and hymns in which we make a joyful noise together!
Finally, I wanted to share a slight change to my office hours. These will continue to be on Wednesdays from 9 to 1, but I will not be available to take walk-ins. Please sign up on the sheet in the narthex by Monday 5:00 pm or you can text/email me by Tuesday at 5:00 pm. If the Wednesday office hours do not work with your schedule, we can schedule a time to meet during the later afternoon, evening, or on a weekend based on availability.
It is good to be church together, God's beloved.
With peace and love,
Thandiwe
