Dearly Beloved,
Thank you for the time off last week! I was able to take care of a number of things on my personal to-do list, and it was such a joy to be able to co-preach alongside Rev. Erin Gilmore at the Installation of the Rev. Dr. Marta Fioriti as the Associate Minister at Plymouth Congregational church in Fort Collins. We had fun creating a conversational sermon that you can watch here (the sermon begins at minute 41).
I feel so blessed to serve with you in ministry! This past year, in addition to getting to preach, provide pastoral care, engage in challenging discussions and celebrate our life together, I have represented our congregation in the Rocky Mountain Conference serving on the Anti-Racism Ministry Team, the Nominating Committee and on the Platte Valley Association leadership. Our ministry extended to the far reaches of this Conference as I engaged in challenging conversations about justice, representation and what it means to be a Conference with very urban congregations and very rural and agricultural congregations. I also, just this last Sunday, represented our congregation by being one of three women invited to preach at the installation of Rev. Dr. Fioriti as the Associate Minister of Plymouth UCC in Fort Collins.
I was reminded recently what a gift it is for our congregation to provide free spiritual counseling and pastoral care to people in need. I can tell you that over the course of a year, I spend literally hundreds of hours providing spiritual and pastoral care to people who are members of our congregation, people who are active attenders and to people who are simply in need of a listening ear and a loving heart.
This year, we have begun a regular ministry to our wider Loveland Community through Thrifts and Gifts. People who might never otherwise walk through our doors do just that. And they are met with warmth, welcome, dignity and messages of love and inclusion.
We continue to support homeless and Unaccompanied Youth through our relationship with the Thomspon School District. We partner with Lyons Club to serve meals at Community Kitchen. We ring bells for Salvation Army and collect socks and food and clothing for our neighbors who need these essential items so desperately. We build beds for children who don't have them and gather crews for events like Slammin' Famine. And we seek to humanize and care for our immediate neighbors with blessing bags with snacks and other small items.
Through a number of community worship services, we are connecting with Loveland's wider progressive Christian community, and we are providing spaces for grief (Blue Christmas), reflection (Ash Wednesday), communal remembering (Maundy Thursday), corporate lament (Good Friday), and the simple joy of being together (our outdoor worship service and other partnerships with First Christian Church). We are reminded again and again that even more important than our particular congregational membership is our identity as Christ followers, ambassadors of love and witnesses to God's radical inclusion that extends so far beyond us!
This year, we have focused on a number of areas of God's radical inclusion celebrating Juneteenth, Pride Sunday, World Communion Sunday, Disability Awareness Sunday, Mental Health Awareness Sunday, and Transgender Day of Remembrance. I am humbled at each of these worship services to be reminded that, though I am your pastor, I am often not the expert. What a gift to have so many people share their wisdom's experience and knowledge with us!
Our music program, led by Music Minister Nikki Glantz, continues to thrive, to enliven and enrich our worshiping life and to provide opportunities for community. Our youth group is collaborating with First Christian Church to provide opportunities for a wider group of youth, and we have had youth preach for not one but two worship services this calendar year.
YOU make this possible. Your gifts make this possible. Because of you, our church is changing lives. And I count my own life among those that are being changed. Thank you!
I hope you will join me on Sunday in bringing your tithes and offerings to be blessed as part of our worship service. I hope you will join me in digging deep and giving generously -- not because we have to, but because we want to be part of what God is doing in and through us.
And did I mention just how grateful I am to be your pastor? To be your sister in Christ? To journey with you and learn from you and with you and to seek together to love God, neighbor and self better today than I did yesterday. I am so grateful.
In love,
Thandiwe
