This is my last article as president of your congregation. As part of the June Annual meeting, I will review the year we’re just completing but, suffice it to say, many of the plans for the second half of the past year came to a screeching halt in mid-March.

Congregational leaders, both professional and laity, were forced to shift their time and talents to exploring new ways for us to be in community. And we found that of talent, we had plenty, but of time, not so much. Not enough to get it all done—all the things we had planned for the last quarter of our first year of interim work. Not enough to have the long and thoughtful Board conversations we thought we had carved out time for when we agreed to add a second monthly meeting to our busy schedules. Conversations to address the real Board work of how we want to be as a vital, impactful congregation. So, I’d like to use this opportunity to express my hopes for our congregation as we move into a new, and pretty much unknown, pandemic-scarred future.

I hope we will see ourselves as a justice-seeking community in the face of a new reality

I hope we will realize fully the tremendous wealth of resources that we hold, not just financial, but in experience, skills, creativity, and energy

I hope we will find ways to use these resources strategically, to identify and address needs, both long-standing and emerging, in our local community

I hope we will seek out partners within this local community to join us in this work

This congregation has such potential. I believe we can accomplish so much more coming out of this current crisis than we ever thought possible.

So may it be,
Susan Grider
President, Fiscal Year 2019/2020