FROM THE PASTOR

Next Big Thing

We have sent out invitations to the Implementation Team, who will guide and coordinate the implementation of our Strategic Plan coming out of the Vision Process and unanimously adopted by the Congregation Council. This team will plan to roll out the entire plan and recommendations with a big launch this fall. The theme will center around what we heard from you in the Listening Season: Reconnecting in Christ. We have already shared a couple of Recommendations. 

First, to continue to worship in one service at 10 AM on Sundays for this coming season with Education hour at 8:30. Another recommendation.

Second, an Every-Member-Visitation this fall. We hope to connect with those we see every Sunday; those we have not seen in a long time; and those who participate virtually in the worship and life of our church. We also hope there will be an outreach component to this visitation as we connect with those who have shared in the life of our congregation through baptisms, funerals, marriages, Sunday visits, or other ways of engaging with St. Luke’s.

The Strategic Plan also recommends a “Big Thing,” a new ministry initiative to engage in mission with our community such as an after-school program, program for older adults, or other community-based initiative. Let me share with you what launching a “Big Thing” looked like in one of the parishes I served. 

In a congregation I served as pastor in New Jersey one of our members, Agnes, caused us to engage in launching a ministry in the community. A lifelong member of our church and community, she was 80 years old. She lived alone in an old frame house. She had no place to go where she could continue some measure of independent living. There were no affordable housing options in our part of North Jersey. We helped her search for over a year. Her home and her inner and outer health deteriorated badly. She died when the house burned down.

The following year, with Agnes on our hearts, during the Octave for Christian unity, leaders of the congregations in our community resolved to interview every older adult living alone in our town. A nun trained a group of us in doing one-on-ones with our neighbours and my lifelong commitment to listening in the community was forged in the turf of our parish. Over 250 elderly neighbours told us what Agnes had already taught us: affordable housing was their primary concern. An ecumenical committee was formed to research and advocate for housing options. A new Big Thing coming into view. We successfully negotiated with private and public sector leaders and achieved an accessory housing ordinance which would enable the renovation and creation of an additional affordable housing units in the home of low-income seniors. And we gained the creation of seventy new units of affordable housing. This new Big Thing revitalized our parish and its members, and our community. Our embrace of our community and its most vulnerable neighbours attracted many new members to the life of our congregation. 

St. Luke’s has many big things in its history, including the formation of its multi-faceted music program, the dinners feeding the homeless and many other initiatives. We have this in our mission DNA. What will be our next Big Thing for the sake of the reign of God.

Pastor Stephen Paul Bouman