Reflection from the Rector
St. Stephen’s newsletter, The Parishscope, is published six times a year, and is compiled by parishioner staff, with a pulse on the latest in church news.
The cover of every Parishscope carries a Reflection from the Rector, recording personal responses and raising the spiritual dimensions of recent events, personal experiences and the liturgical cycle.
Article suggestions or news items can be submitted to the Parishscope for consideration by contacting Head Editor Jessica Hoagland. To be added to the mailing list for upcoming editions of the Parishscope, please click here.
In September a group of parish- ioners went to Stockbridge to help with the clean up following Irene, another group spent the morning cleaning up the church yard, yet another participated in the CROP walk. The choir resumed its leadership role in Sunday worship with renewed vigor, the Adult Forum began with perceptive conversation about the future shape of the church and the Ministry Discernment Team began the information gathering process for developing the profile. A busy month, indeed!
Each group is an indicator of ministry taking place in our midst. Collectively, they become a concert of ministry sharing the good gifts of God with the com- munity around us. Each ministry gives to the com- munity the abundance of gifts, of time, talent and money we have received. It is an astonishing dem- onstration of good stewardship practices at the very most basic level; of nurturing and using the gifts we have been given.
Frequently in an interim time parish communities experience a falling off of good stewardship as the community wrestles with the anxiety of discerning the future of the congregation’s life. The opposite seems to be happening. The anxiety of this interim period frees the congregation to initiate some different ways of living out our common witness to the love and grace of God in Christ. It is energizing to discover the new possibilities for the mission of St. Stephen’s future.
It also reminds us to nurture the resources we have been given. In October you will be hearing a lot about stewardship and supporting the work of St.Stephen’s in the year to come. Rather than viewing this as an annual burden, I encourage you take it as an opportunity to consider the abundance in your life; abundance that may surprise you. Think about how to share that abundance with others.
One Sunday I found myself reflecting on the abundance we have been given and that as we share the abundance grows for all people. The offertory at a recent service, in another place, became an astonishing moment of stewardship as the deacon preparing the table for the Great Thanksgiving was unable to cope with presentation of the offering; there was the usual bread and wine, the normal collection plates, three very large baskets of canned food and couple of extra containers with the annual ingathering the of the United Thank Offering. It dawned on me, as the deacon scrambled to find ways to receive all of these gifts that none of them would remain in the church, that all of them were being blessed, transformed and given back to the community to be used embody God’s care for all of the Creation.
In this month, in this time of change, consider God’s generosity to this congregation over the decades; consider how that generosity will be expressed in the future by your sharing of the gifts you have received. How your gifts becomes gifts for others. This is an exciting time in the life of this congregation. God now bids all of us to step out in hope in the future mission and ministry of this community.
-Merritt Greenwood
