Discerning God's Call

Dear Friends,

This Friday and Saturday, our 2020 vestry will be away on retreat at Rosyln, our diocesan retreat center in Richmond.  We will be returning Saturday night and the vestry will be commissioned during services on Sunday.  

The 2020 vestry members are Jim Causey, Lyn Crawford, Katie DeMott, Seton Droppers, Ike Emejuru, Preston Findlay, Mike Giaquinto, Margret Hjalmarson, Ed Mott, Anne Norloff, Laura Nussbaum, and Suzanne Stephens.  The Senior Warden and Junior Warden will be elected during the retreat.  

The vestry begins their tenure on retreat so that they can be grounded in their relationship with God and with each other as we lead the parish in the coming year.  The vestry works with me to discern where God is calling us and how we can best live out our mission, “Loving God, Serving Others, Changing the World”.  The vestry’s leadership ministry is very important and I hope you will hold all of us in prayer this week-end.  

This Sunday we will celebrate a feast day that we do not often get to experience on a Sunday.  "The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord" falls on February 2nd each year.  We hear the story in Luke 2: 22-40 of Jesus being presented in the temple by his parents.  The presentation reminds us of the requirement under Jewish law that every firstborn son was to be dedicated to God in thanksgiving for the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt and the firstborn sons being saved from being killed.  

When we come together each week to celebrate the Eucharist, we remember Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.  We are reminded that he offered himself to God completely.  His parents’ presentation of Jesus as a newborn was the beginning of a life of giving himself as a fragrant offering to God and to the world.  

Each of us is called to present ourselves to God as a fragrant offering each day.  

I look forward to coming together to offer ourselves to God this Sunday.  

Epiphany blessings,

Shearon+