Hallelujah
Dear Ones:
We have come once again to the end of the congregational year. While the pace of congregational life tends to slow a bit during the summer months, it doesn’t mean that our spiritual lives take a vacation. Nor does it mean that UUS:E ceases to function. UUS:E is a twelve-month-per-year congregation. Even now, the Sun-day Services Committee is preparing some awesome worship experiences for July and August. Sunday chil-dren’s programming continues at the 11:00 service. Committees meet. Small group ministries meet. The office is open during business hours as usual. Congregational life continues.
I will be on vacation during most of July and August. I don’t have any big plans this summer. I hope to catch up on some cleaning and fixing around the house, visit friends I haven’t seen in a while, read, run, spend time with my boys and possibly spend a few weekends camping. As I seem to say every year at this time, sum-mer’s spiritual task for us is exploration. Where winter invites us to turn our gaze inward, summer invites us to look out. Even though I won’t be travelling to some other part of the country or the world, I do expect to turn my gaze outward, to encounter life in new ways, to search, to explore or, as our July ministry theme suggests, to bear witness to life. Sometimes our greatest insights and discoveries lie just outside our back doors.
As is always the case during the summer months, I will not be keeping regular office hours. I will be available in the event of a pastoral emergency—especially in the event of a death—but I do not expect to re-spond to non-emergencies until later in August.
For now, I wish you a wonderful summer. My prayer for all the members and friends of our congrega-tion—and all who read these words—is that you shall each find the time and the resolve to turn your spiritual gaze outward, to search, to explore, to bear witness to what life holds, to bear witness to what life offers. May you encounter life in new ways. May you stretch and grow with summer.
With love,
Rev. Josh
