letter to the congregations

[The following letter was presented during worship and distributed to those present to share the ideas and next steps in our church discernment. We invite all feedback and comments!]

Dear Members, Adherents, Friends and Supporters of Appin and Trinity United:

For many months, years even, our two congregations have been wondering how they might continue to exist, and even thrive. The respective Visioning Committees and Sessions met and worked throughout the past year and, as it turns out, have been travelling parallel courses – wondering many of the same things and having many of the same ideas.

You are likely tired of hearing about change, wondering what will happen, and may be frustrated or frightened by all of the uncertainty. After a combined meeting of both Session committees earlier this month, we are recommending a plan of action: that, pending results of a financial study, the two congregations of Appin and Trinity join together into one, while keeping both buildings.

Essentially, the two congregations would become one church that has two locations. As you can imagine, many details would need to be sorted out; for example, Sunday worship might rotate from one building to the other on a monthly basis. Right now, it is on the principle of uniting the two congregations that we seek your input, feedback and suggestions. No drastic changes with regard to selling buildings or movement to new sites are part of this plan. A merger would relieve the time and energy costs on our leaders and members as we cooperate with each other more fully.

We emphasize that this is an intermediate step into our future. At some point, we have to know what our neighbouring United Churches in the Southwest Middlesex region might do, if they would be interested in future collaboration with us. In the meantime, our uniting would demonstrate to our wider church governance and local communities that we are serious about making changes that position us well for new opportunities.

There will be congregational meetings in the fall to address the matter formally with a hope to begin this new relationship January 1, 2011. In the meantime, please give us your comments and concerns! Contact any of us, listed below, with your opinions and ideas [submit them as Comments to this webpost].

Yours in Christ’s mission and ministry,

the Clerks of Session and Minister of Appin & Trinity United Church

sermon excerpts: "but the Kitchen Sink" - 1 Kings 19: 1-15

...Drought and meagerness is a theme and reality of much of the biblical context and today is no different. After Elijah ushers in the end of a 3-year drought that he predicted, he finds himself in a situation of no food and water. There isn’t anything left for him, he’s at the end of his rope. On the run from the most powerful people in the land, in the middle of nowhere, nothing to eat or drink. His prayer is for death. He prays to God to die because his life is so miserable.
Is that a comment on the nurture and provision of God? Through God we will have what we need. Even if it’s only bread and water, we have enough to get by on.

If we stop and look, there is our sustenance. Or are we too busy feeling sorry for ourselves to notice? Or are we too scared to reach out and receive, worried that it would lead to something else? Or, are we too proud or spoiled to partake?

So, given our current church situation of declining resources amid escalating cost, where is our sustenance? Is there anything we’re overlooking, afraid of, or ignoring? We struggle and strain to strategize and overcome, but it feels like too many factors are piled up against us. Like Elijah.

Although he is lucky enough to speak directly with God, even to experience God’s presence – not in hurricane winds, earthquakes or firestorms, but in stillness and smallness. Is that not where we find our faith, when we are weak and discouraged? God who sides with the underdog cares not for grand gestures of power and prestige. We see that in Jesus’ teachings.

Sometimes we need to be shocked into silence. That’s when we ourselves are quiet enough to hear what God would say to us. The shaking and the rumbling of life’s great catastrophes, the earthquakes and firestorms, bring us out of ourselves, open us to a larger perspective, re-align our priorities. When everything is broken open, the still small voice becomes clear.

In the aftermath, in the what next, in the questions and wondering, we find our purpose and mission. Elijah will go on to anoint kings, appoint warriors and acclaim a new prophet. He will set up these others to influence and affect the kingdom of Israel for generations to come. So that God’s work could be done.

We, as churches, are actually in a position of power and strength in the sense that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what our next steps will be. In our discernment, prayer and vision, we want to further the work of God in this world. We want to follow Christ’s example to love and serve. We want to listen to the still small voice that calls us forward to venture into the world around us, to connect people to their vision and destiny.

In a reality of meagerness, of drought, Jesus continues to invite us to an open table. Granted, anyone who is starving and dehydrated will not find enough nourishment in a cube of bread or thimble drink of grape juice. But the connection to an eternal and endless God of creation and life, the experience of forgiveness, the promise of resurrection and fresh starts, the spirit of renewal and the taste of unconditional love, are all ways that the still small voice is able to break through the raging storms and turmoil of our days.

It’s ceremonial, it’s a ritual, but it is real and brings in communion with a real and present way to express our faith and live in God’s grace. Our sacrament is a modest reenactment of a meal that our Saviour provided, but it means so much and offers so much. At that table we find truth, hope, reconciliation, mercy, justice, absolution, nurture, encouragement, renewal, all that and more. Everything but the kitchen sink.