It’s the Saturday before the third Sunday after Epiphany. My liturgy professor always said it’s good to know what time it is, and where we are. Preparations for our annual meeting are underway. We’re holding it tomorrow after church, and there will be food! In Fellowship Hall, and the Undercroft, we’re setting up tables, placing chairs, arranging flowers. Many thanks to Sylvia and Bob De Rosa, Fred and Joanne Peterson, and Chris Blanchette, for coming out in a snowstorm to get us ready for tomorrow’s meeting.
If you haven’t read the Annual Report, please do so. It was a much busier year, with more transitions, than I realized while it was happening. Only in recollection, and in writing, did I discover how much has happened this year. I called the Pastor’s report “A Year of Blessings and Change,” because, as I wrote, I found myself deep in gratitude, naming the many blessings we’ve experienced together in this gift of Christian community. In words from an ancient source, St. Paul, after whom we are named: to the church that is in Gloucester, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind–just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you–so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(I Cor.1:4-8)
It is a privilege to serve as your pastor.
May Christ’s light shine for you, today.
Pastor Anne