Grace and peace to you all from God our Creator and Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.
Alpine community, greetings in this wonderful summer season!
As we start the summer months, we welcome new ideas and a few new changes. Council has decided to go to one service through the summer months. We will gather together at 9am. Starting again in September, we will return to two services. This decision came out of the conversation that we had with Pastor Josh Ebner from the Northern Illinois Synod in January. While Pastor Josh was here, the conversation around one service or two was highly talked about. Our congregation was pretty evenly split on what direction to go. I hope that doing one service through the summer will give us a better idea on what the wants and needs of our congregation are. We will continue this conversation through the rest of the year.
On June 28th, we will be having another congregational conversation. We are committed to having these ongoing conversations so that we can stay connected and continue to make space for sharing ideas as well as concerns. Our first conversation was well attended and we had an opportunity to share ideas with our tables and put them to paper. We will bring these papers back up and use them as guides for our ongoing conversations. If you are able, please make sure you stay around for this next conversation. Since we will have one worship service, this conversation will take place after worship in the fellowship hall.
In July, Scott and I are planning to host a community picnic/ice cream social. This will be an event open to the whole community. Our hope is that we will be able to meet some of our neighbors and expand our loving and welcoming presence to those we have not met yet.
Alpine Fest will be here before we know it! If you are interested in helping plan and volunteer at this event, please reach out to me or Scott.
I know that change can be difficult. I want to express my gratitude to the community of Alpine for being open to the changes that I am bringing, both big and small. Even if we know that change is important and unavoidable, it is still difficult. God will continue to lead and guide us through this season and we remain confident and hopeful in the promise of the beloved community.
Peace,
Pastor Rachel Perkins-Gama