Thank you all for your thoughtful responses in May at the congregational gathering with Co-Executive Presbyters Scott Lumsden and Eliana Maxim. Thank you also to those who sent thoughts in writing after the meeting. We wanted to be sure to let you know about Session’s progress over the last couple of months.

As we discussed at the congregational gathering, Session meetings are currently including Tom Mara and Ally McCombs, both of whom have been involved in the staffing and visioning process but who are not currently serving on Session. Our co-executive presbyters are also meeting with us and walking with us as we pursue this process.

At the June Session meeting, we debriefed and discussed your responses and added our own thoughts. We developed a plan to continue by talking with leaders of local institutions and community groups, to build relationships and to learn from them about community needs. Between meetings, we each had time to consider further our thoughts about your feedback and to flesh out how best to approach our community.

At the July Session meeting, Scott and Eliana joined us and helped us to find focus on the core of our ministry together. We know that we are a congregation that loves feeding people, whether through dinner at youth group & elementary fellowship, through North Helpline packing parties, through Teen Feed, or simply by enjoying meals together. All of these activities serve to bring our congregation – all ages – together, and all of them help us to reach out to and engage with our larger community.

We now have two exploratory projects. In addition to our conversations with community leaders, we will be partnering with Presbytery to engage with consultants around our finances and the range of possibilities for wise and faithful use of our resources. Scott and Eliana have helpful resources for fruitful conversations in the community and for the appropriate consultancy to help us, and Presbytery is sharing the cost of the consultancy with us.

We will do our best to continue to keep everyone up to date on our progress and thoughts. As always, please feel free to reach out to any of us with your thoughts and questions.

— Pastor Karen, Tom Mara, Ally McCombs, Ellen Kendall, Cathy Randolph, Maddie West, Chandler Felt, Anne Hay, Sara Elizabeth Jones, Cil Pierce, Judson Randolph, Kayla Roos