I recently served as part of the Transition Team and Call Committee for our congregation. The Council President asked me if I would be willing to write the Summer Letter to our congregation. Although I have played around with pieces of this letter for the last several months, it feels like the letter as written deserves a home here, on Soul Munchies. It has been edited ever so slightly to protect the privacy of those people I individually named in the letter.
Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ,
As I write this, rain gushes down the side of my house just outside our living room. It sounds like a waterfall flowing down my window. Because it’s been so wet the last few weeks, we didn’t clean our gutters before this latest round of heavy rain. There’s no room for the water to flow. The water cascades onto our rhododendron bush just outside the window where a robin built a nest and laid three eggs earlier this spring. Every time we stepped outside the house, mama robin would screech and flit away. It’s possible we were as scared by her as she was by us. One day, we noticed she was gone. And so were her eggs. This discovery prompted quite a discussion at our dinner table that day. We watched the nest closely and never saw any babies, nor did we find any remaining eggshells. We began to wonder: do robins move their eggs when they feel threatened? Where is their new home? How could we have better protected this mama and her babies in their most vulnerable days? I can’t help but ask myself how we could have been a better family to this nest of robins.
Since moving to Massachusetts five years ago, there have been many times I felt like this mama robin. I’ve wondered if we brought our babies to the right place, far from family in Georgia. When we moved from Atlanta, David and I agreed if we found a church community to call home, we could make life in Massachusetts work. When we found St Paul, we found the family we so desperately need to thrive here. You have become our parents, our grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins too. You are the most welcoming congregation we have ever been a part of.
Over the last six months, our congregation has embarked on an incredible journey together. One where we walked through memories during our Online History Event, listened to honest opinions through the Congregational Assessment Tool (CAT), and dreamed for the future in writing our Ministry Site Profile (MSP). Because of the pandemic, our Transition Trail was completely virtual, and you stepped up and participated as fully as you would have in person.
Time and time again we heard that St Paul Cape Ann is a family, deeply committed to loving one another and the greater community. I have been blown away by the way this community loves and supports one another and I am truly grateful to call you my church family.
Within the last few months, we also said goodbye to Pastor Luther Ziegler, who did a wonderful job of pastoring us through our transition journey. We said farewell to our Director of Family Ministry, as she stepped into a caregiving role with her family. We secured Pastor Elyse as our summer interim to provide continuity in worship. We tiptoed cautiously and excitedly, back to in-person worship, following safety guidelines far longer than required, to ensure that each one among us feels safe and welcome in this place.
Thank you for all your hard work through our transition journey.
I’d especially like to thank all of those who served on the Transition Team and the Ministry Site Profile Writing Team. A special thanks to our consultant who gently guided us through a process that felt overwhelming at first. With her leadership, we found it to be manageable and spirit-filled. And thank you to those willing to serve as part of the Call Committee during this next stage of our transition.
Our transition is not over, but I know God is at work preparing someone to be our next pastor. Please continue to keep the Call Process in your prayers. Pray that God sends wisdom and discernment to our Call Committee and to any prospective candidates. Pray for peace to all of us as we wait patiently to see what God is up to in this place. We are a congregation full of dreams and I can’t wait to see where God takes us next.
In Christ’s Hope,
Crystal Rowe
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash.