What’s next for me is an interim ministry with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City.  It’s a full time position, only 20 minutes away from my home in downtown Los Angeles.  I’ll have an office at the church to work from, and sleep in my own bed every evening.  I start Monday, August 15.

What’s next for you is that you will be starting a new church year in a few weeks.  You will be led by a strong and capable board.  Joann Conard and her team will program interesting and inspiring worship.  Many of you will participate throughout the fall in small group ministry gatherings called Covenant Groups.  There are plans in place to organize a youth group and perhaps expand our current childcare situation into more of a religious education program.  You will continue to gather for weekly breakfasts and monthly lunches, to care for each other, to laugh together, and to grow together.

You biggest new experience is that in September the congregation will be asked to adopt a proposal to move forward with a search for a full-time minister who you would share with the Santa Clarita congregation.  If you approve the proposal, then you will elect a Search Committee to begin their work right away with hopefully a new minister arriving in the summer of 2023.

Life continues.  We make plans and we do our work.  But the future brings its own surprises as well.  We adapt.  We shift.  We respond.  I can’t see the future clearly for you any more than I can see my own future.  But I know that you are good people.  You are talented people.  You know how to love each other, how to build community, and how to make decisions as a community.  I trust — I know — that you have everything you need to make a bright and fulfilling future for yourselves, and a “welcoming, diverse, spiritual community” in Kern County.