We had our Congregational Meeting on Sunday
Very good attendance
We’re getting higher attendance at these meetings online
than we did in person
You approved a Budget
You elected Trustees:
Jennifer Filipowicz, Jan Goodwin, and Kevin Ford
Lee Kimura will be your Clerk
You elected members to the Leadership Development Committee
Maureen McHale, David Goodwin, and Eduarda Diaz-Schwarzbach
You approved a Bylaw change
Our “General Reserve Fund” is now our “Endowment Reserve Fund”
And you heard annual reports from myself and
Church Historian, Derald Tucker
Other staff also prepared written reports but did not deliver them
I tried to include some of their reports in my presentation
And I wrote more than I presented
Follow-up will include making sure all church members have access
To the approved budget
A revised Bylaws document
The Annual Reports
And the meeting minutes
I’m not sure how that will happen at the moment
But I’ll let you know when I find out.

Small Group Ministry
I encourage you to read the June Advance
To learn about a small group ministry program
That will take place this summer
If you want to join a group
You will need to sign up by June 15

The June Advance is out today
Michael Sallwasser’s final “Thoughts from the President”
My last column as your Interim Minister
An excellent tribute from your DRE to the four Coming of Agers we celebrated on Sunday 
Joys and Sorrows
An introduction to the new Virtual Church Committee
The Worship Team’s plans for summer worship
Information about the special collection for June:  “Ground Education”
And more… 
Plus…
Lots of great writing from several different church members
Associated with the writing groups
facilitated by Debbie Rodriguez and Michael Lyde
Mostly on the theme of “time”
So make yourself a cup of tea and speand some time with the Advance, today
And I want to thank our Office Administrator, Teresa Weber-Freeman
For putting the newsletter together
She always does a great job.

A few more items on our Church Calendar for this month
Music Sunday, June 7
RE Sunday, June 14
Followed by a social justice forum
role-playing responses to casually bigoted remarks we might hear
My last preaching Sunday June 21
Followed by farewell party
Request for photo of you and sentence or two about the interim
Laura extended the deadline for that to June 5
My last contract day is June 30

I was thinking about the theme of “time” as I read the reflections from our church members in the June Advance

And I was thinking what the role of the church should be in a time like this.
And I mean both the coronavirus pandemic
And the racial justice and anti-police brutality protests
That we experienced this weekend
In response to the killing of George Floyd
And the accumulated anger of so many prior incidents.

And that reminded me of a quote from Howard Thurman.

He writes:

“It was my conviction and determination that the church would be a resource for activists – a mission fundamentally perceived. To me it was important that the individual who was in the thick of the struggle for social change would be able to find renewal and fresh courage in the spiritual resources of the church. There must be provided a place, a moment, when a person could declare, I choose.”

Howard Thurman was an American author and theologian.  He was ordained as a Baptist Minister and served a couple of Baptist churches.  But is most known for his positions at Harvard Divinity School and Boston University and for his writing.  He was an influential civil rights leader, and mentor to Martin Luther King, being a generation older than doctor King.  

The church as “a resource for activists” he says.  And the church providing:  “a place, a moment”

Which brought my mind to a reading from Howard Thurman included in our hymnal”

#498 

In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading presence of the Holy, my heart whispers: “Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in good times or in tempests, I may not forget that to which my life is committed. Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve

Thurman reminds us that “in good times or in tempests”
The fundamental prayer, is
To keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.

Listen carefully to how he phrases that
He doesn’t say keep my high resolve fresh before me
He says, keep the moments of my high resolve, fresh before me.

We’re still on the theme of “time”

Thurman is not asking that he be reminded of the best principles that should guide his life
He is asking to be reminded of those times,
Those moments,
In his life
When he did live his life by those best principles

“Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve”

Thurman’s statement comes from a fundamental trust in humankind
That we know what we can do to help
And who we need to be
Because for all of us, there have been times
Even if only for moments
When we were that best person
When we did that right thing

Thurman says, bring back the memory of those moments
Keep those fresh before me
Because more than the abstractions of principles that get lost in thought
The lived reality of what I actually did
Who I was
That one time
For that moment
That memory will inspire me to do it again

I know it’s possible to be good, to be true, to be powerful, to by loving, to be courageous, to be effective.
Because I was

And now the challenge is to take the proof of that moment
And turn it into a lifetime.

See you tomorrow, 1pm.