Facebook Live
June 6, 2020
Good afternoon, I hope you’re doing well
Importance of staying connected
Live message Tuesday through Saturday at 1pm
If you miss a message you can watch the recording on facebook,
if you have a facebook account.
Or you can read my message (in outline form) at my personal website: rhmcd.com
Here’s what you need to know
Board Retreat
We have a new Board President – Jan Goodwin
Our Vice President is the same as last year – Jennifer Filipowicz
Christina Cervantes is appointed out Treasurer
Lee Kimura is appointed our Clerk
And the Board Assigned Ministries
Worship – Bob Moore
Communications – Gina Stephens
Personnel – Jan Goodwin (Committee on Ministry, Amicus)
Administration – Jen Filipowicz (Leadership Development, Town Hall)
LRE – Kamiliah Holmes
Facilities – Kevin Ford
Social Justice – Lisa Gonzales-Burris
Finance – Michael Kimmitt
Congregational Life – Peter Phelps (Membership, and Pastoral Care)
Our new Virtual Church Committee
Is under the ministry of both Worship
And Communications
For now
This Sunday is our Music Sunday
Francisco Ruiz, our Director of Music is putting together a great program
The following Sunday, June 14, is our RE Sunday
Our Religious Education Director, Naomi Yoshida
And the RE Committee
Are putting that together.
June 21, is my last day preaching to you
We will put a formal close on this interim ministry
And say our farewells
We will do some honoring of the outgoing and the new Board
We have three new members to welcome
For my message
I want to talk about the importance of community
Virtual Church is doing some things very well
Worship
Meetings
What we do less well is some of the community building events
Social gatherings
Unprogrammed/casual interaction
Coffee Hour
Grabbing someone before or after a meeting
Passing in the breezeway, accidentally
So, looking at a year of virtual church
the two most important challenges we face
Are communications
And community
And incidentally both of those have the same word origin
Latin for the word common
Meaning “held in the public spirit”
The feeling of holding something in common
And communication is the verb form
“to make something common”
Common knowledge
We communicate to build community
So we need to find deliberate ways to communicate
More
And more often
To find formal means of communication
To replace all the informal communication we have lost.
And we need to find more ways to gather in community
Particularly in the unprogrammed, social, and fellowship mode.
Worship has an “agenda” called the liturgy
But what about just a party?
How do we make that happen?
One of the core functions of church
Maybe the core function
Is building, maintaining, sustaining, living, celebrating, community
How do we do that in a virtual church environment
We need to be able to say, as strongly and truthfully as ever…
418 Adapted from Israel Zangwill
Come into the circle of love and justice.
Come into the community of mercy, holiness, and health.
Come and you shall know peace and joy.
How do we do that in a virtual church environment?
I think that’s a question that you all will need to answer in the coming year.
I don’t know what that looks like
I’m eager to see what you discover
We used to say at church every week…
458 Walter Royal Jones, Jr.
Mindful of truth ever exceeding our knowledge
And community ever exceeding our practice,
Reverently we covenant together,
Beginning with ourselves as we are,
To share the strength of integrity
And the heritage of the spirit
In the unending quest for wisdom and love.
So we always must be making more community connections
Beyond whatever we have done before
In any environment.
That is always
And still our challenge.
So in-person our virtual we can live this truth as well…
434, Anonymous
May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations, and inspired to bring our gifts of love and service to the altar of humanity.
May we know once again that we are not isolated beings but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to this community and to each other.
See you Tuesday, 1pm.