from Jan. 15: Membership

There is a lot going on at our community in the next few weeks, so I’d like to use this space to draw your attention to what’s coming up:

This Sunday: 9 am; Membership, Stewardship, Apostleship. What does it mean to be a member of Christ Church? To be an Episcopalian? Is there a difference? Is it important?

This Sunday, 11:15 am: We tend to remember Martin Luther King as a secular leader, but it was his Christian faith and understanding of the Gospel that gave orientation to his life and teaching. The Rev. Norm Faramelli, longtime friend of Christ Church and professor of ethics at Boston University, will speak.

Monday, Jan 19, 7 pm: Waltham Community Interfaith Service in Honor of Dr. King. At Covenant Congregational Church (375 Lexington Street)

Sunday, Jan. 25

            Holy Eucharist, 9:30 am: One service! (not our usual 8 & 10)

            Annual Meeting, 10:30 am

            Potluck Lunch, 11:30 am: We meet every year as a congregation to reflect on our ministries from the year and elect our leadership. We’ll hear brief reports from parish leaders and have time to ask questions. This year, we’re bringing back an old tradition of having official voting members of the parish sign in to the meeting. The book you’ll sign contains signatures of voting members of our parish all the way back to 1892!  (The most recent entries are from 1972 and 1988, so we have some catching up to do)  All pledging members who are over 16 years of age and acknowledge the Constitution and By-laws of the parish and have been regular in worship for the preceding twelve months are entitled to vote.  I won’t be standing at the door with the pledge records, but I do hope that if you haven’t yet made your pledge, you’ll take this as a nudge.

 Sunday, Feb. 1, 10:00 am: Welcome of new members and commissioning of new vestry. We are taking the renewal of the book signing  as an opportunity to officially welcome all those who have transferred their confirmation from other congregations, so we’ll do that as well.

 In one sense, all these questions of belonging or membership are sort of abstract. The parish where I was assistant rector for a year before coming to Christ Church had a policy of “open membership”—whoever happened to be in the building at any moment was a member at that time. The idea was to be less threatening, to say, as the church’s banner outside read,  “Welcome, wherever you are on your spiritual journey.” For some, it was a gift of peace—to others, it compounded an already deep sense of rootlessness so common in our culture. I think we can find some space in the middle, though. Our first identity before all others is as a beloved child of God—wherever and however we go in our life, that is the main truth of our createdness. But our commitments shape us, too, and commitments to particular places and traditions can be life-giving as well. When we make a promise (whether in a marriage, or in baptism, or to a church), we are saying to God, “Thank you. You have allowed me consider all of these other choices. I’m returning those choices to you now, and I’m choosing to go to this place and grow with you here.”

 We could all be somewhere else—somewhere flashier, or less creaky, or with a better organ. But we have chosen to be here. We have been called to make our life in this place together, because in some mystical and ordinary way, God has called us here to make a life together.  I’m glad we’ve found our way here together.