I am writing this on December 18, 7 days before Christmas and 14 days before we turn the page on the year 2023. I suspect that, like me, many of you are contemplating the year that is about to end and the year that is ahead. As a congregation, we have accomplished many things in 2023.
- More members have returned to worship post-Covid.
- We welcomed 23 new members and friends into our church family, and every Sunday, visitors regularly attend our worship services.
- We hired and welcomed Jim Tinnemeyer as Director of Administration and Facilities. Jim has been a godsend in all of his areas of responsibilities, including the completion of a comprehensive examination of the 2022 budget and presenting the findings to the congregation.
- The HR Committee, along with Jim and other staff, updated job descriptions for all staff and adjusted the majority of the staff’s salaries to meet Pittsburgh’s median income levels based on tenure, experience, education, and responsibilities.
- The PNC was formed, facilitated the completion of the Church Assessment Tool, conducted many listening sessions with our members, and completed the Ministry Discernment Profile.
- An intergenerational contingent of ELPC members volunteered at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Amen to Action event, packaging soup for our food insecure neighbors; and, the Board of Deacons, with help from the congregation, provided Thanksgiving assistance to close to 80 families and Christmas gifts to close to 130 children in our community.
- Prayerfully, we have all grown spiritually—individually and corporately. Most importantly, even though we have experienced some bumps along the road and unexpected detours as we journeyed through 2023, God remained faithful!
Looking ahead, we anticipate many new experiences, opportunities, and even a few challenges in 2024. To name a few:
- The search for new pastoral leadership will commence.
- New opportunities for ministry will be explored by the Faith Formation Board, Christian Education, and Youth and Young Adult ministries, and an All-Church Retreat is scheduled for the first Sunday in May.
- The Mission Board and Mission Committees will explore new opportunities to walk with and accompany our neighbors.
- Many of the ministry programs we have offered and supported will continue and possibly be reimagined as Holy Spirit guides, and God will remain faithful!
As we metaphorically turn the page on 2023, to paraphrase Hal Borland, 2024 neither marks the end, nor is it an indication that something new has begun. The New Year is the assurance that life and time continue. And as the body of Christ, the New Year is an opportunity to continue to faithfully worship, serve, and trust God; an opportunity to continue to serve and love neighbor as we are loved; and an opportunity to sense what God is doing now and will do.
In closing, I want to re-share the poem, Patient Trust by Teilhard de Chardin, SJ. It may sound familiar because Pastor BJ has shared it with our community before.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to do something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—and
that it may take a very long time.
And so, I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
May it be so…
—Pastor Patrice