Dear Incarnation,
This Sunday is Membership Sunday, and I'm delighted that twelve people have decided to become members!
We've always had a somewhat low threshold to membership at Incarnation. This was intentional; from the beginning, we wanted to create a way for people to meaningfully express their belonging to this community, even if they are still healing from past church wounds or sorting out their theological or denominational convictions.
New members must have attend church for at least six months, because at its heart, membership is about belonging and participating in the life of the community. They must have a conversation with one of our pastors; this is a time for us to hear about their faith journey, answer questions about the church, and learn how we can best support, include, and pray for them. And finally, they must affirm these Membership Promises on a Membership Sunday. The promises are basic — renewing baptismal vows and committing to worship, generosity, and service as a part of this community — just ordinary Christianity lived out in this particular church at this particular time.
Some of you come from church backgrounds that have more involved membership processes: multi-week theology classes, behavior covenants, shared rules of life, monetary pledges, Anglican confirmation, and more. All of those things are great! I love helping people to dig deeply into orthodox theology; we hope to offer more opportunities for this in the future as resources become available. And I love inviting people into deep reflection on their habits and behaviors so that they can conform their lives to Christ's with the support of their community. And I'm all for monetary pledges (just not the administrative headache that comes with them) and expressions of financial commitment; these are such helpful ways of practicing generosity. And obviously, I love being Anglican, showing others the beautiful distinctives of our tradition, and preparing people for confirmation (coming soon!).
These are all really good things that we want to cultivate at Incarnation — just not through our membership process, but in the context of ordinary participation in the church community over time. Instead, membership at Incarnation is just a marker, a way of saying publicly "I belong to this community, and I will participate in this local expression of Christ's body." It also affords a few privileges: voting in vestry elections, serving on vestry, and eligibility for marriage and baptizing a child.
But most of the life of Incarnation is available to everyone who attends, regardless of their membership status. Whatever your membership status, whatever length of time you've attended, Membership Sunday offers all of us an opportunity to reflect on growth in Christ through our participation in his body here at Incarnation.
On Sunday, after the sermon, we'll have an opportunity for some guided reflection. We'll use the gospel passage from Mark and our four "we are" statements from the church retreat and the Ordinary Church series to guide our reflections: We Are Worshipers, We Are Generous, We Are Peacemakers, We Are Citizens of God's Kingdom. (You've probably noticed that we are getting a lot of mileage out of these statements, because they so helpfully capture so much of the Christian life.)
But I'd encourage you to begin your reflection before Sunday. Could you set aside five minutes each day this week to listen and pray? Below is a suggested format:
Reflect:
How is God calling you to deepen your worship, generosity, peacemaking, or citizenship in his Kingdom?
How might your participation in the Incarnation community foster this growth?
Is there anything God is calling you to stop or start toward this end?
1 minute of silence
Close with this Collect for Preparation for Public Worship, adapted from the BCP:
Guide and direct us, O Lord, always and everywhere with your holy light, that we may discern with clear vision your presence among us at Incarnation, partake with reverence of your divine mysteries, nourish each other as members of your body, and joyfully offer our service. We ask this for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
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Last Sunday I preached on divorce. We'll get the audio posted soon, and you can read my letter if you haven't already. If that sermon stirred any questions, thoughts, or difficult memories for you, please reach out; I'd love to listen and pray.
As always, it's a gift to be your pastor.
With love,
Amy
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