Parish Meeting Recap: October 25, 2026
On Sunday, October 25, we held our twice-annual parish meeting. Below is a summary of what was discussed:
Vestry Election
We elected Webb McArthur, Tami Ritsema, and Grant Sung to join our vestry in January 2027 (bios here). They will join Katie Foran, Emma Wen, and Andy Lau.
Outgoing and oh-so-beloved vestry member Buz Schultz shared a brief and moving testimony of his time serving on the vestry. Please ask him about the image of the falling leaf!
Update on Children’s Ministry
Josie shared about summer highlights from our children’s ministry, including our July Wild Wonder Camp with Natural Leaders, and our all-summer-long, all-ages Wild Wonder Sundays each week after church.
Wild Wonder concluded in September, and our children’s ministry for all ages resumed after our fall retreat. Josie briefly reminded the congregation of the purpose and ethos of these ministries at every age.
She also gave a brief overview of our new True Vine Atrium (ages 7+), which is resuming this fall on an experimental basis. Below is a summary of our thinking:
Sunday worship, weekly small groups, family life and home atmosphere are the primary places of faith formation for children ages 7+. We prioritize children attending church with their families! (So we're not going to replace church attendance or after-church fellowship.)
Having said that, we do seek to provide age-appropriate faith formation for ages 7+ — in their own developmental language, to paraphrase Acts 2.
Therefore, we're piloting a before-church program for ages 7+. Children will share special snacks and drinks before church and prayerfully engage the scripture together. This time may occasionally include connective activities (games, icebreakers) or seasonal activities (making crowns, making advent wreaths, seasonal art). The purpose of this time is to:
encounter God through his Word and prayer;
strengthen bonds of community between children and their adult leaders; and
deepen connection to the Sunday liturgy through time spent in the gospel text.
We will observe challenges, seek parental feedback, and make adjustments along the way through the rest of fall and Advent. During our Christmastide break, with all the data we've collected, we'll make a plan for 2027.
We’re only a few weeks in, but so far, the kids seem to love this special time with their peers. They’ve come up with alternative names — Donuts and Devotions, Muffins with our Maker, Cookies with Christ; they love trying to“stump the priest” each week; and they're full of ideas for digging deeper.
Summer Discernment Update
At our last parish meeting in April, we invited the congregation into a season of discernment over the summer. Over the previous year, we’d moved to a new building in a new city with new neighborhood demographics. We’d drastically changed the way Sundays worked; no more setup and teardown. We’d sent our rector (me) on sabbatical last summer, and we’d launched Holy Comforter in January. In other words, we'd experienced a lot of change, so we wanted to take stock and listen together. We'd also preached through the Ignatian Examen during Lent earlier this spring, and wanted to continue practicing this listening approach to prayer.
So, we introduced the Incarnation Examen and sent people home to pray with it throughout the summer both individually and through several shared events.
However, almost immediately after that Parish Meeting in May, things changed (welcome to Incarnation!). We were unexpectedly invited to take on temporary oversight of a nursing home ministry (we explained this more fully here).
We saw a surprising influx of visitors throughout the summer, many of whom do not live in the neighborhood where the church is now worshiping. While this was exciting, it also meant our time was spent welcoming new friends rather than deepening our local knowledge or leaning into our congregational memory.
And on a personal note, I got a bad case of whooping cough this summer which caused us to scale back the summer church calendar and cancel the planned discernment nights and prayer walks.
It began to feel like perhaps this wasn’t the best moment to pause and take stock, because things were still changing. I am reminded of the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 from this year’s fall retreat: Jesus was on his way to pray in a particular way when he was interrupted by the pressing needs of the crowds, and the shape of his ministry shifted. It seems a similar interruption/shift happened for us this summer.
Nevertheless, discernment happened! Leigh McAfee offered to host a prayer lunch in late August, and that time was well-attended and rich in hopeful prayer and listening. You can read all of the prayer notes from that event here.
Will Montague, our Senior Warden, observed that many of the prayers from that time could be summarized in the phrase “faithful presence,” and I think he’s right. We want to practice faithful presence in this time and place:
Faithful in cultivating and deepening our life with God.
Present to each other and those around us: here in the church’s neighborhood; out in the places we each live and work everyday; and in the DMV, which needs the presence of Jesus in his people.
That idea of “faithful presence” is in my mind as we enter the fall together and as our staff and vestry plan for the year ahead.
Residency Update
I shared an update on our Church Planter in Residence, TJ Ono. TJ has now been worshipping at Incarnation for almost two years. He was ordained a priest here last December and he came on staff in May as our Church Planter in Residence. In this role, part of his time is spent “in residence” – serving as a pastor and priest here at Incarnation and being formed for ministry through this work.
But part of his time is also spent laying the groundwork toward planting a new church in DC sometime in late next year. As a reminder, his plant will be different from Holy Comforter in that the Diocese, not Incarnation, will manage the oversight and back office and finances of his church. (We explained this arrangement more fully here.)
The most common question I get about TJ these days is, “Do we have to say goodbye yet?” And the answer is no! TJ is not going anywhere anytime soon. We are just 5 months into a 12-18 month residency, and he will not be launching his plant until late 2027.
The fact that people are already asking this is a testament to how much we love having TJ around! And it reminds us that even when the diocese is handling the financial details, church planting still costs us something. We will send people we love to establish a new work of the gospel, and that is disruptive and hard.
But this disruption is also formative for us as a congregation. We are learning to relinquish control, to trust God to provide for us, and to bring him our grief when it’s hard. And we will get to see God do new and amazing things through our relationship with TJ and his plant, just as we do with Katie and Holy Comforter. I’m reminded of Paul and Timothy and Epaphroditus and the Philippians risking so much to support each other in the work of the gospel, but rejoicing all the way.
I then invited TJ to share about what he’s been up to on the church planting front and how that experience has been for him. Please reach out to TJ to learn more!
Report on Holy Comforter
Will Montague shared a few key highlights from Holy Comforter’s recent parish meeting report, and described their progression toward financial independence and self-governance over the coming year.
He also reminded the congregation that church planting can often feel lonely and tiring, and brings real spiritual opposition. Our friends at Holy Comforter are feeling this, as is normal in the early life of a church plant. He encouraged us to consider sleeping in and worshiping at Holy Comforter on an upcoming Sunday. We hope to refresh our friends by reminding them that we see them, we’re in their corner, and their labors matter to God.
Facilities
Will also shared a brief update on our facilities, expressing our deep gratitude to Beverley Hills for their continued generosity toward us. We have been blessed by the gift of rest in this place, as we are no longer unloading/reloading a van, but can instead linger over fellowship and reserve our energy for other things.
He also noted that our lease with Beverley Hills carries us through summer 2028, and while we hope to stay beyond that, our future here is uncertain and largely beyond our control. The vestry will be addressing space/facilities in the coming year, and we have set aside a small fund in the FY27 budget for consultation on these matters.
Financial Report
Finally, Buz Schultz, our Treasurer, reported on our FY26 financials and our FY27 budget. Our fiscal year runs from Oct 1 to Sept 30.
As a reminder, Incarnation manages the finances, bank accounts, and backoffice administration for Holy Comforter. This arrangement will continue in FY27.
When we were discerning our next steps with Holy Comforter, many were understandably concerned that planting a church might result in a loss of income and/or people that Incarnation would not be able to weather. On paper, we are too small to plant a church! But we believed God was calling us to take this risk and trust his provision. In response, God has abundantly provided for our needs. New people are finding a spiritual home at both Incarnation and Holy Comforter, and people are faithfully and generously giving to the ministries of our churches.
As a result, the story of this year is one of abundance and surprising reversal. Combined, Incarnation and Holy Comforter ran a surplus that is almost exactly equal to the deficit we projected. This surplus is largely due to Holy Comforter’s overall budget performance as well as sustained increases to Incarnation’s regular household giving.
We cannot say it enough: thank you for your faithful and generous giving to our church, which makes this possible!
You can read the detailed report on our FY26 year-end financials and our FY27 budget here. We will have copies available on Sunday for those who were not present.
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We closed with Q&A and a final prayer. Please reach out with any questions!
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