Pastor's Note | Monday, June 17th

Saturday morning I joined Pastors Jim and Paul, as well as a number of Elder Commissioners from our church at a Los Ranchos Presbytery denominational discernment meeting. There have been a number of such gatherings throughout the past few months, since, as I'm sure you're aware, the presbytery has asked each local church to discern their ongoing relationship to the national body.

This particular meeting focused upon approving a policy regarding church property, each of which are held in trust with the presbytery. After months of work by a group of pastors and elders in our area known as the Strategic Coordinating Team, a property policy was approved this morning.

There are, of course, many questions involved in our ongoing discernment process. Just this week a member of our church family stopped by my office after her convenant group meeting, where our discernment process came up in response to last week's sermon. At one point, this member of our congregation said, "Well, I won't bug you anymore" (or something like that). In response, I said something like "NONSENSE! THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR!" (yes, the all caps are necessary... I was probably a bit too forceful in my response!)

The Pastors, Session, and Discernment Working Party want us all to be informed! This is not merely a Session decision... It's a church-wide decision. We all need to discern God's will for us together! 

So, if you haven't already, spend some time on our Denominational Discernment page, where we've posted a myriad of resources as well as videos of our previous Town Hall meetings (the content of which is the same, until you get to the Question and Answer portion). If you're interested in learning even more, click on over to Discern, a page hosted on our Presbytery website. There you'll find documents, blog posts, and videos of presbytery meetings that have been held over the past few months. 

And if you're available, be sure to attend the Town Hall meeting this Wednesday, June 19th at 7pm in the Sanctuary. 

If, at any point, you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact one of the pastors, who would be honored to talk with you, or point you to a member of our Discernment Working Party, who could be of assistance. Like I said (perhaps a bit too forcefully), "That's what we're here for!"

As 1st John encourages, let us continue to journey together in fellowship, relying upon God's guidance in all things!
Curtis