Deeper Community Connection
The officers’ retreat on April 29 was an opportunity for APC’s leadership to come together for spiritual renewal, assessing our progress and direction, and looking at where we want to go from here. We had excellent participation and great energy on a Saturday from 10 – 3. Leaders came away with a much better sense of where God may be leading us, and how we want to pursu
e that. The clearest product of our prayer and planning time was a Statement of Direction that we worked out together: “Deeper Community Connection” (now featured on the newsletter’s masthead). We feel this is where we are called to put our energy at this time. It should be a priority of our committees, touched on at every meeting; it should lead us to re-examine our building and worship, and the overall life of the church. We have already been working in this direction, but have now officially labeled it as our emphasis, which leads us to look at some new possibilities. One important aspect of this thrust which is not clear in this wording is that the connecting needs to happen out in the streets, not just at church. We do want to welcome people into our building, for worship and other events, but it is just as important for us to meet people where they are, and to have an impact and be a part of the overall life of Aspinwall and neighboring communities. Our calling to “Deeper Community Connection” is not mainly about attracting new members. Though we hope that will happen, we are called by Jesus to follow him and serve all of our neighbors. The church as the Body of Christ is here to serve the world, and so we want better lives and healthier community for all of the people of Aspinwall and all the communities where we live, work and play. I hope you are actively praying for Aspinwall and those who live and work here; if not, time to start! Look for other ways you can be more connected here— frequenting restaurants and businesses, taking a walk through the neighborhood. One of my goals is to walk all the streets of Aspinwall, with church members, this summer. Want to help that happen? Give me a call!
~Pastor Scott
June 2017
