08/30/2026
Greetings Southside!
As summer schedules begin to settle down, our young people are back in school, and many of us are looking ahead to a new season. For our church, September is a month of reconnecting, refocusing, and jumping back into opportunities to worship, learn, and serve together.
We have several important events coming up this month:
School Supply Drive: We will collect school supplies during the month of September to support the New Horizons School
District Superintendent Rev. Rob will visit on Thursday, September 3, at 9:00 a.m.
Communion Sunday will be September 6. I hope you'll join us as we gather around the Lord's Table and re-member God's grace in our lives.
Administrative Council will meet Sunday, September 13, immediately following worship.
On September 20, we'll celebrate our Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon and Fall Kick-Off. This will be a chance to thank you for the life you bring to the ministries of our church. All are welcome! I hope you'll join us.
Our Discipleship Group will resume on Tuesday, September 22, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This fall we'll be studying the Gospel of Luke. Whether you've been part of the group before or are considering it for the first time, we'd love to have you with us.
I also wanted to share something I'll be participating in this fall and how it connects to our life together as a congregation.
Beginning September 14, 2026, I will be joining a local ecumenical group of faith leaders for a project called Sacred Bridges. We will meet on Monday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. for seven weeks.
Sacred Bridges is an interfaith leadership cohort developed in collaboration with the Wassmuth Center. Together, leaders from different faith traditions will explore the Wassmuth Center's Six Powerful Practices. What drew me to this opportunity is that these practices provide common ground for people of faith while honoring the dignity and human rights of every person through our everyday actions.
As followers of Christ, we are called to love our neighbors, build relationships, and seek understanding rather than division. I look forward to learning alongside other faith leaders and discovering how our different traditions can work together for the common good while remaining rooted in our own faith.
This experience will also shape our ministry this fall. The conversations and insights from Sacred Bridges will inspire a sermon series based on the Gospel of Luke. The series will be designed to complement our weekly Discipleship Study Group. My hope is that our worship, sermons, and discussions will help us explore what it means to follow Jesus faithfully in a diverse and interconnected world.
I appreciate your prayers as I participate in this cohort, and I look forward to sharing what I learn with you along the way.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Jen