April 12, 2024
Being a Good Neighbor
One of the tasks our Church Council has been working on since the first of the year has been doing an audit of the fiscal (dollars spent) and human (people-hours spent) resources it takes to do all we do as a church. For a congregation our size, we do a great deal more than one might think. Our Church Chair Karl Nelson describes it a “punching above our weight class.” I agree, we are a talented, resourceful, and scrappy bunch. Still, there are many needs in our immediate community and our wider world, and we can only do so much to address those needs. One thing we can do is to be informed about opportunities to help and serve offered by those outside our church. Even if we don’t actually contribute to their efforts, we can pray for them—prayers of thanks for these efforts and the people who make them, as well as prayers of intercession for their efforts to be fruitful and productive.
On the one hand, tomorrow (Saturday) we will have a refresher course for those who contribute to the ministry of our Saturday morning breakfast for our neighbors. It could also be an introduction to this ministry if you are interested but have never done it. That is at 10:00 am in our Fellowship Hall. Immediately following that, at 11:00 am we will have a NARCAN training. This is offered to anyone who is interested in learning how to provide a dose of NARCAN nasal spray to an individual who may be having an opioid emergency. This, unfortunately, is very common, particularly in our Capitol Hill neighborhood. All are welcome to either or both. Please contact Cinda Madonna if you are interested.
These are events within our church and for our church. But you might be interested in other opportunities that are “in our neighborhood” that others are providing. For example, Temple De Hirsch Sinai offered an interfaith workshop on “Faith and Nationalism” yesterday. It was included in the Vine last week. Even if you were not interested in attending, I would hope you would be thankful for this event and pray for its resources to have a positive effect in faith communities in Seattle. Similarly, On Thursday April 18, Mary’s Place is having a luncheon/fundraiser. If you are interested in attending, contact Elaine Johnson. Likewise, on Saturday, April 20 at Green Lake Park, the organization Communities of Belonging is holding an event to raise funds to help people successfully transition from incarceration to re-enter society, avoiding homelessness and other pitfalls that might await them. You are certainly welcome to participate in these events if you are interested, but please do prayerfully support these events and its organizers in their ministry to these often underserved populations in our “neighborhood.”
We are adding a section to this newsletter entitled “Around the Neighborhood” to bring these to your attention. In a season where sometimes situations and circumstances seem so bleak, we want to highlight people trying to make a difference by improving the present to make a better, brighter future. I invite you, if nothing else, to read this section and give thanks for the news and events it contains and pray for their effectiveness. If you know of any such events, please pass them along to Cinda Madonna. It is the least we can do to be good neighbors in this season.
With audacious hope,
~ Pastor Todd
P.S. Susan and I would like to thank you all for the ongoing outpouring of love and support for us during Susan’s surgery and recovery. We are glad to say that Susan is doing very well and is hoping for a full and fast recovery. You are truly a prayer-full and care-full church. For this we say thanks to you, and offer God our thanks and praise for bringing us into such a loving community.