February 16, 2024
A New Season
This week marks the first week of Pastor Lauren St. Martin among us. This is a bit misleading as Lauren has graciously contributed to the ministry of our church in a variety of ways—some public, some less so—over the past few years, but does so now as one of our pastors. Still, even as pastor, Lauren and I have been laying the groundwork for our ministry together. In particular, we have been thinking about what changes we might like to make in this new season of ministry in our church.
One thing we are doing (with the help of Sandy Nelson) is looking for new matching vestments. We are well underway in our search and can say that most likely these will be less billowy, probably off-white, and will have a collar rather than a cowl. Given that our pastoral staff trend ectomorph, these are probably good choices.
We also would like the ministry of the Word, its reading and its preaching, all to take place from the same place. For this reason we will be removing the lectern and having our readers read from the pulpit. In doing so, we hope to neither divide reading from preaching nor lay from clergy. The pulpit is a space for all.
Further, as pastors we are called from the community to serve the community. This is generally true in my case, but literally true in Lauren’s case, as she was a member of our church before becoming our pastor. To indicate our pastoral office, we wear albs that speak of our common baptism and that we represent the baptized, and by our stoles we indicate that we have been vested with authority by you, the congregation, to serve you as pastors. So when we are not in act of presiding in some way, we will be sitting among you in the pews.
In these ways we hope to both celebrate and reinforce that we are a community that is defined by the priesthood of all believers.
Most likely there will be more changes on the horizon, however this is all we have for now.
Please pray for us as we—you all, Lauren, and I—consider the ministries that God is calling us to in this season of our church’s life.
With audacious hope,
~ Pastor Todd and Pastor Lauren
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