Essential Practices! Connect

Advent for me is a time of thanksgiving. It is indeed a time of waiting, but it is expectant, hopeful waiting, knowing that we have a God who always comes to us. Right from the beginning God came to Adam and Eve. God sought them out. God came to them even in their woundedness. And of course, Advent is the precious season when we are reminded again that Jesus, who most fully shows us what God is like, shows us that God comes to us in our humanness. So first and foremost I am thankful to be known by and to serve this God who seeks me out, who seeks us out.

I am also deeply inspired by and grateful for all of you and the ways in which you share this God in our communities, and the ways in which you invite and encourage and support others in your communities to make our incarnational God known.

I have been enormously blessed recently to work with school groups who are finishing their CONNECT journey. I want to give thanks for the gentleness, passion, creativity, and hospitality of folk in our schools who are working with new community members to help them think about and experience some of what we hold most dear – Grace, Relationships & Creation.

The Connect & Equip journey this year has not been smooth for many of you. But I look forward to working alongside all of you in 2021 so that we can together continue to strengthen the identity of our communities as we welcome new people and invite them to see their place in the grand vision which God invites us into.

Advent Blessings Brothers, Sisters & Friends,

Steph

Stephanie Maher

Director – Identity & Formation