Senior Pastor Update - 2023/08/02
Hello LaSalle Street Church!
I am writing to you from our mostly packed, in transition, messy and beautiful home here in Washington as our family finishes up the final steps of preparing to relocate to Chicago next week. We’ve been making time to enjoy our local friends and family, and going through lots of packing tape and cardboard these last few weeks, full of both anticipation and some sadness as we wrap up ten years of goodness here on the West Coast. We’re also looking forward to getting settled in our place in Chi-Town on the northside before school starts - we will have a 5th grader at Jamieson Elem, and a 10th grader at Disney II Magnet… so send all the cool kids who want to connect our way this fall! Lol.
As we’re physically in the middle of our family relocation and transition, I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the visioning, planning, praying, and preparation that has been happening throughout June and July within LaSalle. I was grateful to transition into working with the staff and Elder Board shortly after being voted in as your new Senior Pastor this June doing remote work and getting to know our staff and prep for the fall season. What a gifted, diverse, and deeply resourced community we have! As we’ve gotten to know each other some, prayed together, and gotten excited about this next season, I am indebted to their leadership and wisdom that’s helping me transition into my role with such joy. A huge THANK YOU is due for our whole staff team, and notably Pastor Randall, who have all been holding down so much care and ministry throughout the past years of both senior pastor leadership transition and changing COVID demands. I’m looking forward to building on so much goodness and faithfulness at LaSalle, especially with this team, as well as moving into what God has called our church toward in this coming season.
More Than Enough - was the title of my first and candidating sermon for LaSalle. This theme of More Than Enough echoes throughout the story of LSC, from its innovative response to changing neighborhood demands, to its courage to address poverty and racism before many counterparts were willing to take that risk, to its advocacy in having women lead the congregation and fully embody an affirming posture alongside the queer community, to its generosity and abundance-directed mindset as it stewards not just Sunday mornings - not just multiple non-profits and a whole building humming with activity during the week, but a whole network of commuters, local residents, and a wide network of folks committed to and impacted by this Body and its witness as the hands and feet of Christ. More Than Enough also roots us all in the lavish grace, and delight, and presence of a good God, and in an interdependent community that is for, and with, one another. More Than Enough reminds us to look forward toward what’s possible, toward God-sized visions and dreams, and toward the trust it takes to walk into places we sense the Holy Spirit calling us. More Than Enough also reminds us who we are and who we belong to - we can rest, we can wait on God, we can put down the heavy load and know that all of this is not really up to us. We get to participate in what God is already doing, be faithful, grow and learn and try things, and even make mistakes, and then watch God do the real work. More Than Enough means we don’t compete with one another but we fight for and with each other, we learn from those different than us in language, ethnicity, citizenship status, education or income level, gender or sexuality or marital status or age - there is room for all at God’s banquet table, there is MORE THAN ENOUGH.
As we move into August and this coming new season together, I invite you to reflect and pray this Word over our church, over our community, over our staff, and over me as your new Senior Pastor. What does More Than Enough invite us into - in this time and place? What Good News is going to liberate, heal, bring hope, belonging, community, and faith to those we’re called to lead and serve? How can we trust and be transformed by God’s More Than Enough for us - for our lives - our families - our friends - our neighborhoods - our jobs - our diagnosis - our desperate prayers and worries - our kids - our questions - our weary and thin places?
Trust this church - More Than Enough - is our Good News, and it roots this community, this call that we have, and this posture that I am so grateful to join you in.
With deep thanks, relying on the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us.
-Rev. Liz