Senior Pastor Update - 2023/08/09

Hello LaSalle!

This week our family is spread out - Peter and the dog (Theo) are driving cross-country right now making their way to Chicago, and the kids and I (Sam and Graham) are flying, all to get to town in time for our house closing and move in prep week. If you would, pray for protection, and health, and also joy and rest for our whole fam in this season - and that everyone will agree to my paint swatch choices for our new kitchen! (I am leaning toward ecru yellow and a deep plum gray… we shall see!)

As our family makes our way East, I am also very excited to share with you some significant plans and preparations that the staff, Elders, and leadership of LSC have been hard at work laying the groundwork for over the last several months. Notably, for this coming season we are focusing on the church rooting deeply in its identity, and in some reimagined ways to inhabit our Sunday morning purpose of worship and whole-life discipleship. Let me tell you more….

First - we’re focused on making sure that we name who LSC is, and who should see themselves as part of this community, invited to this table, belonging to this Body. No church can be all things to all people - and no community can grow beyond what prayer prepares us for and what their God-sized calling is. So who is LSC, and who are we called to become? I want to suggest this tagline of sorts to help us name/focus who we are, and who we are for — LaSalle Street Church: Expansive Faith. Generous Community. Invested in God’s Justice. You will hear much more about this tagline in the weeks and months to come, but for now, reflect on this phrase as one identity marker that helps shape our focus. And I want to invite you to join me in praying through this reflection question - who could God be calling to belong at LSC, through you? Who might be hungry for this unique story and way of being church together that LSC holds? Who do you know that may need an invitation to try church again, or who could use a ride on Sunday, or an email forwarded their way, or a chair pulled out at the table with their name on it? In other words, who do you think God could be trying to reach through you and your regular, authentic, everyday life? The expansiveness, generosity, and deep commitment to justice of LSC are among the top aspects of this Body that I love, and that drew me to this place, and that I think may draw others in as well - who do you know that might be encouraged to hear that this is who our church is, and we want to invite them to join us at the table?!

Second - we’ve been working on implementation plans of a vision for a new way to structure our Sundays together as a church. Starting in September, we will be rotating what Sundays look like in an intentional effort to line up our calling, values, gifts, and our capacity in a creative and new way. There is more detailed information on these plans available on our web site, and you’ll hear more about it throughout this month in worship, but I want to start by sharing the overview of things with you here. We will be gathering for four different kinds of Sundays - Banquet Sunday, Belong Sunday, Serve Sunday, and Sabbath Sunday, rotating through each roughly once per month.

• Banquet Sundays will be in the Sanctuary, with full musical worship, sermon, prayer, etc., - and will be followed by a banquet together, a time of gathering around the table for fellowship, food, laughter, and getting to know one another and those we invite to join us.

• Belong Sundays will also gather us all in the Sanctuary to begin with a full worship service similar to Banquet Sundays, and then afterwards we will break up into classes, gatherings, trainings and spaces to belong and engage in discipleship for all ages. In other words, we’ll create places that we each can belong more fully and get to know and be known in community.

• Serve Sundays will start by meeting in Leslie Hall, where we will follow the leadership of our Youth as they share a bit of their own faith reflections, and then teach us how to put our hands to the work of a ministry partner who we will then spend our time serving and volunteering with as our act of worship on that Sunday. Middle and HIgh School youth - start dreaming about what you might want to do to help shape these Sundays!

• Sabbath Sundays will be exclusively online worship services meant to invite us all to a shorter, contemplative, but interactive online space, where we take a break from commuting and rushing to be somewhere to “do church,” and instead rest in an accessible environment of prayer, worship, and reflection together and “be church.” We’ll reflect on scripture, engage in worship, and make space to practice spiritual disciplines together in this online worship service.

A Banquet of abundance like the kin-dom of God… Belonging and bringing all of you to church to grow in discipleship…. Serving and learning from our community as part of living out what we believe together…. Sabbath and resting in God’s delight and presence together in a new format that might increase accessibility for others…. Each of these weeks invites us to experience God and be church in slightly different ways, while rooting us in the ancient truth of the power of worship, the centrality of proclaiming the Word, the practice of being with one another, and the habit of both resting and serving in equal measure.

I know that this new rhythm will likely take some time to get used to and will ask all of us to use some flexibility, openness, and a readiness to see what God might do through some newer forms of being church. I am encouraging us all in this season to remember a few realities - that we want to honor what has been, and then build on that foundation to move to where God is calling us in the future; and where we’re heading wont’ look like where we’ve been before, and that is okay. It’s also a season to try new things without fear or scarcity, knowing that as we trust in God’s presence and abundance, even if we get some stuff “wrong” that’s okay, we will try again and learn either way. Instead of focusing on a building, or just numbers, or the ways we always have done things, we’re praying that this season might invite all of us to look out ahead at what God is doing out ahead of our expectations - what new wine requires new wine skins, and what new rhythms might invite us to regularly show up for one another in church, in new ways - and to fold in new folk who might be curious enough to even try church again, to try trusting again, to see that they too could belong to this kind of church?

We’ll share more throughout this month about all that is coming up - but for now check the link online, and be sure to save the date for a Q&A time after church with me on Sunday August 27th. We’ll make space to talk more about these plans, I can answer any questions you might have, and we’ll spend some time praying and listening to what God is sharing with you all about this fall too. I’d love to hear from you and what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you about LaSalle’s call in this season!

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

- RevLiz