A New Year of Service

Beloved Church -

We had a fantastic launch to our Serve Sundays for the new year this past Sunday. Thank you to all who shared in worship with us, and then helped serve meals, met with our neighbors, cleaned and did dishes, and all the kids and youth who packaged nearly 300 Blessing Bags to give away! Serving our neighbors who often join us for Breaking Bread Wednesday nights, on a Sunday morning, is always a big hit with our community, and is a tangible time for those who aren't at Cornerstone during the week to get to take part in this central ministry of LaSalle's. Thank you!

I also shared a framework that we will be using for Serve Sundays this coming year that will help us deepen and broaden how we celebrate those weeks together. Firstly, we've already started planning for fuller worship, a mini sermon, and more "regular" worship elements to be part of each Serve Sunday. We're also going to be rotating between larger scale, hands on service (like serving a meal, sorting clothes, cleaning the river, etc.) and more educational or advocacy-based projects (like examining race in the criminal justice system, understanding immigration and ways to advocate, writing letters with Bread for the World, etc.)  We'll be sharing the calendar of projects out in advance to help everyone plan ahead for those as well. 

We are also going to look at the same three questions for each Serve Sunday this year, as a way to keep forming, listening, and learning at a deeper level about how outreach, advocacy, justice, and compassion are so central to ministry and faith for us at LaSalle. We'll discuss each Serve Sunday the following:

• What is our POSTURE -
  To stay humble, curious, and learn from others?

• What are we PROXIMATE to -
  Where are we called to take action, to notice?

• What is our PROPHETIC response -
  What's the systemic, disruptive work?

Thank you for being a generous community invested in God's justice, LaSalle. These weeks where we have engaged in worship as the hands and feet of Christ have encouraged many of our new members, our kids and youth, and has shaped many of us of all ages as we mutually benefit from holistic faith and life. Thank you for your feedback on these Sundays and keep sharing with us how you're seeing God at work, and ways to grow and adjust worship further to reflect the kin-dom call on our church this year.

I'm Grateful! - RevLiz