Greetings Rinn Nation!
In two
short weeks, Memorial Day arrives and summer unofficially begins! It’s a time I
look forward to every year. School ends, and once the kids are out, Sarah gets
some well-deserved time off. Having her free causes life to slows down
precipitously, which is by far my favorite part about the summer (well, that
and firing up my grill with a microbrew in hand). There’s no more worrying about
dueling calendars for a while. We don’t have to rush to meet the babysitter or
stay up mapping what’s on everyone’s agenda for tomorrow. Summer is all long
days, cool nights and maybe a vacation day or two. Who’s ready for it?
It’s this
way for a lot of us. Summer in Colorado is a time for people to scatter to the
four winds and experience all the wonderful things our state is known for. I hope
it will be this way for all of you in Rinn Nation, but before this happens, I
wanted to get a few bits of information out to you. I’ll itemize them for
brevity and clarity’s sake:
- · Being that Christmas, Lent and Easter hit in close succession, it’s been a while since I last taught a Sunday school class! I’d like to rectify this by teaching a short term class this summer. The question is, what would you like to learn? Is there a book you’d like to study? A topic that’s been bugging you? Right now, I’m thinking something on the afterlife so we can study what the Bible really says about heaven, hell, resurrection, etc. Sound interesting? Let me know. If not, I’d love to hear what you want to learn!
- I’m really looking forward to our trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. So far 13 people have signed up, but there is always room for more. Please let the Church Office know by the 5/20 if you would like to go. At the moment we are looking at weekdays in July or August (that’s how far in advance this exhibit is booked!), and I should have a firm date established by the deadline. I’ve heard really good things from my colleagues who have gone to see the Exhibit. They say it’s far more than just the scrolls. There are galleries full of artifacts from biblical times! Talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity. Don’t miss it!
- · Support the Pig Roast! It’s less than one month from now, and we need all the help we can get sending donation requests to local businesses and promoting the event in general. So can you grab a flyer the next time you are in the church, or drop of a letter to a local business? Stop by the white table in the narthex. It has all the info ready to go! Many thanks out to the Pig Roast team and I look forward to an amazing event.
Lastly, I want to make sure everyone knows our
congregational goals heading into the summer. They were the focal point of the
sermon series I shared with you after Easter and a part of a larger movement
sweeping Rinn Church. All of our ministries are aligning themselves to our
vision of “becoming a community where all know Jesus Christ and are invited
into Family,” and imagining what it looks like for them to help create this
community by living our mission of “Extending God’s Family: Gather, Grow and
Serve.”
To help the congregation live into these elements, we asked
everyone to begin pursuing these goals:
Gather-We
want to increase Sunday attendance by 10%, so we are asking members to invite
one person to church or attend one more worship service a month.
Grow – We
would like people to attend one study or class, get involved in one internal
church ministry (Children’s Ministry, UMW, Care Team, etc.), or take up a new
Spiritual Practice
Serve – We
ask that people would serve
in one external mission (Habitat for Humanity, Kids Hope, Carbon Valley Help
Center) or advocate for one social issue affecting the Eastern
Longmont/Tritowns area.
If you’d like to hear more about how we arrived at these
emphasis areas and goals, please check out the “Thrive” sermon series in our
website Sermon archives by clicking here. Otherwise, we are planning on providing
plenty of opportunities for you to live into these goals. The class I’m looking
for feedback on is one such outlet, as are three workdays we are setting up
with Habitat for Humanity. So yes, we are creating the avenues for you. Now,
will join with me and follow the Spirit as we live them? I pray we all will.
Our church is already doing remarkable things. We’ve gotten attention for our
work with the Cub Scouts. Several other churches in our conference are checking
in our progress with Messy Church and Single Board Governance. Rinn is slowly
but surely breaking out, and if we live into these goals, the summer and latter
half of 2018 will be absolutely amazing.
I look forward to experiencing it with you. Blessings to you
and yours as the dog days of summer approach!
In Christ,
Pastor Bryson