This past Sunday we had what we believe to be a record-attendance of 71 people attending our service via Zoom and in-person, with many more watching the recorded service once posted on social media and our website!
Things are happening at Faith, and folks can feel it. They are looking for a church home, a faith family where they can be accepted as they are, worship in a way that honors their values of justice and inclusion, and be of service to the world.
As we have more and more visitors, please make a special effort to ensure no one leaves our worship space without a warm handshake or hug. We are a warm and welcoming bunch, but it can be easy with the numbers of visitors we are having to miss someone, so let’s be a bit more brave and not risk anyone falling through the cracks!
Members of Faith have helped launch the inaugural PFLAG (parents and friends of lesbians and gays) chapter in New Braunfels and are working with the national PFLAG offices to get this chapter formalized and organized! Be watching for details and ways you can participate and learn more at http://pflag.org
We continue to feed our community that remains in need of food support through the SOS Food Bank the third Friday of each month from 1-4pm. We provide on-going support to Riverside Pride and our presence there is incredibly welcomed and noticed.
We continue to work with a growing coalition of people to possibly place a tiny home community on our property to support Family Promise’s New Lease On Life Program. I’m meeting with the head of Family Promise, one of their former board members, and our insurance provider to explore more about next steps later this week.
We are reaching out and expanding our reach through social media and will need persons to sign up to help curate articles, so be watching for details on that aspect of our ministry. If you are on Twitter, follow us @FaithUCCNB and like and re-tweet what we post. Like us on Facebook @FaithUCCNewBraunfels and like and share articles we post so others can also find us. It is an easy and even fun way to engage our world and let others know what we believe and that we even exist!
We have a new praise and worship group affectionately known as Faithful Praise! We meet at 9:30am on Sunday mornings to work on the music for the service. If you would like to join us, contact me for the music ahead of time and join us for rehearsal! We are also looking for a music minister, so please help spread the word (guitarist and/or pianist with strong vocals and leadership skills needed for up to 20 hours a week at a competitive salary!).
Last but not least, we were awarded a $15,000 grant through the UCC to help with signage and to help fund our social media outreach (since almost all of our visitors are finding us on-line!!). If you have expertise and/or interest in signage, PLEASE reach out to pastor Carla to volunteer to help with this endeavor to increase our visibility to let others know who we are, where we are, and what we believe.
As we grow, as we consider our future together, please keep me, our leadership and our Pastoral Search Committee in your prayers. We need God’s direction and inspiration every step of the way for this to be more than just a flash in the pan.
We want to deepen and grow in ways that will serve us, love on others, and honor and serve God and only God can help us do so in the healthiest and most sustainable ways.
Along those lines, we will still be needing at least 4 (or more!) new council members to join us for 2022-2023. If you would like to nominate yourself or another, please reach out to Moderator Sam Ward or me and we will vote on nominees at our annual congregational meeting at the end of January.
For your prayers, for your excitement, for your faithfulness to following an alternative path to sharing God’s radical message of a different kind of hope in a dark and challenging world, I thank you, and ask God to provide blessing on your amazing heads.
Peace, my friends.
Pastor Carla
