Dear Siblings, 

Can you believe that it’s already August? I can’t, but that doesn’t change reality! And so, this Sunday we’ll join together for our 3rd Annual Blessing of the Backpacks service. I love this service for many reasons:

• It honors and celebrates the youngest among us as they start a new school year
• It highlights the teachers, coaches, custodians, and more who will pour into them in this next year
• We get a chance to acknowledge that there are adults in our midst who are starting school too… they too should be celebrated
• It’s just fun! 

On a personal level, the service is also a marker of sorts for me. This is our 3rd Blessing of the Backpacks service, which means that it is the start of my fourth year as your Associate Minister. Around this time in 2022, I had just signed my call agreement and was getting ready to load my moving van and drive down here from Boston. 

Yes, it’s hard to believe it’s August. And, even harder to believe that we’re closing three years in ministry together!

And yet! Here we are. A bunch of oddballs and outcasts doing our best to love God and love people too. So, come! Come this Sunday for the Blessing of the Backpacks, to gather around the table for Communion(with a new communion hymn), eat Pizza on the Playground after worship, and welcome our new Artist in the Commons, Charles Scogins, during our coffee hour. 

Bring your backpack, briefcase, coffee mug, lunchbox, etc with you on Sunday!

Come, not because you must but because you may. 

And keep coming! 

• August 10th: Hymn Sing Service
• August 17th: Baptism of Julia Henning

Be well, 

Rev. Thomas