Beloved in Christ,
First, let me say thank you to all who helped with the Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter events at church in any way. There were so many who pitched in throughout the week to support our community and the celebrations and commemorations that were part of the ending of the season of Lent and the start of the season of Eastertide this year. I’m so grateful to each of you who prayed, cooked, cleaned, decorated, shopped, sang, played, greeted, showed up, wrote, worked, waved, and welcomed. I’m so lucky to pastor alongside all of you and with the Holy Spirit who surprises us and breathes new life into our community.
 
During their February mini-retreat, our Leadership Board met to talk about the priorities that they would be working on for the first part of 2026. Generally, the Board chooses 2-3 priorities as the focus of their work and they rotate through the major initiatives before us as a church in a year. However, this time the Board chose only one topic as the top priority for us in this moment. That priority was to deepen our efforts at welcoming our neighbors and reaching out across cultural and societal boundaries that sometimes divide. The Holy Spirit has blessed us the opportunity to meet others who have a rich and varied lived experience this year, so some learning is in order to develop skills needed for honoring that rich and varied diversity. At the March Board meeting, options for how to move forward with this new focus were identified and you may have already noticed a few things that have begun as a result, like the new rainbow bulletin board inside the main church entrance.
 
In addition, during Eastertide, there are several other opportunities that are beginning. First, the Eastertide devotional that is available for download later in this newsletter and also in hard copy at the front door of the church is called, “I Belong.” It is published by the General Commission on Race and Religion in the United Methodist Church and it is a study of belonging throughout the Biblical canon. There are readings, commentary, prayers, and practices for every day starting this week and going through Pentecost. I hope you will engage with this devotional alongside your congregational leaders as we move through this new season.
 
Further, specific training on Microagressions was identified as important for our congregation, which has been predominantly made of people who look and sound similar to each other for most of its history. Small groups will be forming to work through this training and sign-ups are in the Friendship Room, but you can also email me if you’d like to be part of a small group. More about this training is included later in this newsletter, as well.
 
Our leaders will also be engaging with PNW Conference staff to offer the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to many who are interested in the late spring or early summer. The IDI is a survey that individuals take and then a full day training that follows about how to understand and respond to both the individual and collective results of the survey. Members of the Leadership Board will take the survey and there will be room for others to participate as well. Let a member of the Leadership Board know if you would like to be part of this opportunity.
 
For some, if this is the first you are hearing of this new initiative, it might feel like a lot all at once. I encourage you to choose somewhere to connect and resist overwhelm. Learning to be more welcoming of our neighbors and visitors is not something that is new to us, as we already have many excellent strategies in place. Building new habits for this new season also won’t be something that we perfect overnight. Engaging consistently and intentionally is a way that we can express God’s love faithfully for now.
 
With gratitude and grace,
Pastor Laura