In a year with so many shifts and changes, we just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the volunteers who made faith formation possible for our congregation!
First of all, massive thanks to the continuing work that the folks on our Faith Formation Team have been doing. Thanks to monies received from our Fund-A-Need in 2018 (!!), we contracted with Vibrant Faith, a mentoring organization for congregations looking to re-vamp or improve their faith formation program. Through that work, and with Betsy McGregor’s awesome grant writing skills, we qualified for a 5-year cohort training program to help us implement the vision that we are working toward. Amazing work! The team is: Betsy McGregor (lead), Phillipa Dugaw, Dana Wright, Kari Guddal, Mandy Neill, Stephanie Fowler, and Sarah Uhlemann. We look forward to seeing the fruition of all of your work in the near future.
Our classes have been limited this year, but Sprouts keeps on truckin’, with 20 active 3-5 year olds, and lots of fun from their teachers: Dana Wright, Kari Guddal, and Sienna Seyler. Confirmation and Middle school ministries gave it a go for a while with faithful teachers and leaders Michael Hammett and Betsy McGregor, but foul weather foiled in-person meeting in the fall. We look forward to re-invigorating these programs in the near future!
We pulled off an amazing Christmas Pageant online with help from the Hammett Family, the Jancola Family, the Tung Family, the Niedner family, Dave Eicke, the Brissette Family, the Wander family, the Kiggins Family, and the Fowler family. Thank you thank you for your willingness to try something weird and different, and put it all out there for us! You are amazing.
This fall, we are hoping to start in our new building with a full slate of classes. One of our goals as a faith formation program is to work intergenerationally, and so we welcome volunteers of all ages and skill levels, high school through octogenarian, to consider serving the youth and littles of our congregation in this important ministry. If you are interested in testing out the waters, please contact Betsy McGregor and she will get you in the loop.
Meanwhile, adult faith formation also managed to have a rich and interesting menu of classes.
Thank you, Carolyn Swanson, for being our indefatigable and inspired Bible teacher, offering classes of that are always enlightening and engaging.
Contributing to our focus on “faith renovation” this year, as we renovate our building, Rev. Alan Storey visited us from South Africa on Zoom last fall. He taught, invited congregational conversation following his sermon on the core biblical story of the Exodus, which drew on his work with congregations against apartheid, and more recently, supporting refugees from Sudan. We also reflected on 3 classes recorded at Holden Village.
Our adult forums were so blessed by the gifts of Dana Wright and Joshua Liljenstolpe. Both have profoundly deep lives of faith, and years of inquisitive, passionate inquiry into the heart of the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Trinity which they shared with us over many weeks. Thank you so much, Dana and Joshua!