Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

As we move into the new year one of the first things that comes up in our calendar is the parish annual meeting. There is much to rejoice in as we prepare and much to focus on in the coming years though it always feels like a bit of a rude shock right on the tail of Christmas. This year, we will have the finance and administration meeting at 10:15am on Sunday the 13th and we will have a ministry and program update at 12:30 on the same day with lunch and childcare provided.

I have heard parishes refer to these meetings as “business meetings” which seems to be a bit of a miss to me. If you think of the common definition of business, “a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade” then it seems to me that our regular acts of worship are our business meetings. Our regular occupation, where we are reconnected with the profession of our faith, is really that of being fervent in prayer and diligent in the breaking of Bread.

There is a Eucharistic heart to our business together. The Eucharistic Heart of a community rests its hope on the shape of the Eucharistic act. We gather with our community. We hear and know the word of God. We respond to that story of God’s faithfulness with our own pledge to live in holiness. We confess where we have gone amiss – and when we have wronged the Body. We are forgiven and restored. We know peace and come before the throne together. We gather our shared gifts, small and large, and lay them out for transformation. We ask the Holy Spirit to come. We see, know, and understand brokenness – then we see it made whole in perfect love. We share in that which we know ourselves to be as the Body. We are blessed and we go forth blessed, fed, forgiven, and made bold in Christ’s own humility.

May this Eucharistic heart beat strong in our worship, in our work, in our prayer, and in our service. As we prepare this week for the annual meeting may it be with our hearts fixed on gathering in love, being transformed by grace, and being sent to serve a world that needs word of Christ’s love.

Robert