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Beloved in Christ,
 
This is the end of my fifth year here at Haller Lake UMC. I am thankful for each one of you who has been here throughout the five years and also for those who have become part of our community during those five years. I am humbled that you have allowed me to walk with you during times of grief and letting go as well as in times of joy and celebration. I am also thankful for all the good work that we have done together and I look forward to much more to come. As I look ahead to the next year and beyond, I see a couple of opportunities shaping up on the horizon.
 
We have made much progress in discerning what will change and what will stay the same about the way the church uses the land on which we do ministry. There is more progress to be made about how we partner with new and existing neighbors for how that land will be used by them into the future. The work of the Faithland team, to find a partner for development, is nearly over. A new team will be appointed by the Leadership Board in the next six months, that will carry the project forward from there. Many of the faces that have been on Faithland will probably also serve on the new team, but new faces will join them to help guide the agreement with Habitat and other neighbors, the design of what is to come, and the day-to-day decisions as funding, permits, and neighborhood assessments are assembled. So, the first opportunity is to stay engaged in the process of property development and neighbor relations.
 
Second, I see an opportunity for us to clarify how we understand the church’s role in service to our mission field, neighborhood, and larger community. For example, I recently had lunch with the PTO president from James Baldwin Elementary School about potential opportunities for service with that community. For many years, our church had a Service Team that dreamed and implemented projects which brought us into relationship with the wider community in a stance of service to others. Many of those projects are still running and involve many church members. However recently, Service Team members decided to restructure their work. Now, rather than a centralized team that dreams and implements, each service project has a champion among the team who collaborates with others both on the Service Team and beyond its membership to implement the ideas. Neither model for how a Service Team operates is good or bad. However, there have been unintended consequences of the shift in structure, leaving room for conversation partners and planners who have a heart for service and want to dream together how new potential projects, like the one with parents and teachers at James Baldwin Elementary, might take shape.
 
Finally, I see an opportunity for us to continue to grow our welcome of newcomers. Many in our congregation have diligently engaged with the topic of microaggressions this spring and sought to internalize constructive approaches and responses to the ways that people may be harmed from everyday interactions in ministry settings. The “You Belong Here!” worship series in June stretched us to consider strategies like making the invisible visible, lamenting as a sign of hope, and developing an ethic of solidarity as a way of life. The next step in this process will be that our leaders will participate in the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) in August and set goals for our becoming more proficient at intercultural engagement. The IDI will consist of a survey taken online, then results from the survey being shared collectively with all leaders and individually with each person who responds to the survey, to help identify strengths and areas of growth on our team. Following the survey, there will be a one-day training with quarterly follow up on what the survey results might indicate our community is ready to do next to grow our strengths and address our areas of growth. If there are some who want to be part of the IDI, use the sign up sheet in the Friendship Room to indicate interest in taking the survey and/or being part of the training on August 22.
 
I’m sure these are not the only opportunities before us. I hope you will share what you are seeing.

Many Blessings, Pastor Laura