Friday May 5, 2017

An eNote from Rodney

Dear Trinity Congregation,

I am announcing that no longer does anyone or any business need to use the phrase “hand crafted”. I am a fan of the restaurant chain McDonald’s and I think that the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin are genuine contributions to American culinary culture. However, in a visit this week I noticed that McDonald’s was offering hamburgers and giving me the option of choosing what I wanted on it. They were calling this choice “hand crafted”. Sort of like going to a greasy spoon and ordering a hamburger and saying…uh…no onions please. RIP: Hand Crafted.

However, we are going to use our hands in a lovely way this Sunday. We are going to lay hands on the heads and shoulders of young men and women who desire to be confirmed into the Christian faith. A countercultural act if ever there was one. As part of this service all of us will remember the vows we took to be faithful church members. We will also remember that the young men and women we ordain look to us to see what it means to be a mature Christian. What a beautiful thing it is to take that vow. The names of our confirmands are John Leslie Buddy, Austin Fletcher Davis, William Henry Durham, Piper Madigan Esmon, Grace Iris Hertzinger, Evan Tyler Kinney and Elijah Gerald Lukens. We pray for them and we are thankful to their faith friends and Andrew Tripp for his leadership through their confirmation process.

At the beginning of the year I asked us to take a vow that if we were in town, we would be in worship. Cheryl recently showed me some attendance numbers that makes me think we are taking that vow seriously. In 2016, our average attendance to date was 118. This year, our average attendance to date is 132. We have more days with attendance over 120 and fewer Sundays with attendance under 100. Worship is the single most important thing we do and all other aspects of Christian life come out of our worship of God. Our worship together makes us a more vital community of God’s people.

I look forward to worshiping with you on Sunday as we celebrate our new confirmation class.

Sincerely,

Rodney