With God's Hope~Our Journey Continues...

Easter is a celebration of what can happen when we find ourselves connected to a God whose presence in and among us has the power to bring life from death, light from darkness, hope from despair. Easter is a celebration of new possibility! How fitting then, that we find ourselves dedicating our new worship space during this seven week Easter season!

The completion of our new worship space represents the realization of a vision for our congregation – a vision that we discerned quite a few years ago. Now as we move into the future, it’s a good time to ask ourselves what new visions God’s Spirit may be planting in our hearts and minds.

As a way of exploring the new possibilities that lie before us in light of our new worship space, we are inviting everyone in the congregation to participate in an Easter Season Dedication Exercise. Beginning on Easter Sunday, you may pick up a piece of paper with circle and cross, representing the shape of our sanctuary’s new windows. Inside the four quadrants of the circle you are invited to write words or draw images that represent “God’s Vision for our Atonement Family”.

Note that what we’re asking for is not your vision for our Atonement family but God’s. While that may seem a bit presumptuous at first, it’s my fervent belief that it is precisely through each of us that God’s Spirit is alive and at work in the world. And so as we each pray and mediate on this question of a vision for our future and then look faithfully together at what comes forth, what will come into focus slowly but surely can fairly be called God’s vision for us!

We ask that you bring your completed Easter Season Dedication Exercise back to church on the morning of Sunday, April 29 so that we may display them for our Dedication Service that afternoon at 3:00 PM. From there they will go into the hands of our church council leadership as we begin to discern the particular shapes and textures of God’s Vision for our Atonement Family!