Dear Friends

Happy New Year! 2010 is here, and with this new decade comes a sense of newness and energy for what is possible. Last year saw us all through many changes, and it is my sincere hope that the year that lies ahead of us provides us the space and the opportunity to listen intently to God’s claim on our lives as a community and to respond.

As I look back to 2009, and ahead to what lies in store for 2010, I find myself reflecting that there is much to be grateful for. As the psalmist writes, “the Lord is a gracious God, whose mercy is everlasting and whose faithfulness endures to all generations” (Ps. 100:5). These simple words contain for me the kernel of what it means to be faithful Christians—that we recognize and give thanks for all that God is done, all that God is doing, and all that God will do in our lives and our world.

It seems fitting, then, that the session has chosen to focus the life of the church around the theme of living with gratitude to God for the year of 2010. Because when all is said and done, the truth of the matter is that we experience a faith that rests on gratitude to the One whose tender grace makes faith possible and on thankfulness to the One who provides for us beyond our imagining so that we too may offer what we have to those around us.

It is true that none of us knows what God has in store for us in this new year and this new decade. But we know the One who made us, and the One who died for us, and it is in the name of this One that we gather together as a community, offering thanks and praise as we share with the world what this One has done for us. May we all give thanks and seek God’s will in this new and promising year.

Blessings,