Session Notes: September 2023

Your Session sat for our regular monthly meeting this week, this time in person.  It was important to have face time after three months of Zoom meetings and Pastor Laura’s absence.

Much of our meeting was spent sharing our “learnings” from Laura’s sabbatical – both hers and ours.  This time and space apart lent us the opportunity to see things from a longer perspective.  Metaphorically, it’s like differentiating between short-term weather fluctuations and long-term changes to the climate.

One long-term change we perceived is in our cultural climate.

We’ve all seen (and commented on) how political discourse has coarsened in the past several years.  Here is the DMV, it affects (and infects) the way people communicate all around us.

What we may have missed is that this same affliction has also infected institutions outside of politics.  No one is immune from it – not even the church.  In hindsight, this was probably inevitable.  But it can stop at our door.

For its part, the Session will covenant to communicate with love and respect through seeking understanding first. Western will be a safe space for respectable speech and respectful dissent.  In this way, we embrace – as Laura said in her sermon – being counter-cultural.

Some good news.  We have filled out the Building for the Future Task Force.  It’s Ari Brose, Dave Escobar, Sam Hendrix, Nicole Mansch, Cindy Stevens and Anna Zelinsky.

We’re sorry to report the resignation of Music Ministry Director Samuel Gray.  Sam’s last Sunday with us will be September 24.  In the meanwhile, we begin a search for an interim replacement. 

Thanks all for now. Thanks for reading.