“Imagine! Doing Justice, Loving Kindness, and Walking humbly with God!” Based on Micah 6:8, that theme will be woven into all of our activities and help us reframe the narrative of Christianity.
In 2025 this church will be a citadel against the storms of bigotry and hatred. We will embody the words of Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde and gather this year to pray for unity as a nation – not for agreement, political or otherwise, but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division, a unity that serves the common good.
We will have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. That includes our LGBTQIA+ siblings who fear for their lives. We will support the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift in hospitals – whether they are citizens or not. Whether they are our faith or not.
We will have mercy for those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.
We will honor the dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love, and walk humbly with one another and our God because we are The Church of the Palms.
Shalom, Paul