From the Pastor’s Desk . . .

With the start of school and with Labor Day and football season fast approaching, Rally Day and the beginning of our Christian Formation programs for the Fall are just around the corner. There are opportunities for everyone – Bible studies, Sunday School classes, discussion groups, book studies, choirs, and more. While Christian formation takes place year-round, Rally Day marks a new season of options and possibilities to grow in faith and to wrestle with questions of faith and faithfulness. We hope that you will join in exploring and nurturing your faith through some of these opportunities, for to paraphrase Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Our faith is forged in the crucible of doubt. Faith does not grow by sitting back and not engaging with the doubts and questions. It grows through daring to wonder and to question and to learn from and with one another. This summer Rae and I have preached from the Confessions of the Church that span almost 1800 years. Each of those confessions took shape through reflection and thought, through debate and discussion, through assessment of the changing world and how faith might speak relevantly to it. In the midst of this Fall’s presidential campaigns (and endless political ads ad nauseum), it is a fitting time to consider how our Christian faith speaks to the issues that we hope the candidates will address and to the values expressed. Such reflection starts though with our assessment of those Christian values that we hold dear, that lens of faith through which we view the world. What values do you hold sacred? Are they the same values Jesus urges upon us – love of God and neighbor, humble service to others, self-sacrifice, forgiveness? Or are they values that the world says you should cherish – power, accumulation of wealth, retribution for wrongs done to you? To be a Christian is to continually wrestle with those questions and concerns in order to determine what a faithful response might require of you now. And in that regard, perhaps the prophet Micah says it best: What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. That walk continues this Fall. Come walk with us! – August 26, 2024 (John Peterson)

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Over the past two weeks, the eyes of our nation and neighborhoods have been glued to the Olympic competitions in Paris. The Games offer a respite from more serious and sobering events – war in Gaza, Israel, and Ukraine; tropical storm Debby plodding her way up the East Coast; wildfires in the West; regime change in Bangladesh; the rancor of political campaigns. While competitors are representing their nations, it is heartening to see the mutual respect, support, and good sportsmanship that has prevailed across national, racial, and religious lines. That has not always been the case, but one might hope that the example of these athletes could carry over into other realms in the relationships among nations, neighbors, tribes, and political parties. Throughout the Games, there have been individual stories of triumph and tragedy, sheer dominance and surprising upsets, redemption from past losses, and prospects for future excellence. The work and discipline necessary to achieve the level of performance that these athletes demonstrate is remarkable. All had to be fully committed to their sport and the training demanded to excel in it; it took a lifetime of practice and a village of supporters to enable them to rise to an Olympic level. Not everyone can be an Olympic athlete, but no Olympic athlete can get there alone! Are you as committed to anything as the Olympic athletes are to their sport? Where does commitment to your faith fall in the list of those things that you pour the most time and effort into? Paul uses athletic imagery to speak of his faith journey: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Could you say the same? If we are to excel as disciples, then we must do the hard work of discipleship. We cannot sit passively by and expect faith to blossom in us any more than athletes can expect to become Olympians while sitting on the couch watching others compete! Are you a disciple or are you just a spectator? Just as athletes train and commit their time and energies to their sport, so we are called to commit, train, and work to be faithful disciples. Faith is formed day to day through the commitment of time and energies directed toward nurturing faith and practicing faithfulness in things like Bible study, worship, prayer, and service to others. May you be inspired by this year’s Olympians to be the best disciples you can be, so that one day you too can say with Paul: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith!” – August 12, 2024 (John Peterson)

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Speculation following the attempted assassination of former President Trump at the rally in Butler, PA, just 18 miles from Slippery Rock where I grew up, has given voice to a lot of bad theology. On one hand, there are folks who are claiming that the shooter missed his target because a guardian angel was watching over Mr. Trump – “The Lord was looking out for him!” some have said. Others have suggested that God had no role in it, but rather “the Devil protects his own.” Such comments share space with those who contend that a child being hit by a bus or a tree falling on someone’s house is “just God’s will.” Such theologies suggest that anything that happens – for good or bad – is controlled and caused by God. There are some inherent problems with attributing such disasters or rescues to God’s intervention and will. Most notably the concern is what such theologies suggest about the nature of God. What kind of loving God goes around hitting a child with a bus or causing the firefighter who was shot at the rally to die? Was God protecting Mr. Trump while killing the young firefighter and wounding the others around him? Adolph Hitler survived an assassination attempt; was God protecting him in order to perpetuate the slaughter in World War II? How can God be loving, merciful, and just while arbitrarily inflicting suffering on some while sparing others? It may rain “on the just and the unjust alike” but is God really choosing whose homes get washed away in the ensuing flood and whose are saved? Theologies that suggest a tug-of-war between God and Satan are no less helpful. Does God win the battle to save the child in the near disaster but lose it to the devil when the child is killed? Is all good attributable to God and all bad the work of Satan, and in whose eyes is the good and the bad to be judged? Some of the same folks who claimed that Trump was elected by the will of God in 2016 denied that Biden was elected by God’s will in 2020 – and vice versa. Who is wise enough to discern the will of God in those instances? In his book Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, Richard Carwardine quotes that great president as writing: “’In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.’ There followed, however, not a statement of Unionist certainty, but a startling hypothesis: ‘In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party…’” What Lincoln identifies is a caution to all of us about pretending to know the will of God. While we may not know God’s will with certainty, we do know that the Lord is a loving God, a God of mercy, grace, and justice, who does not go around arbitrarily inflicting suffering on God’s people. For some strange reason, God gave us free will which means sometimes people make bad decisions that cause others to suffer. Sometimes, as the story of Job points out, suffering is undeserved – “bad things happen to good people.” God does not promise that there will not be disasters or troubles, floods or fires, shootings or valiant rescues. But God does promise to be with us through it all – through thick and thin, good and bad, triumph and tragedy. So be cautious of attributing to God or the devil the outcome of any event. It may or may not be God’s will. But strive instead to live as God calls you to live – to bend your will to the will of God which is perhaps summed up best by the prophet Micah: What does the Lord require of you? Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. – July 29, 2024 (John Peterson)

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The General Assembly (GA) of the PCUSA met last week in Salt Lake City, Utah after a week’s worth of committee work online. The GA meets every other year as commissioners from presbyteries all over the USA gather to debate, take action, and provide guidance on a wide variety of issues (Shenandoah Presbytery had four commissioners present). It is amazing to see the diversity of the larger church at work in these gatherings! Among the actions of the GA this year are:

Election of Rev. CeCe Armstrong and Rev. Tony Larson, both from South Carolina, as co-moderators. They will serve a two-year term until the next GA meets in Louisville, KY in 2026.
Election of Rev. Jihyun Oh, born in South Korea and reared in Kansas, as stated clerk, the highest ecclesial office in the PCUSA (Bronwen Boswell, Shenandoah Presbytery’s General Presbyter, has been serving as Interim Stated Clerk for the PCUSA for the past year). Rev. Oh will serve a four-year term.
Adoption of a budget for 2025 of $94.9 million and for 2026, $95 million.
Approval of changes to the Book of Order to add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of the “rich diversity” reflected in the church’s membership, and to include the commitment to fulfill all requirements in the principles of participation, representation, and non-discrimination to the examination of candidates for ordination and installation. (These changes, like all changes to the Book of Order, must be approved by a majority of the presbyteries to become effective.)
Directed further engagement with greenhouse gas emitters and the fossil fuel industry to address concerns around climate change.
Unanimously approved a resolution encouraging ratification of a U.S. Constitutional amendment abolishing the exception clause in the 13th Amendment that allows a person convicted of any crime to be enslaved.
Unanimously approved an overture calling for action so that children can live free from gun violence.
Reduced the number of PCUSA special offerings from four to three (One Great Hour of Sharing, Peacemaking, and Christmas Joy offerings).
Adopted a resolution updating and expanding a 2004 resolution to reject Christian Zionism in all its forms.

The work of the assembly is a combination of necessary administrative actions, work for social justice, and biblical/theological reflection. As is our heritage, not all these actions were unanimous (though some were), but all were the result of prayerful consideration, respectful debate, and democratic action that sought to follow God’s will for us as Christ’s church. We are grateful for the work of the Assembly and trust that the same Spirit who guided their work will continue to work in and through us as Presbyterians committed to follow faithfully our risen Lord! (If you have questions on these actions, please speak with me or Rachel.)

– July 15, 2024 (John Peterson)

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Earlier this month our dear friend Jim Simpson died at age 90. Jim was a minister in the Church of Scotland, and our families have been like one large family since my dad and Jim did a pulpit exchange for three months in the summer of 1971. We saw Jim just last summer when we were in Scotland. In January of 1996, Jim was here to preach at Covenant when the Blizzard of ’96 derailed those plans; after a week of being snowbound by 30+ inches of snow, Jim commented, “I will never again dream of a white Christmas!” For many years Jim was pastor of the Dornoch Cathedral in the far north of Scotland – a historic church that is over 750 years old! He was moderator of the Church of Scotland, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, a regular contributor to The Presbyterian Outlook and to Life and Work (the Church of Scotland’s monthly magazine), and authored several books. He was an avid golfer and offered the blessing at the dinner for the Ryder Cup teams a few years back. In his life, his sermons, and his writing, Jim was a gifted storyteller. Many of his stories related to congregational life, some from his own experience and some that he collected from others over time, often with an eye for the humor in it all. Minnie Pearl once said that “laughter is the hand of God on the shoulder of a troubled world.” With his stories, Jim offered God’s loving hand to a great many troubled shoulders on both sides of the Atlantic across the years! Stories are at the heart of our traditions and our lives. Last weekend some folks chalked pictures of favorite Bible stories onto the pavement in the front parking lot here. Many of those stories were first heard by the chalkers when they were young tots. Stories like Noah and the Ark, Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath, Jesus walking on water, and the empty tomb at Easter have been told again and again across generations. Are there some of those Bible stories that you treasure? What stories might you tell from your own life that further illustrate God’s hand at work in our midst? For as Jim Simpson’s legacy, the Biblical witness, and the testimony of a host of Covenant folks attests: God is still at work among us, in us, through us, and around us in surprising, creative, and sometimes amusing ways. You don’t have to write a book or preach a sermon to share such stories; you can tell them to a child or grandchild, a friend, a pewmate, or even a pastor, for in so doing we share the Good News, and live into our calling to be heralds of the Gospel which is still good news for all generations! – July 1, 2024

(John Peterson)

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This past Sunday (June 2) we gathered in the Great Hall to hear the annual “State of the Church” report from the Session teams. It has been a busy year since we gathered last June for that report, and there is more on the agenda for 2024. Some of the highlights include:

Christian Formation changed its name from Christian Education to reflect more accurately their mission to nurture faith and faithfulness across lifetimes. Six youth attended the Montreat Youth Conference last summer and six will go there this summer. Five confirmands were welcomed into membership of the church. Rachel was welcomed on board with new ideas and resources.
Congregational Care provided meals, visits, transportation, prayer shawls, cards, and support across the year. Support groups for those who are grieving and those serving as caregivers for family members have continued. Presbyterian Women offers study, fellowship, and good fun to women of the church.
Facilities have been busy with the painting of the sanctuary, repair of the flat roof over the choir room, routine maintenance, and a battle with a pesky woodpecker.
Fellowship continues to provide diverse opportunities throughout the year including Together on Wednesday dinners, a car show, receptions, potlucks, hymn sing, ice skating, kickball, and the annual Chili Cookoff and Dessert Extravaganza.
Outreach distributed over $80,000 of budgeted funds in mission in addition to special offerings. The budget for 2024 is $88,000. Opportunities for hands-on work included serving meals at Trinity Soup Kitchen, refugee resettlement assistance, Hispanic food deliveries, Rebuilding Augusta projects, and ongoing collections of food, paper projects, clothing, and plastic. Fairtrade coffee, tea, and chocolate continue to be popular, and Glorious Gifts was again successful in providing alternatives for Christmas gifts.
Personnel welcomed Rachel on board as Associate Pastor, offered pay increases to staff, and celebrated Lou Dolive’s 15 years as bell choir director.
Preschool had a busy year with a host of new children arriving and several staffing changes. Enrollment for next year is already ahead of previous years! A new train is planned to replace the much-loved but aging train on the playground.
Stewardship & Finance reported an unprecedented budget surplus of $106,000 in 2023, substantially due to savings from the associate pastor position being vacant for ten months last year. The surplus was allocated among various projects submitted by the teams and approved by Session. The Endowment has grown to over $290,000, and the Memorial Fund is supporting the purchase of music shelving for the choir room.
Technology is the newest Session team, formed to coordinate and care for the wide range of techno-logical services that Covenant now needs and utilizes including WIFI, the website platform, staff computers, and a new tech cart to facilitate virtual programming.
Worship planned around the sanctuary painting and organ repairs, and has purchased a new piano and music shelving for the choir room. Taizé services in Lent and live streaming of Sunday worship services continue to be highly valued.
The Ad hoc Signage Team has worked diligently through the last year in the design and location of signs for the exterior and interior of the church facilities. It is a much bigger project than first imagined! Look for the signs to be installed this summer.

As a Matthew 25 congregation, we are exploring new options to address congregational vitality, systemic poverty, and structural racism. We are grateful for all those who have played a part in the growth and work of this past year and look forward to the opportunities and challenges of the year to come. Please join us, for we are the church together – and only together! – June 3, 2024 (John Peterson)

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This past weekend across the country and within our church family there were a host of graduation ceremonies and celebrations – some high school, some college, some grad school – recognizing years of hard academic work and preparing for new beginnings. Congratulations to all of them! This past weekend we also recognized our confirmands who, having completed the confirmation class, offered professions of faith and joined the church. For them, this is a time to recognize the thoughtful, prayerful reflection that has led them to profess faith in Jesus Christ and commit to continue their journey together with this Covenant family. It does not mean they have it all figured out – none of us do; faith is a lifelong journey in which we wrestle with hard questions, significant doubts, and challenging circumstances across a lifetime. The church is not a haven for the saints who have all the answers; it is a hospital for sinners and a community of believers committed to wrestling with the questions and supporting one another as we travel this journey together, trusting God to lead us along the way. Have you given any thought lately to what you believe and where you are on your journey of faith? Like our confirmands, elders present statements of their faith to Session; for some who have been previously ordained, this requires reflection on how their faith has changed in the intervening years – and it does change! Faith grows; doubts arise; and perspectives are altered. What is important to you at one point in life may seem less so at another as new priorities and questions arise. What then do you believe now about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the Church, forgiveness, salvation, and vocation – to name just a few aspects of our faith? If a child asked what you believe, what might you say? Christian formation is about wrestling with those questions and more across a lifetime. It happens in classes and Bible studies, but also in outreach projects and worship, and day-to-day living. We are shaped by saints of all ages who show us what living the faith looks like and by news reports that raise troubling questions for us about how God is at work in an often messy world. Faith is a journey, not a destination, and we have committed to travel that road together. We don’t graduate; we are lifelong learners, but we are also teachers and exemplars for others along the way. Don’t shirk that responsibility and opportunity! Embrace it, and in so doing, may you find your faith growing day to day, side by side with all of us on this journey together! – May 20, 2024 (John Peterson)

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Protests on college campuses in our nation and beyond concerning the war in Gaza have sparked a multitude of reactions and some uncomfortable memories of protests on college campuses in the 1960s. What are we as Christians to say about these events that center on a conflict between Palestinians and Israelis half a world away? Perhaps the first thing to be said is that this is not at heart a religious conflict. The state of Israel does not speak or act for Judaism or the Israel of the Bible; it is a modern state that has its own political and national interests. Neither does Hamas speak for any one religion or for all Palestinians; many are Muslim, but not all. They reflect political and national interests related to eviction from their homes with the creation of the state of Israel and their aspirations for a nation of their own. Jews are joining in the protests against the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, and there are Palestinians appalled at the actions of Hamas who are calling for the release of the hostages. Secondly, while the majority of the protests are peaceful, those garnering the headlines are the protestors who have crossed the line from peaceful dissent to violence, destruction, and anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions. We should support those who are calling for an end to war, the release of the hostages, the delivery of food to the hungry to alleviate suffering, and a plan forward for peace that respects the lives of all. We should be a voice calling for justice for those who have suffered losses, those who have been driven from their homes by the brutal attacks by Hamas, the indiscriminate bombing by Israel, and the denial of access to food, water, and medicines for displaced Palestinians. As so often is the case, it is the innocent who suffer, and we should be righteously angry at the callous disregard for human life on both sides of this conflict. Thirdly, we should support those who make their voices heard through peaceful protest and hold accountable those who cross the line into intimidation, racist rhetoric, violence, and destructive behavior. At times, peaceful protests have been coopted by outside agitators with their own agendas, but it is also the case that some protestors have been carried away by anger to act unjustly or illegally, and they should face consequences for their actions. Finally, we should be praying for a resolution, and not simply ignoring the conflict as if it were of no consequence to us. These are our brothers and sisters who are suffering, and we should seek to alleviate the suffering where we can. Sometimes, the best that we can do is simply to pray, and so we should pray! It can be tempting in this conflict, as in so many others, to make this a black-and-white issue without recognizing the nuances of the problems and the varied interests of those involved. Hamas’s attack was unconscionable as is Israel’s response that has killed so many Innocent people, including thousands of children. We should demand better from all sides, including ourselves, and pray for a just peace that will bring an end to the violence and allow all the people to live in peace, for that is the dream of most of the folks involved in this conflict. – May 6, 2024 (John Peterson)

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What does it mean to be a member of the church? First and foremost, it means to be a disciple of Jesus who seeks to follow the risen Christ by loving God and one another, forgiving and praying for others, serving as Jesus showed us and taught us, and proclaiming the good news of his resurrection and God’s love for the world. The basic affirmation of faith in the early church was simply, “Jesus is Lord!” To be a church member is to make that same affirmation personal – to affirm that Jesus is Lord in your life by how you live day-to-day. Our Book of Order offers a vision for what those commitments look like in practice:

A faithful member bears witness to God’s love and grace and promises to be involved responsibly in the ministry of Christ’s Church. Such involvement includes:

Proclaiming the good news in word and deed,
Taking part in the common life and worship of a congregation,
Lifting one another up in prayer, mutual concern, and active support,
Studying Scripture and the issues of Christian faith and life,
Supporting the ministry of the church through the giving of money, time, and talents,
Demonstrating a new quality of life within and through the church,
Responding to God’s activity in the world through service to others,
Participating in the governing responsibilities of the church, and
Reviewing and evaluating regularly the integrity of one’s membership, and considering ways in which one’s participation in the worship and service of the church may be increased and made more meaningful. (G-1.0304)

In different seasons of our lives, the shape of our responses may vary, but we can hardly call ourselves members of the church if we are not actively participating in the life of the church in some way, shape, or form. The advent of live streaming of worship and virtual participation has expanded opportunities for such committed involvement. How then are you doing as a member of Christ’s Church in this Covenant community? Are those marks of membership reflected in your life? If not, then might this be an opportune time to consider how you might commit to be a more faithful member, not in order to impress your neighbors, but in order to respond to Christ’s call? For, the church is not a club you join without any responsibilities that go with it. It is call to discipleship – and whether it is here or elsewhere, it is a call to which we respond by our actions and by our inaction. Membership in the Church of Jesus Christ is a joy and a privilege, suggests that same provision in the Book of Order. Embrace the joy!! — April 22, 2024 (John Peterson)

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Last month I received a phone call from a young Mennonite couple looking for a location for their wedding. They live over an hour away but had been unable to find a church large enough to accommodate their guests that would also allow their pastor to officiate at the service. We could meet their needs. About that same time, we were hosting for a week a group from the University of Maryland who were working with Renewing Homes Augusta for their spring break. When we decided to expand our facilities significantly in 2000, we emphasized that this expansion was not just for our use, but also to share with the community. Our facilities have been wonderful for our worship, Christian Formation programs, preschool, choir practices, Together on Wednesday meals, spring egg hunts, and various other church meetings and gatherings. But we built it all to be shared with our neighbors. Who are some of the neighbors with whom we share this space?

The Augusta Bird Club meets monthly in our Fellowship Hall.
The NAACP holds its community prayer breakfast and Freedom Banquet in our Great Hall.
A small Narcotics Anonymous group for medical providers meets here weekly.
SACRA holds its board meetings and annual meeting here.
Martha’s Meals on Wheels held their Anniversary Celebration in our Great Hall and meets as a board in our Fellowship Hall.
The YMCA uses our field for soccer and t-ball practices from time to time.
A yoga group works out in the Breezeway each week.
Helping Hands offers a week of activities for children in the summer each year.
The Thursday Morning Music Club often offers recitals in our sanctuary. (They meet on Thursday morning as Virginia Wetzel always reminded me!)
Various other community groups, organizations, and homeowners’ associations with Covenant connections meet here from time to time.
Oak Grove Theater held auditions for plays here last month and often uses our space for play rehearsals in the spring and summer.
The University Singers from UVA holds their day and/or overnight retreats here.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive (or exhausting) but is intended to illustrate how we share our space with the community. Most of the organizations have Covenant connections. All are non-profits. In sharing our space, we seek to be good stewards of our facilities, good neighbors to our community, and faithful disciples in God’s service! We who have been so blessed, seek to bless others. That is why we built it! That is why we share it – to the glory of God! – April 8, 2024 (John Peterson)

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As one of my Lenten disciplines this year I have been fasting on Wednesdays until our TOW dinner of soup and bread together in the evening. It is remarkable how that simple act brings to mind the Lenten season and compassion for our neighbors and needs throughout the day. We are used to eating when we want to eat without concern about whether we will have enough or anything at all to eat. Most of us do not have to battle hunger each day, if ever. This act of fasting on Wednesdays has offered me a glimpse, nothing more, of what so much of the world experiences day to day and hour by hour.

In Gaza right now the United Nations is concerned about mass starvation as people displaced from their homes by the war have access to little or no food. In many other parts of the world, climate change has destroyed crops through drought, floods, or storms that have left whole populations food insecure. Within some of our cities, there are food deserts where no healthy food is available. Significant numbers of children in our community receive free lunches that are their best, or perhaps only, meal of the day. All of which is to say that we take for granted our daily bread while so many other folks go hungry. Fasting one day a week has brought that reality to my consciousness in a very visceral way!

Here at Covenant, we try to meet the needs of hungry folks in our community in various ways. Teams cook and serve meals at Trinity Soup Kitchen each month. We deliver food from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to Hispanic families. Each month we collect a Four Cents Per Meal offering and food for the Verona Food Pantry. In our annual budget, we support Meals on Wheels, Valley Mission, SCS Nutrition Program, Jones Garden, Verona Food Pantry, Project Grows, SACRA, and our Hispanic food distribution. We are trying to make a difference where we are with what we have, and while it may seem like just a drop in an ocean of hunger, to those we help it makes a huge difference!

As you sit down to your next meal or grab a snack on the run, pause to consider two things: gratitude to God for what you have and a commitment to do what you can to feed someone else down the street, across the county, or around the world. For as Jesus reminds us: it is in serving them that we serve him! — March 11, 2024 (John Peterson)

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At the Session meeting last week, we had an unprecedented opportunity: to decide how to allocate $106,000 in surplus funds from 2023. The surplus arose as a result of two principal factors: giving in 2023 exceeded our budget and expenses came in below budget (largely because of the vacant associate pastor position until Rachel’s arrival in November). All the teams had an opportunity to weigh in on needs and offer suggestions for what the funds could be used for. In the end, Session approved the following expenditures:

¨ $3,000 for new coffeemakers as our existing machines have outlived their useful life

¨ $2,000 to support youth attending Montreat and Massanetta Springs conferences

¨ $14,000 to support the capital campaign at Massanetta Springs

¨ $10,000 for staff bonuses, continuing education, and other personnel expenses

¨ $30,000 to complete the signage project to replace signs inside and outside the church; this project has been underway for several years now, and by funding it from the surplus, it will save monies in the Building Fund

¨ $26,500 for a Matthew 25 project – 25% of the surplus; combined with funds previously set aside, this will give us resources to tackle a significant project in our community; Session is exploring possibilities and talking with local agencies to identify needs and assess where we can have the biggest impact which will involve not only funds but also our active participation

¨ $20,500 to the Building Fund (subject to approval of Memorial Funds for a choir room project) to defray the cost of replacing the leaky flat roof that covers the choir room and part of the Breezeway

The allocation approved by Session enables us to meet some needs of our own here while also reaching out to the community. We are grateful for your generosity and for the good stewardship of the Session teams. In my 28 years here, we have never had a surplus close to this size; with all our programs now up and running and being fully staffed again, our budget will be much tighter this year. But for now, we will rejoice in the blessings God has given us, in order that we might be a blessing to others! — February 26, 2024 (John Peterson)

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This year Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. On one hand, it seems an odd mix – ashes and valentines, repentance and love, ash gray and rose red (Ohio State fans find that a perfect match) – but there is perhaps something fitting in celebrating these two remembrances on the same day. For, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday are both rooted in love – love for one another, our love for God, and God’s love for us.

Valentine’s Day was originally a religious holiday, a feast day honoring the lives of various St. Valentines. Today, it is for us a secular holiday marked by expressions of love (sponsored by the Association of Florists, Hallmark, and the Chocolate Coalition of America). On Valentine’s Day we express our love for others through cards and flowers, chocolates, and those little candy hearts of my youth (Be Mine! I luv U!) which may have been the precursors to text messaging.

Ash Wednesday begins our 40-day journey through Lent to Holy Week. It is a day marked by repentance, prayer, and self-reflection, a day to set out on a Lenten journey that will end at the cross and the empty tomb where God’s great love for us is expressed in profoundly tangible ways. As ashes are imposed on our foreheads, we commit to that journey; that commitment is itself an act of love for God. As ashes mark our foreheads, we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return, but even as we recall that sobering truth, we are reminded of Paul’s words that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Celebrating Ash Wednesday is an act of humble contrition, reminding us of our mortality, and it is an act of faith, bearing witness to our commitment to the God who loves us without end.

This year, I encourage you to observe both days on February 14. Observe Valentine’s Day for the sake of those you love, and observe Ash Wednesday for the sake of the God who loves you. For in doing so, we live into the Great Commandment: Love God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself! — February 12, 2024 (John Peterson)

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On Saturday, January 20, Session held its annual retreat here at the church. A significant focus for us was implementation of the Matthew 25 initiative here at Covenant. I shared some data around health equities in our community and beyond, and Adam Campbell provided for us some information with regard to the work of the DEI commission in the city in order to help us understand some of the challenges that have been identified for us locally. Following review of our Long-Range Plan and our annual goals for 2023, Session adopted the following priorities for 2024:

¨ Identify a Matthew 25 project and resource it appropriately.

¨ Understand and implement Christian Formation across the life of the church.

¨ Develop a plan for lay leadership & enabling identification of spiritual gifts.

¨ Share the good news in tangible ways beyond our walls and welcome community participation in the life of the church.

These priorities are in addition to our ongoing commitments to ministry and work in the life of the church (e.g. worship, outreach, etc.). In coming weeks and months there will be more information shared about these priorities, but as a way of beginning the conversation, you might think of these priorities as addressing the following questions:

¨ What does it mean for us to be a Matthew 25 congregation, and how do we live in to that challenge?

¨ How is Christian Formation different from Christian Education, and what difference might it make for us to focus on “formation” instead of “education” in the life of the church?

¨ How do we help folks identify their spiritual gifts and provide opportunities for them to use those gifts in ministry?

¨ How might we be better evangelists for the good news we believe – as a church and as individuals – within the life of the church and reaching out to the community?

We hope that you will reflect on these questions and on these goals and join us in the conversation as we seek to discern where God is leading us, and then dare to follow that path! — January 29, 2024 (John Peterson)

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In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., writes of his own disappointment in the white churches of the South in 1963:

I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of the negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen…. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautions than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows.

Those words of Dr. King continue to challenge us 60 years later as we look to the challenges we face as the church in 2024. Are we more courageous than cautious? Are we listening to the voices of those who are suffering or in need? Do we seek to understand the problems and concerns of our community and world, or do we ignore them? We have no stained-glass windows (except in the chapel), but do we regard the church as a shelter from all that is chaotic and painful in the world, or do we see the church as a staging area from which to go and meet the real needs of our community and world?

In choosing to be a Matthew 25 congregation, we have committed to working to make a difference on some of the toughest challenges that we face: congregational vitality, systemic poverty, and structural racism. But those are not the only challenges we are called to address. In a time of political polarization and demonization of others, can we offer a better way to address issues about which we disagree? At a time when wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza and a political candidate in our own nation refuses to repudiate violence around our elections, can we pursue a non-violent path to peace that embraces Jesus’ call to love all our neighbors? At a time when Christian Nationalism proclaims a Gospel corrupted by nationalistic fervor, can we speak a word of truth? At a time when people are suffering from hunger, homelessness, and the devastating effects of climate change, can we offer hope and healing in tangible ways that make a difference? As our southern border is flooded with desperate people seeking to make their home here, can we find a way to address their needs compassionately while preserving our national integrity and supporting border communities that have been overwhelmed?

Those are just some of the challenges we face in this new year. May we be faithful in our response, rising to the occasion in proclaiming in word and in deed God’s love and justice – as God’s faithfully courageous church in this place! — January 15, 2024 (John Peterson)

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