Thanks:
Our thanks go out to Pastor Steve Holm for filling in for our Worship service this past Sunday. As always, his presence, sermon, and insights continue to be very well received and appreciated by all of the Esperanza community.
Welcome:
It was great being able to worship with and to meet and greet our new interim pastor – Pastor Sarah Stadler. As mentioned previously, she brings a wealth of experience from her previous positions, including the past 12 years as Pastor of Grace Lutheran in Phoenix. I’m sure that I speak for the members of the Esperanza Community in welcoming her to her new ministry with us. She will be formally joining us this week, presiding at our Worship this Sunday. While she will be handling the pastoral functions with us, she will also be helping to prepare us for our future pastor. It will be also up to us to support, encourage, and pray for her in her as she takes on this new position.
An important aspect of this transition period will be working together with Pastor Sarah in understanding who we are as a congregation and who we want to be. A short while ago, your church council, recognizing the many changes that we, as a worshipping community, have experienced over the past 2-3 years, as well as the changes that have happened to our community, our nation and the world at large, we felt that it was important for the Esperanza community to define a vision and mission for us moving forward. We had taken some very early steps to begin this process, before Pastor Annemarie announced her departure. Rather than put this process on hold until we called a new pastor, it seemed to be an ideal time, working with Pastor Sarah and all of us in the Esperanza community to incorporate this activity into the creation/update of our Ministry Site Profile (MSP). For those not familiar with the MSP, it is a document that describes our church in terms of demographics, size, membership, key areas of focus, who we are and what we hope to be. An MSP was completed prior to calling Pastor Annemarie, and it is something that we can update to reflect who we are now and who we would like to be (Vision). You will be hearing more about this in the coming weeks and months as we gather information which reflects the entire Esperanza community.
Again, please join me in welcoming and supporting Pastor Sarah Stadler.
A Letter from Pastor Sarah
Jim Gisselquist