Building Community

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

I want to tell you about a terrific new committee here at St. Martin’s called the Community Building Committee. On election day this group provided hospitality to voters when they came to vote in our parish hall. Coffee, tea, and donuts created an atmosphere of good cheer in our foyer as an unprecedented number of voters came in to do their civic duty. Anne Thatcher and I mingled with the voters, greeting them warmly and thanking them for voting. I even met someone who wants to get her three-month-old daughter baptized!

While this committee is doing a great job, we all agree that building community is a ministry we share in common as the Body of Christ. The efforts we make to greet each other, build relationships, and welcome newcomers build the muscles and sinews that make us nimble and strong as a community that represents Christ in the world.

“Deep relationships, bold ministry” is the theme we are working on this year at St. Martin’s. That theme challenges us to see our presence and our activity at church as crucial to the character and virtue of our community of faith. When we take the time to relate and to invest in relationship, we learn to be there for each other in times of joy and sorrow. When we take the time to relate and to invest in relationships we find our life enriched, and even our direction in life altered. Want to find someone to join a ministry you love here at St. Martin’s? Be busy getting to know new people!

It’s easy to want the church to be here. It’s another matter entirely to choose to be the church when you are here and when you are away.

Here are some ways to be the church on Sunday mornings:

1. Wear your nametag!
2. Greet someone new. As you enter the church, during the passing of the peace, and after church simply introduce yourself to someone you don’t know. Simply say, “My name is ________, and I am not sure if we have met?”
3. Remember that families of all ages are welcome at all services. That joyful noise of children is a sign of life and vitality in our ministry!
4. When circled up with old friends, make room for newcomers by inviting them into your circle.
5. Move across the driveway to community hour in the parish hall after worship. Community hour is a time to meet, greet, and connect. This is a time of important ministry and the more the merrier.
6. If you have an event, activity, class, or ministry to promote, set up a table during community hour. Make it festive. Bring food, balloons, a banner. We would love for community hour to be a bustling hive of activity and opportunity.
7. Encourage your friends to come to community hour, and walk newcomers across the driveway so they know where to go.

St. Martin’s is a dynamic and multifaceted community of faith. To support such an active ministry, we invest in our bonds as a community. Those bonds will help us take risks together in the name of Jesus.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector