Telling Our Story
When I was a young child, I would sit next to my grandmother in church. We sat on the second pew on “the piano side” of the small country church, and I would look in her Bible case to get peppermint candy during the service–especially when the preacher went on too long. About once a month, we would sing a great hymn called “I love to tell the story,” and I would match my voice to hers as she sang the alto part. This way, I learned to harmonize. It is a wonderful memory.
This hymn “I love to tell the story,” is a great one to explore if you aren’t familiar with it.
I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above
Of Jesus and his glory
Of Jesus and his love
I love to tell the story
Because I know ’tis true
It satisfies my longings
As nothing else can do
I love to tell the story
‘Twill be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love
Here is a video of the Oak Ridge Boys singing it…
I can remember the words still, and we thought about this image of telling our story this year with our stewardship campaign.
We have quite a story to tell, don’t we? We have our Christian story, arching through over twenty centuries. We have our story of Grace Church, preparing to enter into our third century. We have the stories of our families, and the stories of each of our hearts during these past six months. Our stories are complex, full of grief and joy, frustration and faithfulness. We have learned a great deal about ourselves during these months, and we have learned a great deal about God’s grace in times of loss and confusion, anxiety and fear.
This year’s stewardship campaign will be a bit different, because we have been taken outside of our “normal” way of doing things. We hope that by focusing on our stories we can be reminded of God’s presence in our lives.
We are scaling back on our physical mailings in order to utilize an online portal for making your pledge to your parish. Printing out the forms from our website and mailing them in is also possible. If you would like the church to mail paper forms to your home, please email your name and address to the parish office. Our vestry will make follow-up calls again this year, which has just as much to do with pastoral care and community as it does pledging and budget.
On this year’s financial pledge form you will find a text box where you can write a brief story from your life during these days. How have you experienced God’s grace? How have you been stretched and challenged to grow in your practice of faith? We plan on collecting these and publishing a collection of stories for the wider community, to mark this time both for ourselves and for future generations who will look back on our experience.
What is your story? What is our parish’s story? What is God’s story? How do these stories weave together and open our eyes to see God’s compassionate presence all around us? And how can we build on the richness of these stories and step even more fully into the years to come as a Christian community?
Please join us in Telling Our Story.
Blessings,
Stuart+
