Blog

On September 1st, I remembered that I’ve only been at Tabernacle for a month. One month!

The youth lived a lot of life in August. Let’s run through August:
First, we met. On Sunday, August 5, we met together for lunch after church. We awkwardly said hello and I began learning what was coming in the month ahead. Then, on the following Saturday, Emily White and Gerard Burton led us to challenge our fears at King’s Dominion. There are few better places to get to know one another. For many of us, this was the first time that we stepped onto a roller coaster and felt that tinge of panic and regret as we heard that “click……click…click..click.click” as we climbed the first hill. For some of us, it was the first time this summer that we had spent a full day with this group of people. Thanks to the hard work and generosity of Emily and Gerard, we all survived!
The next Sunday we enjoyed the hospitality of the Welsteads as we spent a day on the river. We enjoyed jet skis, canoeing, and kayaking. It was a day of conquered fears for some of us! Stepping into muddy water and controlling a kayak are no small feats.
The next weekend, the Kennedys hosted us for a weekend retreat in Fredericksburg. We ate and we swam, we canoed and we kayaked, we played games and watched a lot of Shaun the Sheep. We spent time learning about one another and thinking about what being the youth at Tabernacle means. How do we describe ourselves? In asking these questions, we started to think about who we are as individuals, and what things we bring to the table. We started asking our own questions, not to have them answered, but to have them heard.

Fall programming started in September. Our Sunday school classes were split into middle and high school groups. The middle school group is led by Cathy McGraw, and the high school group is led by Sarah Smith and Andrew Sabatini. For the last few months, we have used the Spill the Beans curriculum, which follows the Narrative Lectionary. On Wednesday nights, we have been meeting and going through two different series, one on Forgotten Saints in the Bible and one called Dismissed Faith.

In October, the youth have been thinking about and exploring their personal faith in its entirety, from their doubts and fears to their thoughts on baptism, scripture, and prayer. We are thankful for Emily White and David Gorman for being leaders on Wednesday nights!
We met for a youth game day at the home of Steve, Jennifer, Spencer, and Sam Law. About a dozen youth attended at various points for a time of community building and fun. We are thankful to the Laws for opening their home to us!
Youth Worship Arts resumed in October, under the leadership of Judy Fiske, Marty Watkin, and Ron Simmons. The youth look forward to leading us and sharing with us in worship very soon.

As I look back over the things that have happened in the last few months in the lives of our youth, I cannot help but feel that we have lived more than three months’ worth of life. Many of these youth have been journeying together for a long time, with supporters like David, Sarah, Andrew, Cathy, Emily, Gerard, the Welsteads, the Laws, and the Kennedys giving their time and energy generously. I haven’t even mentioned the Youth Team and the parents that sat down months ago to put many of these events together.

Brock Hogan

Having missed the deadline for the second quarter report as I was preparing to take 28 children, youth and chaperones to Music and Worship Arts Camp at Eagle Eyrie I thought I should combine the two reports. It is a lot, so here goes!

April 1 was Easter this year so we started the second quarter off with a bang. Easter is always an exciting conclusion to a busy and meaningful Lent and Holy Week. Following Easter the Sanctuary Choir begins preparations for Pentecost and for summer. The Children’s Choirs begin preparations for a final performance. This year the final program was held on the last Wednesday evening in May and consisted of a concert of all types of music from Sacred to Broadway. Everyone had a great time and the music was beautiful. Many thanks are due to Jessica Corbitt, Terry Witt, Kathy McGraw and Susan Braden for their wonderful leadership with the school aged choirs. Helen Davidson and Larry Allen provide amazing leadership for our Preschool Choir.

Our summer music program included a month of sharing favorite hymns and their stories, both the hymn story and their stories in our lives. This was a great deal of fun and helped people to get to know one another as we sang and shared songs we love. In late June seven of us attended Animate Worship Arts Camp at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. This camp is a favorite and we love attending. Meg Lacy was one of the preachers again this year. Each of the youth learns so much about designing and participating in worship services. Later in July—third quarter, twenty-eight people attended Music and Worship Arts Camp at Eagle Eyrie. This camp is open to children over the age of 10. We sing a lot, learn about worship, play in the amazing Eagle Eyrie pool and figure out how to go to bed without a parent to tell us what to do. This camp experience is very valuable to both the spiritual and physical development of the children. They learn a lot about independence at camp.

August always brings renewed interest in liturgical installations. This year our theme is “stitched together”. We are displaying quilts and tell their stories as we are listening, worshiping and waiting for God’s guidance in our lives. The quilts provide a wonderful visual for the use of every scrap to make something beautiful in our lives. A group of adults and youth spent a couple of afternoons at the church dyeing fabric and stiffening it with glue after it had been cut into large squares. These are being hung in the sanctuary ceiling to form a “quilt” over our heads.

The music ministry moves back into regular programming in September. The Sanctuary Choir and three children’s choirs meet on Wednesday evenings and Youth Worship Arts meets on Sunday afternoon. In September the church thinking is guided by the Narrative Lectionary. The structure for much of our study and worship follows the structure of this Lectionary. This year we are in Year 1 of the program. The worship installation that was envisioned in August is coming into being. Christmas music is being rehearsed. The next quarter will witness the results of all of the work. It is good to be back in a regular routine.

Please thank the choir members and leaders young and old for the amazing work that they do to make our worship services meaningful.

Judy Fiske
Minister of Music/Worship/Organist

Greetings Tabernacle!
When I think back on the last three months, I am amazed at how much we have accomplished and how many changes have taken place. As new staff get settled into their roles, I have been excited to hand off some of the responsibilities in Communications and Children’s Ministry in order to dig more deeply into other components of my job description—especially assets mapping and helping our congregation restructure for growth. Below are some of the highlights of the past quarter:

Communications
You may have noticed that a few things have changed in our communications strategy recently, and we want to continue to improve our communication within the congregation and outside our walls to the neighborhood community. I have been working with a fabulous designer recommended by Terry McMahon since early summer on a few projects that have now come to fruition. The first is the design of a new bulletin that would help us better tell our story and connect with one another in worship, even as our congregation grows and we are less familiar with the new faces we see each Sunday. We also worked to create templates for announcements both in print and electronic forms. Hope Cutchins, our amazing Communications Coordinator, started in late July, and has been using and tweaking these templates. We introduced an e-newsletter, The Tab Weekly, in August, in the hopes of helping members and friends of Tabernacle stay connected with us even when they can’t be physically present. We would love your feedback if you have thoughts about what is and is not working as we develop strategy for communications at Tab. Our next venture will be updating and streamlining the website—be on the lookout for more stories and highlights of Tabernaclers doing awesome work in our community and around the world!

Pastoral Leadership
At my six-month review in June, Sterling and I realized that while I’ve been busy working, much of it has been behind the scenes. I was hungry for more interaction with congregation members, and there was a need for my leadership to be more visible. In response, we decided on a few steps forward. (1) I would begin preaching more regularly. (2) I would lead a Sunday school series on Spiritual Practices in August. (3) I would start a Wednesday night Spiritual Formation option, which became the Lectio Divina group that gathers on Wednesday evenings in the Parlor. These have been wonderful ways for me to connect with you—and hopefully for you to connect with me, too!

Administration
In addition to on-boarding and supervising two new staff members—Hope Cutchins and Jerusha Moses, I worked closely with the Personnel Committee to conduct annual reviews for other non-ministerial staff this fall. It was an enlightening process for me, both for the purpose of better supporting our staff, and for the gift of working with this passionate Committee and getting to see their talents at work in our congregation.

Asset Mapping & Lay Leadership Development
Two of the more unusual items on my original job description were related to (1) asset mapping in the congregation and (2) thinking about how to best restructure our process of lay leadership engagement, recruitment, and development. I’ve made a few small steps toward this work in the past few months. Tabernacle has not participated in any self-study for over ten years—and in the past 10 years the congregation has grown and changed tremendously. I have put together a team of lay leaders to act as a “think-tank” for me as we discern how to best help Tabernacle consider the following questions: Who were we then? Who are we now? Who is God calling us to become in the future? In spring of 2019, we’ll be
rolling out some activities to open up this conversation to the whole congregation, and we hope you will participate! I have also spent some time researching best practices for lay leadership recruitment and considering the church’s current nominating structure. While we aren’t ready to make any large changes at this point, the staff did decide that we wanted the nominating committee to have more information about the positions for which they are recruiting leaders. Over the past few months, I’ve been working behind the scenes to collect from each committee chair a list of upcoming projects and goals for 2019, to get a better sense of who our congregation may select or nominate to fill these positions. In the coming months, we will also be talking about how we can transition from a committee that recruits leaders, to a committee that both recruits leaders and helps to develop and support them in their various positions of leadership.

I’m getting to know you more and more, and as each season passes, Richmond begins to feel more like home, and Tabernacle begins to feel more like family. Thank you for welcoming me, encouraging our staff, and listening closely with us for the movement of God’s Spirit in our midst!

Blessings!
Meg