State-of-the-Parish Address
Matthew 4:12-23; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 (readings transferred one week because of weather)
Feb. 1, 2026
I need to let you know, so you don’t get
distracted later: This address will be a
little longer than a usual sermon. There’s
a lot going on in the church and the world, so I’m giving myself six extra
minutes.
Jesus said, “Follow me” (Matt 4:19). So, let’s
keep that in mind as we consider the state of our parish at the start of 2026. Of course, what I’m supposed to say is, “The
state of our parish is strong.” In these
addresses, the president, or the governor, or the rector always says that. But I want to say something different because
it’s more honest. The state of our
parish is … fine … at least for now.
You’ll see a lot of very good news in the
annual report. Outreach giving and
service is downright inspiring: $103,000 given from the operating budget,
another $105,000 in parishioners’ own gifts to our outreach partners, and 3,800
hours of service from you. That’s crazy
good. Also in that category, we’re
seeing more younger faces on Sundays and more little people running down the
aisle to receive Communion. The baristas
have reached 10,000 hours of serving all sorts and conditions of community
members over at HJ’s. In terms of
temporal affairs, we’ll be replacing our aging flat roofs and HVAC units this
year with gifts outside the budget. The
effort is led by parishioner Frank Thompson, who has already led replacement of
the parking lot and renovation of the undercroft – bless all those who are
making this work possible. And our
number of pledging units is up, as is the number and proportion of increased pledges.
There’s a lot of good news.
And there are challenges. Although the number of pledges is up, the
amount pledged is $91,000 less than last year because a major giver died. Also, we had a higher level of unfulfilled
pledges in 2025 than usual – $110,000 pledged but not actually given. Because of those unfulfilled pledges, we
missed our revenue projection for 2025, which hasn’t happened in many years.
Now, this needn’t make you worry about
staffing or outreach or utility bills in 2026. We’re poised to do great ministry together
this year. As you’ll see in the budget
presentation downstairs, we’ll be … fine. But if we keep doing everything just the way
we’ve been doing it, it won’t be long before “fine” means what its famous
acronym stands for: frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.
I’d like to avoid that. So, the leaders of your commissions related to
resources – finance, stewardship, facilities, and endowment – are coming
together this year to plan for a time when our current senior members and their
generous pledges are no longer with us. Watch
for more about that as 2026 unfolds.
So, that’s the news from the land of
temporal affairs. How about the land of
spiritual affairs? That’s why the church
is here, after all. Our “core business” is
to … hmmm … how would we frame that? What are we here to produce?
Well, you could see our product as worship
– preaching, music, prayer, and sacraments to connect us with God. You could see our product as education –
teaching people about God and God’s vision for the world. You could see our product as outreach – being
the hands and feet of Jesus to bless a hurting world. You could see our product as fellowship –
bringing the body of Christ together in love. You could see our product as prophetic witness
– speaking for God to the world around us. We promise to do all those things in the
Baptismal Covenant, our job description as Christians.
But I think our product is something
different. Our product is you. What the Church is here to produce is
disciples – people who follow Jesus Christ as their Lord. The Church forms and equips disciples through
all our ministries, all the ways the Baptismal Covenant frames the work of love.
So, forming followers of Jesus will be our
focus this year, with a theme of Companions on the Way. Why would we make that our theme? Because a life of meaning and value and
purpose – the life for which we yearn – that’s not a path we take alone. It’s a path we take in community, growing in
relationship with people who become our companions – a word that means, at its
root, people who break bread together. With
our companions on the way, we find nothing less than the staff of life, the
true Bread that came down from heaven – divine Love itself.
We find and journey with our companions in
different ways, even in one person’s life. It happens vertically, so to speak, in the one-on-one
time we spend with God. And it happens
horizontally, too, in the relationships God empowers us to build –
relationships across the dinner table with the people closest to us and
relationships with friends we travel alongside. All those paths move us toward heaven, now and
later.
As I said, everything we do at church
builds those vertical and horizontal companion relationships – worship,
outreach, prayer, learning, welcoming others, having a party. But to help us focus on going deeper with our
companions, human and divine, we’re offering a couple of special resources this
year.
One is a series of devotional guides. The one for the Epiphany season is the start, but
we’ll provide one for each season across this year. And, beginning with Lent, the guides will be
specific for each day, briefer, and easier to navigate – think of it as “five
minutes with God.” As you drink your
first cup of coffee, or check in with your kids or grandkids, or decompress
with your beloved at the end of the day, you can use this resource to reflect
on something from the coming Sunday’s readings and see where a rich question will
take you.
The other resource is something we’re
calling Companion Groups. Starting in Lent
and continuing through the year, these small groups, eight to 10 people each, will
gather once a month to connect with God and each other. What will that look like? A group might share something to eat and drink,
check in about what’s bubbling in their lives, reflect on what they’ve been
hearing in the season’s devotional guide, and come away amazed at how the Holy
Spirit connects those dots. If you’d
like to be part of a group, you can sign up in the entryway or at the meeting
downstairs, or you can sign up online.
What’s the point of the devotional guides
and the small groups? As you journey
with your companions, human and divine, two miraculous things happen. First, you grow deeper in love with God and
the people around you, experiencing heaven not just later someday but in your life,
right now. And second, you begin to see
how your extraordinary, ordinary life helps bring about God’s reign and rule of
love. How? By being the person God’s made you to be – through
the work you do, the choices you make, the actions you take, the good for which
you stand.
Now, most often, no one will notice. At the Free Store two weeks ago, I watched a
parishioner talking with a woman who’d come late and couldn’t get the warm
gloves she needed. So, this parishioner
went and got her own gloves out of her coat and gave them to the woman, who
never knew where they came from. That’s
the kingdom of God, in the flesh. But sometimes,
you’ll find yourself acting as God’s agent more publicly – in what you say to
someone at work, in the insight you post, in the rally your attend, in the causes
you support. As the poet said, “We are
the ones we’ve been waiting for.”1 The kingdom of God is not a church, or a
nonprofit, or a political party, or a nation. The kingdom of God is one person after another
following Jesus instead of following the other voices that claim our allegiance
– voices of power or wealth or privilege or affinity.
I believe that’s our primary work as the
Church. It may seem like our mission is
to provide worship, or put on classes, or feed the poor, or offer fellowship,
or raise money. Instead, each of those
things supports our true purpose, which is to help you grow as a follower of
Jesus, live out his love across your life, and share it with others. That’s the Church’s superpower in a world that
wants us to think we’re irrelevant. Your
changed life brings God’s kingdom to life.
So, in terms of temporal and spiritual
affairs, I believe we have good, healthy work ahead of us this year. That’s also true about a third aspect of the
state of our parish – our intersection with the political and social moment in
which we’re living. And here, the same
truth holds: Your changed life brings
God’s kingdom to life.
We’re in a time when we’re being asked, or
maybe told, to overturn some of our nation’s fundamental presumptions – how we treat
one another and how we treat the rest of the world. For many decades, certainly across my life, Americans
have followed norms that restrained our personal and collective temptations. We’re in a time now when those norms are
slipping. Not so long ago, I would have assured
someone that the losing side in an American election wouldn’t consider
overturning the result, and that leaders wouldn’t consider deploying the armed
forces against protesting citizens, and that leaders wouldn’t consider ending bedrock
alliances when allies don’t follow our demands. These presumptions are different now than they
were a few years ago. You may like those
changes, or you may abhor them, but changes are happening.
I know some of you are frustrated with me
for not speaking and writing about all this more directly. Recently, a parishioner wrote to me about what
he described as the administration’s “growing brutality and lack of empathy for
citizens.” He said, “I think it’s time
we, as a church, become much stronger in [our] messaging. If some
parishioners have a problem with that, so be it – they can leave and find
another place of worship. It’s time to get off the fence.”
You deserve to know how I see the Church’s
role in these times when slipping norms are emboldening our leaders to change the
way they treat those who oppose them. So,
here goes.
First: I don’t see “the Church” as me. I lead this parish, and you hear my voice more
than others; but I am not the parish. You are.
Second: If you are the Church, then it
matters how you see the world. Now, I
can’t prove this, but my gut tells me St. Andrew’s is a microcosm of our
politics. I’d bet my next paycheck that
we’re 50/50 progressive and conservative. Now, I don’t know whether that tracks
precisely with supporting the president and not supporting the president, but I’ll
bet it’s close. So, if we’re 50/50 on
nearly any given issue, even priest-math tells me I’ll annoy half of you with
any perceived political stance I take.
And that raises the question: So what? True leaders speak the truth, right? – regardless
of whom they annoy. That’s the
perspective of the parishioner who wrote to me recently.
Let me be transparent about this. There’s a very practical reason not to alienate
half of you: If those of you who
disagree with me write me off and stop listening, I’ve lost whatever
opportunity I had to change your heart. But
here’s an even better reason not to alienate half of you: We need each other. That’s always been true, but oh my goodness is
it true now.
Some of my best friends and closest
partners here are people whose votes cancel mine in every election. And over the past 20 years, I’ve learned more
from them than I can begin to say. Maybe
they’ve grown a little knowing me, too. Well, the same truth holds at the congregational
level. I’m not sure there’s any
institution but the Church, and especially this church, that has
the capacity to hold us together as the powers around us are tearing us apart. We need each other to be here, Sunday after
Sunday, to remind us that we need each other always, as companions on the way.
Now, does that mean it doesn’t matter what
we believe or how we behave? Far from
it. Instead, it means that what binds us
together here, across our differences, is not our allegiance to, or our rejection
of, a political figure and his movement. What binds us together is our allegiance to
Jesus Christ as our sovereign.
So, then, what does Jesus have to say to
our parish and to our nation?
Let’s take it from the top. A scribe asks Jesus what’s the most important
commandment, and Jesus says: Love God
with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-39). Full stop.
I think what that means is that everything
we do must align with giving our allegiance to God alone and giving
others the same care we’d give ourselves. So, for those who want to claim that this is a
Christian nation – not that we are Christian nationalists, for that is not
who we are – but if we want to claim that our nation is guided by the God
revealed in Jesus Christ, then we must follow God’s priorities – especially
when God’s priorities challenge our own. A Christian nation follows rules, norms, and
boundaries beyond “I can do what I want.” A Christian nation recognizes that God’s agenda
defines the true national interest. A Christian
nation prioritizes raising up those who struggle the most. A Christian nation has the strength to say, “We
honor and serve even those who differ from us because they’re made in God’s
image and likeness.”
So, in this challenging moment, what’s the
Church for? The Church is here to form
you to follow Jesus in loving God and loving neighbor through every aspect of
your life – family, work, finances, volunteerism, advocacy, voting. If you look at the changes happening in our
nation, and you can honestly say they represent what Jesus wants to see, then
work and vote for them. If you look at
the changes happening in our nation, and you say Jesus opposes them, then work
and vote against them.
But, for God’s sake, literally – if you
disagree with me, or if you disagree with the person sitting next to you in the
pew – whatever else you do, don’t leave. That’s precisely what the forces of division
want. Instead, tell me that you disagree,
and then let’s share the sacrament of a cup of coffee as companions on the way.
Our broken world says, “Join only with
people who look and live and think and love like you.” The good news of Jesus Christ says, “Follow
me, and I will make you fish for people” (Matt 4:19) – these people and
those people, people you like and people you don’t, people you agree
with and people you can’t understand. “Follow me,” Jesus says, “as your Companion on
the way, and learn to live as I live. Follow
me,” Jesus says, “alongside these companions I give you, and with them build my
kingdom of love.
“Follow me,” Jesus says. For it’s in his love, and his love alone, that we are bound together.
1.
From
“Poem for South African Women” by June Jordan, presented at the United Nations,
Aug. 9, 1978. Available at: https://www.junejordan.net/poem-for-south-african-women.html.
Accessed Jan. 30, 2026. See article by Howell, Patrick A. “We Are the Ones
We’ve Been Waiting For.” Huffpost, April 18, 2017. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-are-the-ones-we-have-been-waiting-for_b_58e785b9e4b0acd784ca5738.
Accessed Jan. 30, 2025.
