Autumn Around the Parish

Autumn is a great season here at our parish, there is so much going on and so much to look forward to, it’s definitely one of my very favorite seasons of the year.

On a very obvious level our campus comes alive with vibrant fall colors as the leaves turn all around us. Of course our setting is beautiful all year long, but never more so than this time of year.

Fall brings two message series. The first is all about “belonging” in the sense that we belong to God, to one another, and, of course, we belong to our parish. Through this series we’re aiming to create a consistent culture of invitation. We want to be a parish that is always all about including newcomers. Our second fall series will be our stewardship series, all about our stewardship of the gifts God has given us and our stewardship of this parish. The culmination of this series is, of course, our annual celebration of Stewardship Sunday, one of our favorite weekends of the year.

There will be plenty of missionary outreach during this season. We currently have a mission team in Guatemala working with our mission partners there. But there is much more mission outreach closer to home throughout the month. Our current service projects and partners include Baltimore Hunger Project, Baltimore Station, First Fruits Farm, Franciscan Center, Helping Up Mission, and My Sister’s Place. And, of course, we maintain our support and commitment to the Poppleton Rec Center in West Baltimore.

Our kids and student programs are in full swing and going strong. All Stars is our nursery program on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, Time Travelers is our children’s Liturgy of the Word program, Quest is for elementary students, Resurrection is Middle School and Uprising is High School. This will be our final year in our current space. This time next year, we will be under construction, and meanwhile, we are busy planning for this amazing new space.

This time of year always brings our Fall Small Group Launch, and we’re especially excited to welcome newcomers into our Small Group program. Currently we have about 1,600 parishioners in groups and we’re hoping to see that number rise. We want to be a church of small groups, not just with small groups because groups are the place where we care for one another, support one another, and encourage one another. They’re the place where our great big church gets small, up close, and personal.

That’s just a few of the wonderful things happening here this fall.

And it’s already time to start planning for Christmas!