Telling the Story of LaSalle Street Church

What comes to mind for you when you hear the words “LaSalle Street Church?”

Is it the faces of people you’ve met at LaSalle? Is it the sanctuary where we worship? Do you remember certain moments of service or praise that were especially meaningful for you? 

When you hear the words “LaSalle Street Church,” you might also picture our church logo or website. For the last many months, we’ve been working to update our church’s visual identity, covering all the ways we communicate who we are to the world. (I’ve been thankful to be part of the team, with Rev Liz and Lucas, working diligently to develop these updates. It’s been about 15 years since LaSalle’s last significant visual update!) Maybe you spotted updated designs for things like our Connect Cards or our social media posts in the last few weeks. Today’s newsletter features enhancements to make our communication more effective and fun. Soon, you’ll discover a renovated website, carefully crafted to serve the needs of people exploring LaSalle for the first time, in addition to the ways we all rely on our website for church info and livestream access.

At the heart of our updated visual identity is a refreshed logo for LaSalle Street Church. Our staff worked with an external designer who listened carefully through many conversations to help us express who we are today.

Take a few minutes to reflect on the logo with me. (Bear with me—whether you care deeply about graphic design or couldn’t care less, let’s take advantage of this opportunity to reflect on our visual identity to the world!)

Start with the words: “LaSalle Street Church,” has been our church’s name since 1973. Below it is the statement of identity we’ve used to describe ourselves for the last year: Expansive faith. Generous community. Invested in God’s justice. (You might consider clicking those links to revisit last year’s sermon series about these identity statements). Notice how the fonts convey a sense of vintage authenticity, modern innovation, and a joyful, playful ease.

Reflect on the round logo icon: At first glance, you might recognize it as a modernized evolution of our previous round logo. The shape is inspired by the top of our “Good Shepherd” window on the sanctuary’s east wall, and the black lines allude to that stained glass inspiration.

Consider it a little longer. We call this our “lotus” logo, and the lotus is a flower with symbolic significance across many major religions, including Christianity. The colorful brilliance of lotus blossoms against the murky waters in which they thrive makes them a meaningful image of life and resurrection. Their seeds are remarkably hardy, capable of lasting many centuries and then taking root when planted in the right conditions. LaSalle’s round lotus logo captures that sense of new life and rootedness.

Let your imagination wander. Notice the spectrum of vivid colors, reflecting our church’s commitment to multi-denominational, multi-generational, multi-ethnic life together. Notice how the black lines weave in and out, intersecting with each other, like the intersecting roads on a map of Chicago, or all the different identities and experiences and perspectives we hold in beautiful tension. Notice how the colors here are also represented in our Sunday rhythms, a subtle symbol of our church’s monthly worship life together. Notice the round exterior, how we are surrounded and hemmed in by the love of God into an integrated wholeness.

It’s my strong conviction that who we are matters much more than the visual identity we share with the world. Plenty of churches hide bad teaching and toxic theology behind the glow of a flashy website. (Scripture has a lot to say about what matters most to God.) Nevertheless, the way we communicate, both explicitly and implicitly, is an opportunity to tell others and to remind ourselves about the good news of what God is doing at LaSalle Street Church.

My hope is that anyone who opens our newsletter, or fills out a Connect Card, or glances through our website will encounter a beautiful and honest representation of who we are as a real community of real Christians: That our love for Jesus and our pursuit of justice are inextricably linked. That we steward a powerful legacy of the ones who came before us and open ourselves to the new thing God is doing here. That we take on trouble, that we’re a bridge, that (of course!) we welcome refugees, and all the other language we’ve used through the years to try and say: God is good, and there is more than enough, and we are making room.

Let’s tell our good story together.

Getting to Know Rev. Brandi Sanders

Last week, we learned a bit more about Rob Wildeboer, LaSalle’s new Artist-in-Residence and Coordinator of Music. This week, we're excited to share about our Worship Leader Rev. Brandi Sanders! We’ve been blessed to have Rev. Brandi helping lead our worship in services for about a year now — learn more about Brandi and her family below!

What is your role in leading Worship at LaSalle? What do you love most about doing this role/what's energizing about it?

I serve as the guest worship leader as the lead vocalist. I love singing and leading others in worship.

What else do you do with your time - day job, past job, interests?

I work in the missions department of the Evangelical Covenant Church. I work closely with our global personnel (missionaries) serving all over the world. I never ever imagined working with a missions agency. 5 years into this role and it still amazes me that this is where God has me. One of my favorite jobs was as a hospital chaplain. I'd like to get back in that field.

What can you tell us about your family?

My husband Leslie and I have been married for 13 years. We have 3 daughters, Sarabi (18), Rhyan (6), and Kiah (10 months). I still can't believe I'm married to a pastor. Who does that?! LOL

What city/church did you grow up in? What music did you love as a kid?

I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago and attended Oakdale Covenant Church. As a kid, I absolutely loved music that I had no business listening to. Have you had an experience when you listen to music from your childhood and wonder how you were allowed to listen to thses lyrics??? Anyway, aside from that, I loved gospel music. It was what I knew. And that was back when I had to memorize music. There were not lyrics or song sheets!

What is one thing you want the LaSalle congregation to know about you - an interesting or fun fact, something surprising, or a creative genius you possess?

I am the granddaughter of an immigrant. I just learned that makes me a 3rd generation immigrant. I didn't even know that was a thing!

Getting to Know Rob Wildeboer

Last Sunday we were excited to introduce Rob Wildeboer as LaSalle’s new Artist-in-Residence and Coordinator of Music! Rob has played with our worship band for a few years now, and we’re thrilled to have him in the office helping with our worship in the coming season. We asked Rob to share a bit about himself in this Q&A — enjoy!

What is your role in leading Worship at LaSalle? What do you love most about doing this role/what's energizing about it?

I love playing music... I love gospel and jazz music and church music with a solid gospel or hip-hop beat. I love playing piano, bass and I love trumpet and I'm terrible at trumpet but trying to learn it and will probably look for opportunities to impose it on everyone from time to time. 

What else do you do with your time - day job, past job, interests?

I spent 19 years working for WBEZ, the public radio station in Chicago. A year ago I quit to spend more time learning music and developing my skills. I currently take music classes and piano lessons and have been spending a lot of time practicing piano here at LaSalle so I don't drive my wife crazy playing music for several hours a day while she's working from home!

What can you tell us about your family? (names/ages, or whatever you want to share here.) 

My wife is Christine. We met 29 years ago at school at Calvin College, now called Calvin University in Grand Rapids. She is an information architect at Northwestern University where she helps design the layout of the school's many web pages. Christine's parents live in Northwest Indiana (about 40 mins from downtown). She has a brother, Mark, who lives in Northbrook with his wife Susan. My parents live in a suburb of Toronto where I grew up. I'm the youngest of 5 kids. I have 13 nephews and nieces. 

Who is one of your favorite singers, songwriters, or instrumentalists - and why?

Lee Morgan - He's a jazz trumpet player. I happened to buy a tape of his in high school because it was in the bargain bin at the Sam The Record Man downtown Toronto on New Year's Eve 1991. It was on heavy rotation on my sony walkman. His solos are accessible and singable and yet they have enough surprise to keep you interested and stretch your ear melodically. 

What city/church did you grow up in?

I grew up in a denomination called The Christian Reformed Church or the CRC. My dad was the minister of the church and my mom was the organist. I often played drums so the music team was me and my mom playing hymns on organ and drums. It wasn't ideal. 

What is one thing you want the LaSalle congregation to know about you - an interesting or fun fact, something surprising, or a creative genius you possess? 

I like ping pong and pickleball so let me know if you want to play! 

Navigating Change: Trusting, Healing, and Growing Together

Beloved church -

Beloved - 

We had a recent Skills Lab at church on Change Theory & Growth (thanks Amber and Tanya!), which contained some fantastic space to reflect, sit with, and learn tools for how to navigate the grief, joys, and work that all accompany change. I was reminded that so much has happened in the last five years for so many of us - including personal, congregational, and national change. Making room to feel, grieve, learn from, and release the work it takes to walk through these changes is valuable - it helps us honor our experiences, and then grow the capacity for building and enjoying what is next. In addition to all the personal and congregational changes many are walking through, we’re also living during a time of huge, paradigm-level shifts impacting our nation and globe - notably impacting communication patterns, technology, mental health, and institutional trust. For example, did you know that the average US congregation now has an attendance of 65 people, down from 137 twenty years ago? And religious “nones” - those who claim no faith affiliation - now make up roughly 50% of the US population. We’re experiencing what is being called “The Great De-Churching” by many sociologists and theologians, where over 40 million people have left church since the high point in 1994; more people have now left the church, than all those who joined churches since the time of the Great Awakening in the 20th century! Now 15% of the US identifies as “de-churched” - those who used to attend church at least once a month who now attend fewer than once per year. And you likely can think of grandkids, friends, colleagues, or family members in your own life who fit either the “de-churched” or “none” category. These shifts are personal and significant, they bring grief and work with them, and these changes have forever altered the landscape that American congregations now walk through.          

To be honest, I have often not enjoyed navigating change in my own life. I’ve learned a few things that make it easier - like trusting God with the big stuff and trying to let go of the small stuff, having some voice and agency, traveling through change with others, and being able to lean into my identity and gifts during it, but there’s always a measure of risk, work, loss, or energy that change brings. Even good change demands work, have you noticed? It is also helpful to remember while we’re in the midst of the change, it is after we walk through the grief and work that we often see clearly how God brings more than enough on the other side. I’ve seen God profoundly at work through change - when we trust, follow, lean in, and support each other; on the other side of the work comes new blooms, new community and new norms, often even new capacity for things that we maybe didn’t made room to dream about being an option before. After trusting and following God through change, we experience growth. On the other side of the unknown and taking risks, we find rest, and new root systems taking hold.    

Our church leadership is focused on walking through the multi-layers of change in our world in healthy ways in this season; we all need to feel some agency, travel through change with others, and lean into our gifts and true identity as individuals and as a congregation. We can also all encourage each other by remembering how God has shown up - and shown out! - at LaSalle in the past - over and over and over again! This expansive church, with generous community, and a long-term investment in justice, has never quite followed the “norms” for church; indeed at various times, LaSalle has helped set a new pace or make a new way when others could not. As we look deeper at the realities of this “dechurched” group in the US, there is an invitation to consider as well. One article said that the “dechurched” contain two groups: the casually dechurched - those who moved or had schedule changes; and church casualties - those who stopped attending after conflict or experiencing harm. I can think of friends and family in both of those camps; maybe you can too. Across five broad categories of those considered dechurched (mainline, mainstream evangelicals, ex-vangelicals, BIPOC, and Catholics), the main reasons that people reported for why they left the church were: did not feel like they fit in, had bad experiences in church, did not feel much love in church, gender identity, church scandal, schedule was not convenient, or they moved. And the reasons people cited for considering attending church again include looking for friendships, spiritual practices, outreach programs, and want a healthy and stable congregation.  I wonder - what of these findings feels familiar to you? Where do you see the potential for God to use LaSalle’s gifts and identity as we walk through change this year? 

Beloved, we have all lived through a lot of change, and we are still learning how to do this in healthy ways together. It’s a time to remind ourselves that God’s economy works differently, and that while we always honor where we’ve come from, we’re now living into a new thing together. Every time we sow seeds of trust, following, waiting, being patient with one another, and taking the next faithful step toward what God is doing, we are building deep roots of faith, health, authenticity, and joy! We are creating more room at the table for many more to taste and see the abundance, the healing, the possibilities of joining an expansive church like LaSalle. If you’ve got ideas, thoughts, or questions about how we can best walk through all these changes together, please feel free to reach out to me or another staff member - and keep watching for invitations this fall to welcome each other on the journey as we launch fall programming and lean deeper into God’s call on our Body for such a time as this. We need one another to change - heal - and grow - together!  

With great expectation - RevLiz    

Embracing the Rhythm: Our Fall Calendar

Beloved church -

Plans for the fall are in the air, as schedules, schools, travels and weather all shift and turn toward the upcoming change of seasons! At our home we've got Target bags and groceries piling up, and new shoes and backpacks in the entryway. And at church we've been praying, planning, and getting excited for the upcoming fall season and seeing more of our Body back in town after the summer break. All of this rhythm is good and necessary - including the abiding, resting, the vacations away, the time not in town and not in regular schedules before we return to the fall. As we make these preparations, I wanted to share our LSC Fall Calendar that lays out key dates for Sept-Dec, as well as give a bit of the framework behind how we've designed our worship rhythms for this fall.

These calendars are printed out and ready for you to pick up in person in the Sanctuary, or you can take a look online here. You'll see that we're working with our same four worship rhythms this year, with some small changes. Our main goals for this fall were the following: 1) to have a regular, plannable, consistent schedule for worship, kids and families, and classes that we all know ahead of time and don't have to think about too much, 2) to create regular space for formation/classes for all ages two times a month to fit families/everyone's busy schedules, 3) to keep the unique ways both Serve and Sabbath Sundays form us spiritually and have become favorite weeks for some of us, while building out and adding to the intentionality of music/sermons/projects happening those weeks, and 4) to respond to what we've learned about the gifts and challenges of people's time commitments, creative options needed for different ages of faith formation, and the diverse needs within our Body for building community, belonging, and healing.

To those ends, here are some things to notice in this fall's calendar.

• 1st and 3rd Sundays are for Belong: each month these will be our full worship gatherings that include worship, communion, and spaces afterwards for adult ad, kids and youth programming, and hanging out/snacks and fellowship time.

• 2nd Sundays are for Serve: every month the 2nd week will be Serve Sundays, with a thicker worship/sermon/project experience while also still relying on and centering our kids and youth in leadership these weeks.

• 4th Sundays are for Sabbath: the 4th/last Sunday is when we rest with our more contemplative, shorter service, to be enjoyed either in the Sanctuary with others or online at home/gathering with others. These weeks we're adjusting somewhat as well to include new practices, guest preachers, and other creative elements.

• Banquet Sundays will be roughly 1x per quarter: making space for big meals, parties, and gatherings where we get to linger and enjoy food and fellowship together around key holidays, our fall launch, and more!

• A few exceptions to the schedule will happen on months with 5 weeks or for Advent/Easter Season.

We've got some more exciting updates to share soon about our changing worship team, new opportunities for Newcomers and Young Adults, tools and prayer to ground us during this national political season - and more! But for now, add this calendar to your own preparations for the fall and know that we will be sharing more soon as we continue to plan, prepare, pray, vision, and adapt to the goodness and challenges of this season.

Beloved, know that God is continuing to move and speak to LaSalle in the both/and - through both our legacy and our innovation, in both our growing and in our rooting, as we both make mistakes and are surprised by what works, and as we both rest/abide and act/get busy. God is doing more then we could ask or imagine, and I remain grateful! Much love - RevLiz

Thanks for joining us at the Wild Mile

We had an excellent Serve Sunday last weekend assisting at the Wild Mile! The morning’s project was commissioned in the sanctuary by Peter VerHage, who shared about environmental stewardship:

Then we went to the Wild Mile to help trim some overgrowth, distribute rocks and mulch, and help with upkeep projects for the eco-park. Check out some pictures from the project captured by our pastoral staff below — thanks to everyone who served with us!

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Summer Youth Trip Update

Shared by Rev. Alicia

Last week Pastor Brent and I took five of our youth on a trip to the area around Starved Rock. We rented an Airbnb in Ottawa and spent 48 hours together building community, enjoying nature, and having fun. Both Pastor Brent and I were in awe of these students and the ways in which they served each other, laughed with one another, and reflected on our scripture and spiritual practices. I wanted to give you a little taste of what our trip was like with an update.

On Thursday we visited Starved Rock State Park, where, despite the humidity and the heat, we hiked to the top of Starved Rock and looked out on the Illinois River. We learned more about the history of Starved Rock before heading out on a short hike to the French Canyon, where we took some fun pictures and enjoyed the beauty of nature. 

During this trip, we broke up into two teams in charge of planning, shopping for, and making dinner together. The students created two delicious meals over the course of our trip including pasta with red sauce, meatballs, salad, and garlic bread and tofu/chicken bowls with broccoli and edamame.

Other highlights of the trip included singing in the car together, hanging by the pool, a Dairy Queen Run, Karaoke, oven s’mores, and lots of silly games. Each night we explored a spiritual practice and talked about how taking the time to abide with God deepens our faith relationships.

You may have noticed more youth and kids in leadership here at LSC, whether that be on Serve Sundays, reading scripture, or leading us in worship. Our young people are learning what it means to be active participants in our services and church body. Making room for our students to thrive in our midst is statistically proven to have a deep impact on their faith development. Making room for them starts by noticing that they are present and being good followers – letting them flex their leadership muscles and discover or develop their gifts. 

Midyear Treasurer's Report

It's time for a mid-year Treasurer's report. First, let me say thank you for your consistent, steady, generous giving to this church and its ministries. It is only through your generosity that we are able to keep our various ministries moving in the right direction. 

Mid-way through the year, contributions to LaSalle Street Church are higher than expected. This is largely due to a 25% increase in non-pledged giving compared to the same period last year, which is really great news. Seems to indicate there are some newer people who have decided to start giving to the church. 

Church expenses year-to-date are about 2% higher than expected. This is mainly due to health care costs and some front-loading of expenses for Church Life. Church staff is looking closely at expenses and working hard to ensure they are lower in the second half of the year. 

Cornerstone Center, which has a separate budget of its own, is tracking very close to budget for both revenue and expenses - actually slightly over for revenue and slightly under for expenses. No worries there. 

Both the church and Cornerstone Center have cash reserves equivalent to about four months of expenses (5.5 months of unreserved cash.)  

That's a pretty dry and dusty report. Not sure how to spice it up. I'll just say that it feels like we're moving the right direction from the depths of the post-covid days. We face the same challenges that many churches across the country face, but Sunday morning at LaSalle feels very different to me than it did 18 months ago. 

One other comment about giving. Two key areas that directly affect our ability to help people in need - Benevolence (which is used to support church members with specific immediate needs) and Breaking Bread (our largest Outreach and Advocacy ministry feeding Near North residents each Wednesday) - have not received the kind of designated giving they have in the past. We'd invite you, if you're not sure where to give outside of the general fund, to consider giving in particular to these two core budget items that support folks within our church walls and also those in our larger community. (You can give online at the Give tab on our website, or by contacting Katie at the church office.)  

We'll be sending out Q2 giving statements in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for those.  

Any questions or comments please feel free to contact myself or Rev Liz. 

Karl Lauger 

Treasurer 

Important Staffing Update

Beloved Church -

I hope you're having a beautiful summer and enjoying some rhythms of rest or travel or the difference of the seasons this time brings. Our family recently spent time on the West Coast and had a fabulous time, and now I'm enjoying being back in the swing of things at church and seeing so much beautiful active ministry happening even during – and maybe in part because of - this season of rest! I also have an important staff update to share with you about a transition from our Worship Staff, and an invitation to save the date of Sunday August 4th to help honor this change.

Jonathan Ulanday recently turned in his resignation, effective July 31, in order to take a full-time position at a nonprofit located downtown (called COFI, an org that organizes parents of color around social, racial, and economic justice issues like education reform, healthcare access, and more - in Chicago and beyond). While this is a sad loss for our congregation, I am grateful he’s found a good fit for his growing gifts in social and racial justice work that’s local and means we can still grab coffee 😊, and that we are in a season as a church where we're well prepped and covered for this transition.

Moving forward at LaSalle, I am already in some convos with various folks on our music teams about ways to cover worship in both the short and long term, and thankfully it is looking good. I also have some preliminary ideas being shared with the Elder Board on how to fill this role in the future as a part-time collaborative role that focuses on planning our worship music and arts. I am grateful for the ways that worship has been growing and shifting this past year, for all the volunteers and musicians who support worship week to week, and for the possibilities up ahead as well! Our music teams were also emailed this, but in the interim after July 31 volunteers can contact Rev. Alicia for any scheduling questions or info, and I will be in touch about longer-term plans as they develop - and I am happy to field any questions with the wider church. We are also canceling the Aug 4th Music Improv gathering, and hope to reschedule it later on.

I want to end this update with focusing on our deep gratitude for all that Jonathan has meant to this church community, and invite the wider church to join me in this on Sunday August 4th, when we’ll pray for and bless Jonathan in our worship service, and afterwards have a light cake and coffee reception in the church lower level in his honor. Please plan to join us to thank, congratulate, and help send him well into this next chapter, and/or reach out to him with your own thanks. For eight years Jonathan has served LaSalle in a key role, through significant changes and transitions on staff, helping spearhead the racial righteousness team and ongoing advocacy work, making so much of church happen throughout the strain of COVID and moving worship online, developing an online Sabbath Sunday service, managing new projects such as Church Center and staff tech needs, and so much more. His technical skills, care for people and training others, engaging our kids and youth, and friendship on our staff team will be missed and have made a lasting impact. So join me in thanking Jonathan, and in praying over this next season in his life and in the life of LaSalle Street Church. We know that in God there is More Than Enough to respond to both the losses and the potentials that change brings, and for that I am so thankful.

Holding the both/and of the in between with you - RevLiz   

Reflecting on Summer Skills Lab: “Intentionally Preparing for the End-of-Life”

shared by Dr. Kathy Neely

Pastor Julie and I were honored to meet with about fifty LaSallers this past Sunday as part of the Summer Skills Lab. Our discussion centered on how each of us might work toward “Intentionally Preparing for the End-of-Life”.  Pastor Julie shared some of the impetus toward setting up this presentation: her recent rollercoaster journey with her mom and the life-threatening uncertainties  tossed in their paths. Julie’s encouragement for us all was to have early-and-often conversations with those we love regarding our heartfelt, important values.  

What would these conversations entail? Some of us are imminently or currently “walking a dear one Home” - a privilege and to be honest, also a sacred burden. In our conversations with these dear ones, we would encourage them to share what they value at the end-of-life so we can do our best as their spokespersons. And also, all of us, being mortal, would do well to have conversations as well. We would begin with conversations with God. As we get some spiritual clarity, we would  initiate further conversations with those who may in the future care for and decide for us. 

We also discussed the process of shared medical decision-making, which begins on the foundation of a trusting relationship between the patient and health care provider. To this process, the patient brings their personal values. What, to me, is a “life worth living”? What medical interventions to preserve life are “worth it” and what are excessively burdensome? The health care provider brings expertise – diagnosis, all the interventional options that address the diagnosis, the burdens, benefits, risks, and likely outcomes of these interventions. With the patient’s and provider’s cards all on the table, as partners in this process, they make a choice. Undergirding this process is the legal and ethical right of the patient to decline life-sustaining or life-saving interventions that the patient determines are disproportionately burdensome and/or do not restore a sufficiently good quality of life.  

Uncertainty is the backdrop of any decision-making. If we knew the future, say, of today’s weather, or the stock market, or that new relationship we’re getting launched, we could make perfect plans, and make them well in advance. In the same way, uncertainty clouds planning for our health care in the future.  Decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment are the most ethically and clinically sound when done in imminent, real-life contexts as opposed to guessing at distant future hypotheticals. That leads us to the most important advance decision we can make: in the event we lack capacity to make medical decisions ourselves, who is the WHO we choose to bring our values to the table, in real time, with real data? The State of Illinois provides us with the means to create a document to give legal traction to our choice of WHO: the IL Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA). In class, we reviewed this document, which can be completed free, without an attorney or notary, step-by-step.  

https://dph.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idph/files/forms/powerofattorneyhealthcareform.pdf 

Once we have determined the WHO, it is time for more conversations! We do well to begin with the WHO we’d like to legally authorize in our HCPOA document, to let them know of the role we want them to play, and to give them what they need to know about the values we would want lifted up in medical decision-making. If they agree to serve in this role, we can proceed to make the HCPOA document widely accessible in times of crisis. Unfortunately, accessibility is on us (there exists no central repository – go figure). Suggestions to get our HCPOA quickly on the radar screen include submitting it to our health care systems (to be scanned into their electronic medical record) and doctors’ offices, saving on our cell phones, sharing it with a whole number of trusted loved ones  (not only with our WHO), and putting it in a plastic bag in the freezer for easy access. We also talked about accessibility through the LSC office, which might be a site for parishioner end-of-life info; when alerted about a parishioner’s hospital admission, the pastoral team will have permission to contact the WHO and perhaps other loved one’s as previously directed by the parishioner. Stay tuned for more regarding this idea.  

Pastor Julie and I are eager for feedback as the pastoral team considers next steps evolving from this workshop. We would be glad to hear from you!

Joy in Every Step: Reflections from the Pride Parade

JOY—“Joy” was the word that kept springing to mind when I told others about our experience at the Pride parade this past Sunday.

LaSalle was present that day in a few ways: First, we sent three representatives to march in the parade with the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches (CCWC), holding a “LaSalle Street Church” sign and declaring a message of God’s love and embrace to the more-than-one-million people who gathered to watch the parade. Our marchers passed out granola bars bearing a label with our church info, a message of invitation, and the full text of 1 John 4:7: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” Other LaSallers also gathered to watch the parade together, spending a few hours cheering and greeting those who marched, sharing stories with each other, and using our hands and feet to contribute to the atmosphere of peace, love, and liberation. Many of us began the day at an outdoor worship service hosted by Broadway United Methodist Church, a gorgeous and poignant gathering that included worship, Communion, prayers, and story-sharing.

If you’ve ever attended Chicago’s Pride parade, you know it’s a huge, celebratory, overwhelming, colorful, multilayered gathering: Where else do you encounter so many advocacy organizations, international corporations, religious groups, political campaigns, educational institutions, and LGBTQ bars and businesses? And, of course, parade attendees encounter all those (advocacy organizations, national corporations, etc.) in the form of humans—humans marching, dancing, chanting, cheering, sweating, smiling, and moving. You might be aware that the history of modern Pride parades around the country stretches back to the first Pride parades in the summer of 1970. Those parades (in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) marked the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a major turning point in the movement for LGBTQ rights.

You might also be aware that, even for people who support a spectrum of LGBTQ-related rights and policies, today’s Pride parades are controversial: Whom are they for, and whom should they be for? What is their purpose in 2024? Do they actually accomplish their stated purpose? Should the mood be one of joyful celebration or solemn activism? People of faith might ask ourselves a few more questions: What does it mean for a church to march in a Pride parade? What does it mean to attend and watch a Pride parade?

LaSalle’s history of visible participation in the parade stretches back to 2015, the first year we sent representatives to march with a “LaSalle Street Church” sign along with the other churches that make up the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches. (That parade happened just a couple days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage across the country.) My own history with Pride parades is a long story, just like yours might be. I first attended Chicago’s Pride parade in 2012, at a time when the question of whether God’s love for me—a cisgender gay man with a complicated church history—felt altogether uncertain and scary. Seeing the wide expanse of churches marching with the CCWC, bearing the names of dozens of specific churches in Chicago where I was explicitly welcome, made an enormous impression on me. It made an impression the next year, too, and continues to make an impression every time I attend the parade, even as the meaning of that impression for my own heart has changed over time from a mysterious surprise into a joyful, urgent declaration.

Last year at LaSalle, we started using new language to describe our identity as a church community: Expansive faith. Generous Community. Invested in God’s justice. As is always the case with these kinds of identity statements, the phrases are simultaneously a description of something true about us now and a visionary description of who we aspire to become, if we trust God and lean into our best instincts. My own best instincts feel especially fragile for me these days: I think most of us at LaSalle feel the heavy atmosphere of tension and anxiety in our public life in light of ongoing wars abroad, recent SCOTUS decisions, and a looming presidential election. Attending the Pride parade on Sunday reminded us that the tension and anxiety includes many specific, high-stakes uncertainties for LGBTQ people, and for all of us who are voting and raising children and caring for friends and trying to be good citizens and neighbors: uncertainties like access to health care and public spaces for trans people, inconsistent laws related to discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, or even the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning decisions like Obergefell.

One of my absolute favorite things about LaSalle—one of the main reasons I am proud to call LaSalle my home—is that we strive to create a hospitable and brave environment for all, and we invite genuine, rigorous discernment about questions that are neither simple nor straightforward. That includes questions about all the “specific uncertainties” I mentioned above. We hold honest conversations about identity and justice in light of our shared love for Jesus and all the ways we encounter Jesus, like Scripture and worship. Somehow, in a (literally) miraculous way, working all of those things out together in loving community has the potential to be healing and life-giving, not just for us but for our world.

Those of us who marched in or attended the parade on Sunday would likely each give different answers about what motivated us and how the day affected us. For all its complexity, for everything that is beautiful and frustrating and controversial about Pride in 2024, I hope the environment we create at LaSalle as we discern all this and share life together can capture some of the buoyant joy I encountered on Sunday. I hope we can participate together in this exchange not as disembodied ideologies or opinions but as people, in all the fullness of our physical and emotional and spiritual and human condition. And I hope the invitation we extend to one another will be the same invitation that Jesus offers to each of us, the invitation we offered to the folks at the Pride parade on Sunday, written on a sticker attached to a granola bar:

“Bring ALL of yourself to church.”

Reflecting on Our Summer Skills Lab & BIPOC Social

It was a joy to kick off our Summer Skills Labs last Sunday with a class on Leadership, Whiteness, and Culture, and a BIPOC Social & Stories. The Leadership, Whiteness, & Culture class was led by Rev. Liz and Cliff Johnson, while Jonathan and Pastors Randall & Julie led the BIPOC social. We asked some of our leaders to share about the events below! Thank you to everyone who participated in either of these events — and we hope you’ll join us for our next Summer Skills Lab on End-of-Life Preparation on July 14!

Summer Skills Lab: Leadership, Whiteness, & Culture

Shared by Cliff

After the worship service on June 23, Rev Liz and I co-hosted a workshop focused on Leadership, Whiteness, and Culture. In addition to discussing an article from Michael Emerson, participants spent the session reflecting and sharing about how our identities, and especially our identities as White people, influence the ways we show up in community together, at LaSalle and beyond.

While a one-hour workshop is just a starting point, obviously, I’m excited we held some space for that discussion. During the course of my time on our “RRJLT” (that’s Racial Righteousness Journey Leadership Team…you can see why we needed an acronym! 😉), we repeatedly heard from LaSallers that they aspired to be in authentic community together. We didn’t just hear that from certain pockets or congregants, either. It was a nearly universal vision: that LaSalle would be a place of generous community. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, though. Almost everyone at LaSalle shared that they felt we had some work to do.

• To be generous to ourselves and each other, we have to understand the ways our past experiences have shaped our expectations of LaSalle.

• To build community, we have to be vulnerable enough to reflect on those expectations together.

There’s nothing quick about that community building process, and there are no real shortcuts either. It’s a practice. We have to show up together, share honestly, and live into our beliefs over and over and over.

A one-hour workshop like the one we held on Sunday isn’t groundbreaking. In fact, we’ve had lots and lots of discussions about race and identity over the years! All we hoped to do last week was provide a space where those who were interested could push themselves to be a little more reflective and a little more vulnerable, and those steps are often easier to take with others who share an identity.

We’re at a pivotal point as a church community. As the staff shared during our annual meeting earlier this month, we’re growing. More people are showing up. More people are becoming members. Every new person that shows up has their own experiences and hopes for this place. When that happens, all sorts of things come to the surface. As someone who’s been around a while, I’ve started noticing the ways I show up at church or describe the place or define my own role within it. Those observations can be uncomfortable and revelatory and sometimes both at once. In order to live up to our aspiration of being a generous community and a place of belonging for everyone, I think we have to better understand ourselves and each other. That happens one conversation at a time, and I’m grateful we’re just getting started.

BIPOC Social & Stories

Shared by Jonathan

The BIPOC social was a great time of conversation and story sharing! If you’re not familiar, BIPOC stands for "Black, Indigenous (i.e. American First Nations), or Person of Color.” There are many BIPOC folk at LaSalle, and we feel the importance of having restorative spaces for connection, learning to share our stories, be re-energized, and be in a space that centers BIPOC individuals where we can be understood and reconnect (with each other, and with God) in culturally familiar ways. This Sunday we reflected in small groups about moments or places where we felt seen in our racial or cultural identities, and parts of our personal or family stories that are important to who we are today. Look out for more restorative spaces for people of color at LSC to renew, recharge, and reconnect!

Highlighting Cabrini Green Legal Aid

During this past weekend’s Serve Sunday service, we had an extraordinary opportunity to highlight one of our ministry partners at LaSalle, the Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA)! We were able to hear from Aisha Edwards, Executive Director of CGLA, in conversation with Pastor Randall, on the community work being done with CGLA and its historic roots to our church.

Aisha’s words shed light on the critical legal support CGLA provides to under-resourced individuals and families in Chicago, and the important work in our communities that still needs to be addressed. We are so thankful for the work CGLA is doing in our city, and particularly appreciate of Aisha (and many board memebrs from CGLA) who took the time to come to our sanctuary and share with us in our service.

In addition to Aisha's powerful words, we honored this week’s Juneteenth holiday, reflecting on its significance and the enduring journey towards freedom and equality. We shared a video on the history and signfigance of Juneteenth in the service.

For those who couldn't be with us in person or online, we invite you to watch the full service online! Let's continue to come together, support one another, and make a difference in our community.

Celebrating our Graduates and Baptized Youth!

It was such a joy to witness so many accomplishments last Sunday! During our service, we got to hear testimony and witness the baptism of two young members of our church family, Olive & Veronica.

We also got to honor the accomplishments of many LaSallers who’ve recently graduated! We heard special performances from two of our graduates — Peter Piper Huizenga with their poem “watch us go,” and Eloise Nelson with “Beautiful City.” Congratulations to all of our LaSalle grads:

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Siachen Masih
Oak View Elementary

8TH GRADE

Avery Cunningham
Peterson Elementary

Magdalene Johnson
Lane Tech Academic Center

Nathan Parrott-Sheffer
Kenwood Academic Center

HIGH SCHOOL

Annika Northey
Lane Tech High School

Eloise Nelson
Chicago High School of the Arts

Peter Piper Huizenga
Homeschool

COLLEGE

Jonah Nelson
B.A. in Quantitative Economics & Political Science from St Olaf College

Lydia Campbell
B.A. in Psychology from Colorado College

Zarina Masih LaCroix
B.A. in Human and Family Development with minors in Psychology and Criminology from Arizona State University

GRADUATE SCHOOL

Charlie Jonathan Blim
Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Tavarre Phifer
Masters of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

---

Thank you to everyone who made last Sunday such a celebratory and joyous day to mark these accomplishments! If you missed the service, watch the recording on YouTube here.

Looking Back, Planning for Joy

Beloved - 

This time of the year always feels like a space to look back and pause, to see what God has been doing, and to look ahead to the next season around the corner. For us, our kids will be done with 10th and 5th grade and their first year in Chicago public schools, tomorrow! I know many of you are changing to summer schedules, and we're celebrating several of our graduates this upcoming Sunday at LaSalle, as well as some beautiful baptisms and how God works through these signs of new life in our community! Summer is already here - and the fall will appear way too soon I am sure - but for now I want to pause, look back, and then prepare to look ahead to spaces of connection and growth that the coming season gives us more room to explore. 

For years when the kids were smaller, we'd make a "Summer Fun List" and cross it off with bright markers together. We parents would often list standbys like "pool, library, soccer games, movie night, backyard bonfire" as ways to get to cross off things that we were going to do anyway 🙂, but then we'd also ask the kids to list ideas and we'd push ourselves to come up with new things that we wanted to look forward to and to make intentional effort to experience. One summer I wrote down, "take Sam on a trip with me" and it didn't fit in the summertime, but that winter it resulted in her first solo airplane flight to join me at a conference in Colorado. Another year Graham got really excited about swimming and wrote down "join the swim team," and when we didn't find a team it meant we found friends and pool schedules, so that almost every week we'd load up towels and sandals and wet suits and goggles into a carpool and head over to his fave rec center. Even when the hopes and plans of the summer fun list got shifted, changed, or delayed a bit, the list helped us by pointing to what we wanted more of, what we enjoyed and found life from, and what we wanted to stretch and reach toward in the future.      

This summer you're likely shifting schedules and priorities too - I'd love to hear what rhythms or ways you encourage more room during this season; how do you rest, or recharge, or retool in the summer? What do you try to prioritize, even if things shift or delay, so that you get more life during these warm months ahead? I'm encouraging our church staff to shift rhythms a bit so that we can focus more on relational connecting, being less online, and enjoying one another too. We're also shifting toward more prayer, building new skills around trauma care and embodied leadership, and also preparing for the fall ahead. This coming week we'll also look back as a team at our ministry school year to note all the places where we've seen God at work, and where we've seen our values show up in one another (values like honor, authenticity, staying rooted, having fun, and being integrated and innovative.) By making the space to name and celebrate one another, we help make visible the faithful work that's been done all year without rushing to what's next. We also make room to hear the Holy Spirit encourage and refresh us, and notice - what do we want to make more room for? What do we need more of to bring us, and our whole Body, more life and joy up ahead?

This past Sunday was a beautiful day of worshipping and looking back together. We heard about God's steadiness as we wrapped up our "God Is" sermon series, made space for celebration and lament, and welcomed in six new members to LaSalle. We also took some time to look back during our Annual Meeting as we gave updates on the life of the church (things are trending up!), shared goodness around grants coming up and ministries growing, and also made time to thank our elders going off the board and the literal hundreds of volunteers who helped make this past year at LaSalle happen! Even just the practice of thanking our leaders, noting all that elders/property and finance/nominating committee members do to serve, and hearing the litany of names who volunteer in some capacity, is a way to remind ourselves of all that God's been doing. It makes visible the many hands, gifts, hours, prayers, and generosity of the congregation.  THANK YOU again for all the ways you've been involved, present, giving, speaking, listening, praying, and following God this year at LaSalle!  

Looking out ahead, this summer we've created a few new ways for LSC to both connect and develop some skills together. Note the summer socials happening (first one this Sunday!), the family events, and the new Coffee Connects and Supper Connects you can sign up for to meet with me!  Save the date now for June 23rd when we'll have both a folks of color gathering, and a "Whiteness, Culture and Leadership" skills training to better prepare us all for what's to come up ahead. Other skills labs, social spaces,  spots for young adults, and more are on the events calendar - check for more and to rsvp here.        

I am praying that as we begin June, you find spaces to look back, to plan for more life and joy up ahead, and to feel refreshed. As we notice, and name, and make room for feeling the things have gone well, the things we've missed, and the potential up ahead, may it encourage us each to be more intentional and more alive. I've still got to help our family make our Summer Fun List for this year, but I know it will include some new and some familiar spaces to make room for more this season, and it will help focus us during this season. And I hope to see you at our LSC places of connection and growth this summer soon!  

With gratitude - RevLiz    

Embracing Complexity - Navigating Grief and Celebration

Beloved Church - 

This week is one where I am reminded of the both/and-ness of life - the grief and the beauty, the goodness and the violence, the hard and the joyful parts of sharing life together as Jesus followers.

Our news is full of reports of bombings and genocide in Gaza; of starvation and civil unrest in Congo, Sudan, Haiti, and war in Ukraine; of public figures talking about repealing or challenging all manner of justice work related to civil rights, women’s rights, trans rights, etc.; and this past week marked 4 years since the death of George Floyd. It’s collective, global, national, and personal loss and injustice, layers of grief all around us. I also had a close friend and mentor pass away, after 75 yrs of leading, serving, advocating, and changing the church and multiple communities. I’ve been reminded of all the ways that his witness changed my life and so many others when we were ready to give up on the church - it was authentic faith being lived out by trailblazers like Bishop Jerome Nelson who kept me choosing hope, that together, the church really could do better, be healthier, impact people and communities. My heart feels heavy and grateful as I remember and honor his life, and as I witness the other layers of grief all around us this season.   

I am also aware of so many places of life and energy, new growth in the garden and sunny and rainy days that bring late night and weekend grill outs. School is almost out for families, colleges celebrated graduations, and the patios and rooftops are open along Near North restaurant locales. This coming Sunday we’ll get to gather for a time of worship and welcoming in six new members, honoring our past and upcoming Elders, and volunteers, and then having our Annual Meeting and Banquet meal together. The following week we get to celebrate baptisms with two of our youth and remember our own baptisms, along with honoring our graduates! It is a season of celebrating and honor in many ways - our recent holiday weekend gave us added time for family and rest over Sabbath Sunday weekend, and reminded us to honor those who have sacrificed for our country.

I was also reminded that the very first Memorial Day was actually held by newly-freed African Americans in Charleston, SC; more than 10,000 formerly enslaved people, along with white missionaries, held a parade and decorated soldiers’ graves. The roots of our national story are so often a both/and reality themselves - places of deep pain and grief that remain and shape the present, alongside testimonies of strength and restoration, giving us glimpses of what to hope for. 

Life is like that so often, church; the news and also everyday life, is a both/and reality that requires hope and grief, celebration and rest, honor and pain.  In 1961 author James Baldwin shared the following oft-quoted truth, which still speaks to our present day:

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one's work. And part of the rage is this: It isn't only what is happening to you. But it's what's happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it's a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn't the way it works. A complex thing can't be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.

Beloved, life is complex, messy, and beautiful. Faith in a violent, unjust world is complex. And walking with one another through seasons of life as a church, as a community, requires strength, patience, hospitality, trust, and vision. I am praying that each of us, in our own stories and places of holding the both/and of life, know that we can fully, truly belong together in the Body of Christ. Not because we have all the answers, or can simplify the truly difficult, or that we even all agree on everything; but because God has gathered us up into Godself, with More Than Enough love, hope, and faith to sustain us all. If you’re needing to borrow someone else’s hope today, lean into the Body. If you need prayer or support, let us know. And if you need hope today - borrow some of mine. I still have hope that together, we’re better then alone; that we can walk through the complexities of life as people of faith who can grieve with those grieving, and rejoice with those rejoicing; and that we can keep learning how to become, get more free, and try again, as we follow the Holy Spirit - together!      

With deep hope and deep grief this week - Rev Liz 

Preparing for the Annual Meeting

Hey hey LaSalle! As our sanctuary warms up for summer, I wanted to share two critical reminders relevant to our annual meeting coming up on June 2:

Confirm Your Information on Church Center

We’re currently in process transitioning to a new online database and directory system, Church Center. The staff has already started to see the benefits of being on Church Center with some communication improvements and new features for groups! We need your help to ensure that all your information has been transferred correctly from our previous platform Breeze – so head here to follow the step-by-step instructions to confirm your information, and reach out to me with any questions or concerns. This is especially important to confirm before our Annual Meeting, since our membership list for the vote will be managed through Church Center! Make sure you’re confirmed in Church Center to take part in the vote.

What We’re Covering at the Annual Meeting

Our Annual Meeting will take place in the sanctuary after service on Sunday, June 2, from 11:30 - 12:30 PM, with a community banquet to be hosted afterward in Leslie Hall. During the meeting, we’ll be thanking our outgoing elders who have come to the end of their respective terms, and voting as a church body on two important proposals: confirming our new slate of incoming Elder Board members, and voting on an amendment to our church by-laws, extending Elder Board term limits to three years. There will be time in the meeting to hear more about our incoming Elder Board slate and ask questions, but if you’d like to vote now (because you can’t be at the meeting in person or just to ‘check it off the list’), feel free to vote online! There you can review the full text of the amendment and check out some short bios from our incoming Elder Board members. Voting online goes through your account on Church Center – so make sure your information on Church Center is confirmed before voting!

Thank you for participating in our church life and speaking into the future leadership of LSC! We look forward to seeing you on June 2, whether in person or online, as we continue to grow and serve together.

This Summer at LaSalle

Beloved Church - 

We have a couple significant Sundays coming up this spring and summer that I want to draw your attention to:

• June 2nd will be our Annual Meeting right after worship, from 11:30-12:30 in the Sanctuary, followed by a pizza and salad Banquet in Leslie Hall.  For all who call LaSalle your church home, please join us and stay for a time of fellowship afterwards! Childcare will be provided during the Annual Meeting for elementary kids and younger in the Lower Level of the Sanctuary, and our Youth Group for grades 6-12 will meet during the Annual Meeting in Leslie Hall.

• June 9th will be Baptism Sunday, and this year we will be celebrating several youth being baptized all together during our service (rather than the smaller lake baptisms held in previous years). We will also partake in a Remember Your Baptism liturgy and celebrate our graduates of all ages this Sunday, before heading out to our first Summer Social event of the year - the Wells Street Art Festival!

I also want to point you again to our calendar of events for the summer months - check this link out for weekly rhyhthms, gatherings for kids and youth, young adult and all ages events, and spaces for you to plan now to be part of June, July and August. 

I am so thankful for this Body and all the spaces for us to enjoy ministry, meetings, celebrations, and more this season! 

Gratefully - RevDoc Liz 

Finding New Images of Who God Is

For the past few months, our church has been exploring expansive images of who God is through the lens of Mallory Wyckoff's aptly-titled book God Is. Maybe you've heard these themes in our sermons and worship life; maybe you've been practicing our weekly reflection prompts on social media; or maybe you've had the chance to participate in a small group or adult formation hour discussing the book in depth. I've cherished the opportunity to connect with many of you and to hear new and different perspectives—perspectives like Jeliner Jordan sharing about what it means for her that God is Creator, or Rev. Brandi sharing her experience about how God is Mother, or so many of you sharing vulnerably in our group discussions.

Again, and again, and again, I'm reminded that God is bigger than the boxes I try to construct around God. I don't think that means God is unknowable or inaccessible. On the contrary, I think God deeply desires for us to know God intimately, and God is willing to go to all lengths to help us find that intimacy. Look no further than Jesus, "in [whom] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily," in order that we might share a meal with the divine, might reach out and touch the eternal God, might see and hear what was previously invisible (Colossians 2:9).

Yes, God is bigger than the boxes I try to construct around God—and that means God shows up so many places that I might not have expected to encounter the divine. When we're willing to imagine God as Mother (e.g., Isaiah 66:13), we can recognize the divine goodness of a caring and compassionate and protective mom, and we can trust that God cares for us and protects us, too. When we experiment with imagining God as Midwife (e.g., Psalm 22:9), it makes it more possible for us to welcome God into our own most vulnerable and painful transitions.

Here's the key: As much as I like to live in my head and keep my nose buried in books, relationship seems to be essential to understanding and imagining God in more expansive ways. In these classes and discussions, I've learned a lot from listening to each of you and how you experience God in your own particular identities and life circumstances. Many of us have had to do the difficult and sacred work of letting go of harmful or destructive images of God; but equally difficult and sacred is the work of finding new images of God that can sustain us. I'm grateful that these conversations have given me a whole new vocabulary—the names and phrases and stories I learned from you, I mean—to describe who God is.

Lately I'm becoming more and more persuaded that who God is seems to be connected to community—that the more we learn about and understand God, the more we want to tear down the things (personal grievances, resentments, fears, structural barriers, injustices) that keep us from knowing and loving others. And, of course, the more we know and love others, the more we discover together about who God is.  It's this cycle of grace, drawing us towards each other and towards God, and the primary movement of all of it is love. "God is love," 1 John 4 tells us, and of course God is many other things, too. What else have you learned about who God is? Will you tell me what you have discovered? 

Signs of New Life

Beloved friends of LaSalle - 

I pray that you’re enjoying the warmer weather, sunny skies, and gardens blooming this spring! On the church calendar this season is called Resurrection Time – the period of focusing on life after the grave, on the power of Christ at work in the world today. In our own backyard I can now see dogwood, hydrangeas, lilacs, hostas, phlox, and herbs starting to show their colors. Every evening I go outside to smell the blooms, check on what’s growing, and sometimes to just sit and see the new life that is visible – growth that’s sprouting after the work of weeding, cleaning out broken glass (!), transplanting, and fortifying all the soil. I also love a drink under our twinkly patio lights with Peter, hearing about Sam’s latest craft project, or a game of badminton with Graham as a way to round out my day – all these spaces, new life in the ground and life-giving people I love, help me focus on the growth and beauty all around me.   

This season at LaSalle we have many signs of life sprouting up in our congregation and in the community. I hope that you’ve been privileged to see and experience some of these yourself, and I wanted to share some of what I am lucky enough to witness on a daily basis: 

• We have 2 new neighborhood groups starting (and 2 more forming), Young Adult monthly meet ups established, and increased kids/fam attendance across several areas 

• I got to hear moving stories from several women at our afternoon Women’s Event that made space for story sharing, connection, and seeing one another across life ages/stages  

• We received a $100,000 grant to support our outreach ministries of Breaking Bread and NNUP!  

• We held our first Offering of Letters with Bread for the World and sent in over 40 letters advocating for funding the Farm Bill to strengthen domestic hunger programs – and were led at our prayer, art, and writing stations 100% by our youth!  

• We have several new tenants secured or in process in our Cornerstone Building and a tenacious team of lay leaders and staff helping clean and make room for increasing our occupancy 

• We have some new creative voices preparing to share in worship with us on Sundays, and the power of the Holy Spirit has been palpable in our music, prayers, and sermons throughout this season  

• We have interest growing in restarting our focus on white people’s work around racial justice and I’m so encouraged at the commitment and sight several in our Body have for this growth  

• We have another round of potential new members exploring the church this month, some baptisms coming up with our youth, and several graduates to celebrate in June  

• Our pastoral team has been privileged to hear stories of people who are healing, finding new friendships, and being encouraged by God at work in surprising ways! 

We are in a season of growth Beloved – it’s a time of working the soil, seeing what blooms and thrives, preparing for what might shift or need to adapt next, listening to each other well, and trusting God who is the One doing all the growing and new-life bringing. It is also a time to be okay with naming places that need more tending, to feel and share with one another what’s difficult or feels like a loss, and to be comfortable holding the complexity of life growing right alongside spaces of questions, pain, or grief.  

One invitation I want to specifically share with you this week is to lean in – both to where you see or are sensing new life, and to the places that you sense need more tending or someone to help carry what is difficult. And if you’re not sure where to start with the leaning in, I want to point you to one easy to access entry point: Pastors Brent and Julie have started a new focus on equipping the church, matching our people with places to serve, making volunteering and engaging simpler, and making sure we all find connection and community. You’ll hear more in the coming weeks about this focus, but if you sense any potential life around leaning in more, and you want to learn more – email Brent or Julie and they will follow up with information on where you can get involved, what teams need your gifts, or where you could feel better connected to this Body this spring. (bbailey@lasallestreetchurch.org or jwelborn@lasallestreetchurch.org)   

New life is all around us Beloved – thanks be to God!  - RevDoc Liz