Hi New Roads,

We’re looking forward to worshipping together (online) this weekend!

• We’ll be joining the Church of the Nativity at 10:45am tomorrow. Use this link to join: https://live.churchnativity.com/ Or join via Facebook Live. (Be sure to say hi using the chat feature!)
• The Saturday Vigil Mass will be live-streamed from St. Luke’s at 4:00pm today (and available to view on demand anytime after that!) at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW4aRmRSMmM&feature=youtu.be

No matter how you join in worship this weekend, take a photo of yourself, or your family, or your setup joining in worship this weekend. Send the photo to us or tag us on social media and we’ll share the photos to help us all feel more connected. And finally, invite a friend! Forward this email to friends or family members or post the link on your social media to invite everyone to join us for worship online this weekend.

See you online!

Love,
The New Roads Team

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Hi Friends,

We wanted to reach out with an update on things going on at New Roads these days.

Both churches remain closed until further notice. This includes daily and weekend Masses, funerals, and any other gatherings or activities. There is no public access to our buildings at this time since we cannot ensure the safety of people coming and going. 

We’ll continue to worship together online on Sundays. As the situation continues to evolve, we are determining what’s possible and safe in terms of video taping Masses at New Roads, joining the Church of the Nativity online, or some combination. As we’re sure you can appreciate, there are many variables to consider. We’ll continue to send an email out on Saturday with the link(s) to join us online for worship each Sunday.

Below are some resources for you and your family to continue to grow in faith during this time:

• New Roads’ Lent message series, Enough, continues online. Watch Week 4 (new today!).
• Fr. Fleming’s blog, A Concord Pastor Comments, is a great source for daily inspiration and prayer.
• New Roads’ Spotify profile features a new playlist (“What we’re listening to”) with songs to help us to live out of hope and love during this season.
• We’ll continue to send out weekly resources for kids & families.
• Cardinal Sean and the Archdiocese of Boston are offering a Virtual Lenten Retreat.

Some other notes to make you aware of:

• Gifts to New Roads can be made using online giving or by mailing a check (please make checks payable to either St. Joseph Church or St. Luke Church).
• The collection of Easter baskets at St. Luke’s is suspended due to health concerns. If you’d like to continue to support St. Vincent de Paul at this time, donations may be made by mailing a check to the offices: 130 Common St, Belmont. Please make checks payable to: St. Luke's St. Vincent de Paul Society.
• CORI (background check) renewals for all volunteer ministers are on hold at this time. If you have a CORI, please hold on to it until our churches reopen. The deadline for renewals will be adjusted.
• The Archdiocese of Boston has indicated that we will not be gathering publicly for the celebrations of Holy Week & Easter. We are working on ways we can share in these most special holy days as a community.

While so many things are cancelled right now, please know that in the truest sense, church is not cancelled. We are a Body, not a building. Things are shutting down all around us, but as the people of God, we are called to rise up--together--in faith, hope, and love. Please know of our prayers and gratitude for you.

Peace, blessings, & love,
The New Roads Team
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Hi New Roads family,

Let’s worship together *online* tomorrow. While we’d love to live stream from New Roads, realistically at this time we’re not set up to do that well. And, we want to allow our staff team, worship team, and their families to make safe choices given their own personal circumstances. So, here’s our plan for worshipping together tomorrow…

Join us tomorrow, Sunday, March 15, as we tune into the live stream of the 10:45am Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, MD. Link here: https://live.churchnativity.com

This is a dynamic worship experience with modern music, message series, and more. The live stream is very well done and invites you to not just watch but truly participate in worship. There’s even a way to chat as well as volunteer hosts to answer questions or take prayer requests during the service. For our New Roads community, we’re also inviting you to take a photo of yourself or your family joining in worship tomorrow which we’ll share out on social media to help our New Roads community feel more connected. Just tag us or send us a photo or video and we’ll be glad to repost it and share it out!

You can access Nativity’s online campus through your computer, smartphone, or via the Church of the Nativity App on Apple TV. Even better, you can AirPlay or screen share from your device to your TV so that the whole family can watch and worship together.

We wanted to pick one time for our community to come together--virtually--to keep up our regular rhythm of weekly worship as a faith community. However if 10:45am tomorrow doesn’t work for you, Nativity also live streams Mass at 5:00pm tonight, and tomorrow at 9:00am, 10:45am, and 12:30pm and offers rebroadcasts of the service at 3:00pm, 5:30pm, and 8:00pm tomorrow. Another option is to view Mass by accessing CatholicTV if you have cable programming or by visiting www.catholictv.org.

Please be sure to follow us on social channels (links below) as we’ll be updating much more frequently there. We are still working on plans for so much more including:

• Determining some specific days & times our churches will be open for private prayer
• Resources for kids and families
• Opportunities to connect & pray during the week
• Ways our community can help one another and serve the needs of our wider community during this time. One way to start is to fill out the form here created by the Belmont Parents Facebook group if you need help OR are able to offer help to neighbors in need.

Finally, if you are in need of any help or assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time. Our whole community is here to support and love one another.

Hope to “see” you online tomorrow!
The New Roads Team

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The start of a new year is always a time that draws us to two opposite but related tasks: to reflect on the past and to look forward to the future. As we reflect on the past six years of being a collaborative, what rises to the top is the mix of highs and lows, failures and successes, challenges and joy, progress and pain; as well as the unpredictable nature of this new road we’ve been journeying on. 

New Roads Catholic Community, St. Joseph and St. Luke, was formed as a collaborative in 2013, in response to the reality of declining churches. The reality of declining churches is a complicated problem without a simple or easy solution. But since day one we’ve been eager to jump in and work on it together.

Over the last six years, we’ve made mistakes to be sure--in communication, implementation, and more. One significant miss early on was to try to do more than was possible given our limited resources. We started off with an ambitious--and ultimately unrealistic--plan to transform all six Masses at both parishes. 

We worked to make various changes to create a dynamic experience of worship that would help grow disciples as well as welcome back the overwhelming percentage of Catholics who have disconnected from church. Attempting to create an engaging, relevant, accessible, and transformative experience at six Masses simultaneously was unsuccessful. 

Around 2017 we began focusing specifically on one Mass, the 10am Mass at St. Joseph. More than two years later we’re seeing some of the growth and fruit we’ve been praying for. People are growing in their relationship with God and deepening their commitment to following Jesus. Others are reconnecting with church for the first time in a long time. Children and families are overflowing. We consistently have over 60 children at Kids’ Church, our Children’s Liturgy of the Word program, as well as a dozen or more children in Tiny Disciples, our worship experience for kids ages 2-5. 

On a weekly basis we are over 75% full at the 10am Mass, a metric that points to the need to add an additional Mass to accommodate our current size and continuing growth. We need to pause here and say: wow! God is at work here. Our vision at New Roads is to be a growing church and because of the people who serve at New Roads, this vision is becoming a reality.  We’re at a point where we need to expand what we’re doing at the 10am Mass to an additional Mass time. 

Meanwhile, all of our other Masses, at both St. Joseph and St. Luke, have continued the decades-long pattern of slow to moderate decline in attendance over time. This decline is not something with a single cause or an easy solution. Churches everywhere are facing this reality.

At St. Luke’s we are at the point where we do not have enough people coming to Mass overall to justify the number of Masses we have on Sunday morning. Given that, we need to reduce the number of Masses at St. Luke by one.

Initially, our plan was to continue the 11:30am Mass, in thinking like a collaborative and wanting to offer a variety of Mass times between the two parishes, as well as to create the least disruption in the current schedule overall. However, after conversation and consultation with the community over several weeks, it seems that a Mass time between our two existing Sunday Mass times at St. Luke (9:00 and 11:30) would be the best time for our community to invest in, to join together and to serve. Given that, at St. Luke we will continue our 4pm Saturday Vigil Mass and we will have a 10:00am Mass on Sunday mornings at St. Luke. This change will take place starting March 1, 2020, the first Sunday of Lent.

At St. Joseph, given the increase in attendance, we will have a 9:00am and 10:30am Mass, also starting on March 1, 2020. Both those Masses will be the same experience as the current 10am Mass at St. Joseph--the same message series, music, hospitality, and kids programs. To make this additional Mass at St. Joseph a reality, we’ll be expanding all of our ministry teams at the 10am Mass. If you’re wanting to join in and support this effort, contact anyone on our team for more information.

Those who currently attend or serve at the 9:00 or 11:30 Masses at St. Luke are invited to come and serve at the 10:00 Mass at St. Luke--or of course to any other Mass time in our collaborative. To be clear: there is no plan to close St. Luke’s. The vision of New Roads always has been--and still is--to become two healthy, growing parishes. The fact that we have successfully created a Mass in our collaborative that is growing is truly good news for both parishes. 

Our plan, our hope, and our prayer is that the growth we are seeing at the 10am Mass at St. Joseph will one day expand fully to all Mass times at both parishes. We are excited and committed to continue to journey together toward that vision. It will take all of us working together to get there. 

Thank you for your love for this church and commitment to it. Let’s keep it up. The future might not be certain, but what is certain is that realizing our vision of becoming a collaborative with two growing parishes will require more love, more commitment, and more collaboration from all of us.

​Happy summer! We hope summer is off to a great start for you and your family and we wanted to share some of our summer plans here at New Roads. 

This winter, our staff team spent some time praying and reflecting on the life and ministry of Jesus and particularly about his rhythm between work and rest. This rhythm is something we’ve been working hard to incorporate into our lives individually and organizationally, as a church community. It’s surprisingly tough to do though, because we live in a busy, exhausting, and overworked world. In many ways, today’s world idolizes work and busyness. 

But Jesus was very clear in his life and ministry about taking time to retreat, to get away, and to rest. There is a time and a season for both work and rest--or to use the terms Jesus used: “fruitfulness” and “abiding.” 

As a community, we are being intentional about leaning into a rhythm of rest this summer. Of course we’ll be coming together for worship every week, but during July & August specifically we’ll be taking a break from our kids programs, message series, and coffee after the 9:00 & 10:00 Masses. There’s simply less going on here in general, and that’s intentional.

People in this church--including, of course, many of you who serve as ministers throughout the year--work really hard year round. And that’s needed and necessary and brings glory to God. And it also brings glory to God when we pattern our life after the life of Jesus.

We were created to work, to bear fruit, that’s for sure. And we were also created to rest. In fact, we were created not simply to rest from our work, but to work from our rest. Summer is a natural time for many people to experience the joy of rest--the joy of being vs. doing--and we hope you have some plans for rest and renewal this summer (or at another point this year). 

Kids programs, message series, and more resume on Sunday, September 9, 2018. And we'll be celebrating the start of a new year on Fall Kickoff, Sunday, September 16, 2018 at the 10:00 & 11:30 Masses. In the meanwhile, we look forward to worshipping with you at New Roads this summer at our normal worship times.

​We are excited to share an update about our facilities and space use. We’ve been working to address space use at both our churches since we became a collaborative in 2014. 

The St. Joseph parish house (also called a rectory, located directly across Common Street from St. Joseph Church) was unfortunately neglected for many years. Built in 1880, it had many outdated systems as well as significant deferred maintenance. The cost of renovation and updating for modest results was determined to be approaching a million dollars. Clearly, this was not a reasonable or appropriate option in keeping with Pope Francis’s direction about a simple lifestyle for priests.

The suggestion that the property be sold had been floated repeatedly, helping us to recognize a great opportunity. Following a site survey and consultation of the zoning regulations, it became clear that the property could be subdivided, permitting the sale of the existing building and allowing St. Joseph to retain the subdivided lot at 345 Waverley Street for future use. The parish proceeded with this plan in late 2015: the land was subdivided and the old rectory building and lot was sold. 

The original plan was to use the proceeds of the sale of the rectory to cover the cost of building a new rectory on the subdivided lot. However, it was determined that building a new rectory would require use of almost all of the funds from the proceeds of the sale of the rectory, which did not make it a good option as other capital improvements are and will be needed at St. Joseph.

Instead of building a new rectory at St. Joseph, it was decided that a more prudent path forward would be to use the St. Luke rectory as a residence exclusively. The Guidelines for Rectory Living established by the Archdiocese of Boston require parishes to provide living space for clergy separate from office buildings. Disciples in Mission, the pastoral plan for the Archdiocese, encourages that every consideration be given to encouraging priests to live in common rectories. Given this, St. Luke’s rectory will be used as a residence-only space where our pastor, Fr. Thom, and our parochial vicar, Fr. John, reside.

This also means that our collaborative offices will move to St. Joseph, which will house all staff by the end of this year. Since the existing first floor office space at St. Joseph does not accommodate our team and is more essential space for parish and ministry meetings, the decision was made to convert the 3rd floor of the building between the church and the hall into office space. (Belmont Cooperative Nursery School continues to rent space on the second floor of that building.)

There are several benefits to these changes:

1. The ability to provide a residence-only space for our two priests.
2. The ability for our staff to be in one facility which enhances collaboration and efficiency on our team.
3. The cost is substantially less than building a new rectory; only a portion of the funds from the sale of the rectory are being used to construct the offices. This allows us to have sufficient funds left over for additional capital improvements projects for the St. Joseph facility as required.
4. We have still retained the subdivided lot at 345 Waverley Street for future use.

By the end of this year, we will have transitioned our collaborative offices to St. Joseph. Stay tuned for an announcement about exactly when that will happen! In the meantime, please contact our Finance and Operations manager, Lou Fabrizio (lfabrizio@newroadscatholic.org), with any questions.

As a church, we are in the communications business. We are charged with communicating the most important message ever--the gospel of Jesus Christ. On any given weekend, we communicate in many ways: the homily (which we call the message), the announcements, Kids’ Church, the bulletin, the Web site, the environment of our spaces, interactions with volunteers and staff, and so much more. We want all these communication elements to work together to communicate the good news of God’s love for all people.

Today we want to dig into one area of communication which we do differently from other churches: the announcements. Aside from what is communicated during the celebration of Mass itself, we communicate at the beginning of Mass (something we call “the welcome & announcements”) and at the end of Mass (we call this “the news”). Why do we do announcements this way? And what is “the news” all about?

Welcome & announcements
At the 10:00, 11:30, and 5:30 Masses, before we begin worship, a member of the team welcomes everyone and shares what’s going on and what’s coming up in our community. There are many potential things to share and announce, but we limit these announcements to information that is relevant to many and open to all. Beyond the content of what is actually announced, our overall message in the welcome & announcements is that we’re glad you’re here, we’re excited to be here, and there are exciting things happening here! Ideally the welcome & announcements starts Mass off with excitement and enthusiasm. Mass is a celebration and the gospel is good news--every part of our worship experience should reflect that.

News
The news is what’s communicated at the end of Mass, after the Prayer after Communion, at the 10:00, 11:30, and 5:30 Masses. This includes a welcome to people who don’t normally come to church, the message summary and challenge, and some conversation with Fr. Thom. The news has a few purposes and goals:

1. Our priority as a church is to reach those who have been disconnected from church, and research shows that the number one reason unchurched people don’t come to church is that they don’t feel welcome. So the special welcome to them in the news is a chance to put them at ease, to speak to what their experience might be like, and to tell them that no matter what, our whole community is glad they’re here. And it seems to work. We have newcomers approach us after Mass to say, “Thank you so much for saying that. It really makes me feel that I am welcome and I belong.”
2. The message (the homily) is the primary communication method of the whole worship experience. Given that, we take some time to recap the message and challenge for the week so that people are sent out on mission. The message recap also allows people to hear the message in a voice other than Fr. Thom’s. Oftentimes an idea or concept sinks in better when you’ve heard it from more than one person and in different words.
3. Another goal of the news is to give some visibility to staff. In Catholic culture, there is often the idea that the pastor does it all. Fr. Thom does a lot, to be sure, but the parish is not the pastor alone and seeing other staff regularly (and knowing their name and role) helps to reinforce that there is depth of leadership in our church and that ultimately all of our work is a team effort.
4. The back-and-forth conversation at the end of the news is meant to lend some humanness to the liturgy. People are more likely to put the message into action if they feel it’s approachable and modeled in a way that makes it accessible.

That’s our current thinking about announcements at Mass. We've learned a lot and been inspired by looking at how healthy, growing churches communicate. With that being said, it’s definitely a work in progress! We rehearse the welcome and news every Thursday with an eye toward accomplishing the goals above and improving our communications skills. We know we’ve got room to grow and it’s great to gather weekly to work on it together. What’s coming up? We’ve experimented with an announcements video in the past and plan to take a next step with that in the new year--stay tuned!

Last week we introduced the idea of the lab and we’re excited to dig in and get to work! This goal represents a big shift in some ways that will be immediately visible and other ways that will involve a lot of behind-the-scenes work. One example of some behind-the-scenes work going on related to the lab: this Wednesday we had a meeting with people in our community to share our vision for hospitality and to brainstorm and explore how we can make each person who arrives on our campus feel welcome and loved--by us and by God--from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave.

One of the more visible shifts related to our work on the lab is that the 10:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Masses at St. Joseph are still taking place in the hall at St. Joseph. For the past couple of years, we’ve had worship in the hall over the summer months because the hall has air conditioning.  This has made it a far more comfortable environment to worship in when it’s hot and humid outside. While it’s no longer hot and humid, people have been asking why we haven’t moved back into the sanctuary (the church) yet. Good question! We haven’t moved back to the sanctuary because we have been exploring the possibility of staying in the hall moving forward for a number of reasons:

1. The sound in the hall is far clearer and less distracting than the sanctuary. The acoustics of the sanctuary are beautiful, but that space was not designed for amplified sound. When the speakers, monitors, and instruments of a band combine with the reverb and sound reflections of the sanctuary, it creates a sound that is very loud and muddy. Loudness, especially loudness without clarity, can be a significant distraction to worship.

2. The sightlines of the hall are far clearer than the sanctuary. While the design of the sanctuary is aesthetically more pleasing than the hall in its current state, the sanctuary has significant sightline limitations. There isn’t a place to set up a screen for a projector. That limits us to projecting on back walls, which are in significant need of repainting (and which further obscures the projected image). Even if we installed a screen, significant portions of the seating are obstructed by columns. These sightlines create an environment that keeps a lot of people from fully participating in the Mass. Space limitations limit the band (the worship team) to setting up off to the side where they are visually obstructed from the congregation.

3. The space in the hall is more flexible for families with children. In the church, if you need to step out with a young child, you have two options: go outside (where it may be raining or very cold) or go to the very front of the church (which can be uncomfortable for the parent and distracting for the congregation). In the hall, there is more space for families with kids to move around in the back of the worship space and it is much easier to exit the back of the hall where bathrooms are easily accessible. Worship in the hall also keeps parents closer to our kids’ worship experiences: Tiny Disciples and Kids’ Church, which take place in the lower hall.

All of that being said, we fully recognize that the hall is not an ideal worship space in its current state. Visually, the hall feels like a temporary space. Fellowship after Mass (coffee and donuts) is certainly possible but not ideal given space limitations and set up. 

Neither the church nor the hall is ideal for our vision of worship, but one possible way forward is to outfit and design the space in the hall to meet the needs outlined above while at the same time preserving the beauty of the sanctuary. The 7:30am Sunday Mass, daily Masses, weddings, and funerals continue to take place in the sanctuary. 

As we explore the possibility of staying in the hall moving forward, we’re focusing on two main tasks:

1. Looking for feedback and input from people in our community. We don’t have all the answers and we want to hear from you! Enter your contact info below to set up a time to chat with our team. We’d love your input and ideas.
2. Exploring what some immediate upgrades to the hall could accomplish: improving lighting, specifically around the altar and ambo; changing the visual look and feel of the space; attaching kneelers to the chairs; putting the altar and ambo on risers for better sightlines and visibility.

Our worship space matters deeply because it affects how we are able to enter into worship. Whatever space we use for worship, we want to remove obstacles and distractions that get in the way of people meeting God--of having an encounter with the one true, living God who brings healing, hope, and purpose into our lives, our community, and our world.

Last week on this blog we discussed our vision at New Roads. This week we want to discuss our strategy for the coming year. As you may recall, vision is about where we’re heading. Strategy is about how we get there. 

Our overall strategy at New Roads focuses on the Sunday worship experience. The Sunday experience is the number one opportunity for people in the community to connect with our church. The biggest and most important strategic decision we have made over the last few years has been to focus our staff, volunteers, and resources on the Sunday experience, from the perspective of unchurched people--that is, the thousands of people in our community who have drifted away from church or who have never really been a part of a church community. We stopped doing a lot of things we had been doing “because we’ve always done it” and we started focusing on Sunday worship. 

Focusing on the Sunday worship experience from the perspective of people who have been disconnected from church has been a big step forward. But we’ve realized recently that it’s not focused enough. We’ve been trying to change six Masses across two parishes all at the same time. So our new focus, our strategic goal for this year, is to focus on transforming one Mass into an experience of worship that is modern, relevant, and engaging--a worship experience that helps people meet God through full, conscious, and active participation in worship. 

Furthermore, our desire is to treat this one Mass as a “lab” or “workshop” where we can implement our vision of worship, but also experiment as we go. This will allow us to figure out what one worship experience will be like--what works and what doesn’t in attracting the unchurched and engaging current members more fully in worship. Once we’ve refined one worship experience and have a “proof-of-concept,” we can then expand what we’ve learned to other Masses.

In addition, we feel that focusing on one Mass will be the least disruptive and most honoring of the people in our community. In the past, we have made the mistake of rolling out changes and new initiatives before we had a clear idea of what it would take for those changes to be successful. That has led to several unintended and undesired results: frustration, lack of clarity and understanding, and burnout of staff and volunteers. Treating one Mass as a “lab” will also allow us to create a Mass where people can come and experience more concretely where we’re heading.

Making big changes to one Mass at a time seems to make sense for a number of reasons. The next question was: which Mass should we focus on? We think the 10:00 a.m. Mass at St. Joseph represents the best opportunity as it is a desirable Mass time for many and one that attracts many families with children. There are various objectives we’ll be working on related to this goal: upgrading our worship space and technology, enhancing kids’ worship experiences, expanding hospitality, and more. Stay tuned as we’ll be sharing more on this goal throughout the year, particularly here on our blog: this is Part I of a series of posts on “the lab” that will continue over the coming weeks and months.

It’s the church itself--the people of God--who are called to carry out the mission and vision of our church. And it’s important to say, that is the only way this will happen--through the service, generosity, hard work, and commitment of our whole community. At New Roads, we have so many smart, talented, committed, connected, and creative members whose input, ideas, and service are working together to make God’s vision for our church a reality. We want to partner with you in the work God is calling us to and we want to hear from you! Email info@newroadscatholic.org to set up a time to chat with us and to find out how you can partner with us in this effort.

​Vision is one of those words that is used so often--and so often used incorrectly--that it becomes empty of real meaning. But vision is essential to our work as a church. At its core, vision is simply a picture of a preferred future. Vision is about where we want to be, knowing that we’re not there yet. Vision is all about what can be, what should be, and what will be. 

So what’s our vision at New Roads? First and foremost, the reality that drives the vision of our church is that we know that there are people in our community--hundreds and thousands of people--who don’t have a relationship with God and have drifted away from the church. All too often, churches have introduced people to religion that is devoid of a relationship with God. Relatedly, so many people have experienced church as something that is unengaging and irrelevant to their lives. 

It’s our vision to solve that problem. We want to remove any obstacles in our church that would keep people from encountering God. Our desire is that our community would be the very best place in our community where someone can come to authentically meet God and intimately know God. We don’t want our church to be a place where it’s just possible to meet God. We want our church to be a place where it’s impossible not to meet God. 

From the time people arrive on our campus to the time they leave, our desire is that every aspect of our community shows people how much God loves them and how valuable they are to God and to us. That could be:

• In the authentic and warm welcome of a friendly person holding open a door, who is genuinely glad to see you
• In the message that feels like it was written specifically for you and the challenge you’re facing
• In the music that creates an atmosphere of worship that is so powerful and overwhelming and inescapably full of God’s Spirit
• In the experience of Kids’ Church that engages children in a relevant way and shows them how valuable and precious they are to God

We want to be a community that in every way reflects and reveals the heart of God. It’s a big vision and will require incredible work and grace to get there, but we believe it’s where God is leading us. We believe it’s a vision worth sacrificing for.

This is a snapshot of our vision--that picture of a preferred picture--but it’s still a little blurry. As a team, we recognize the need to capture our vision in a couple of sentences that effectively communicate what New Roads is all about and where we’re heading as a community. Clearer language that is memorable and intentional will help everyone serving our church to make progress toward our vision and invite others to join us on this journey. Stay tuned for updates on language around our vision as we work through that!

“Write down the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so that the one who reads it may run.” Habakkuk 2:2