Friends,

Last Sunday, I preached about the defiant, loving act of investing your time, energy, heart, and money in a faith community.

In the midst of all the catastrophes happening around us, your being here, your involvement, your financial gifts, are all a stake in God’s dream — God's dream of a wedding feast where everyday people are all invited, where every tear is wiped away, where the lion can lay down with the lamb and that lamb doesn’t have to be afraid of being eaten, where the earth is healed and restored, where death is overcome with God’s power of love.

You can listen to the sermon here.

Here's what you'll find below:

A statement from the Presiding Bishop about public execution

With love,
Susan+

A Message from Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe
"The Episcopal Church has long formally opposed the death penalty,
and more recently we have called for an immediate moratorium on its use,"
Rowe said in a statement.
"The idea of live-streaming a firing squad execution is reprehensible in the extreme
and will cause moral injury to everyone involved.
We need to ask ourselves who we have become as a nation
when senior officials decide to make a spectacle of state-sponsored violence."

Read more

Tags: Rev Susan, stewardship, Violence

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life
Is the foundation for abundance.
—Eckhart Tolle

When we started our stewardship campaign last year, we hoped to achieve an 11% increase in annual giving for 2026. We were really amazed by your response—a 15% increase! But that wasn’t the end of giving for the year. Our conversations in the fall around Our Money Story generated some energy about other donations.

In November and December, we received FOUR anonymous, unsolicited additional gifts:

• one to get us over the hump of a key immediate property project (making the balcony suitable for seating on Christmas. Go up and take a look some Sunday.),
• $5,000 to improve A/V (which is already underway so that the mics don’t cut out and we’ll be able to live stream services),
• $20,000 to do improvements to our Commons (a refresh to make the space more welcoming and useful. More information will follow about this in the next few months.),
• and another $10k for “whatever the rector needs.”

This is so amazing! We are truly blessed here at Grace. Please join us in thanks to God for these gifts and the wonderful community which we continue to create.

[ photo credit ]

Tags: abundance, stewardship, Finances