2026 State of the Church

Adapted from the February 15 2026 Stated Congregational Meeting

If you have had the chance to read my letter in the annual report, you probably know that I’ve been thinking a lot about change and continuity this past year. When you serve a church that is over 375 years old, you learn quickly that change is a dirty word. The worst thing a pastor can do isn’t commit a scandal, it isn’t bankrupting the church, or taking two martini lunches – the worst thing a pastor can do is to change things. Change the color of the choir robes, or the candles we use, or the kind of paper the bulletin is printed on. Now, obviously, I’m exaggerating. But it’s true – change is the single quickest way to upset church members.

But what happens when change is what’s required to stay the same? Earlier this year we were required to launch a six figure capital project to restore our steeple. The gorgeous steeple you see today contains almost zero material from its original 1961 construction. The truth is that we had to change out every board and nail, just so that it could remain the exact same.

As it turns out, change is inevitable, even when we deeply desire to stay the same. As we look ahead as a congregation, I have identified two major projects that will define the next few years of our life together. To be clear, these are not pet projects that your pastor would like to use his free time to accomplish. No, these are deeply necessary, church-wide initiatives that have come into focus only after months of conversation with the elders and members of this church. It’s no stretch to say that they are the homework God has given us for this chapter in our church’s history.

The first is the restoration of the manse. If you attended the manse stewardship gathering, then you have already heard about the urgent need to form a plan to address the structural issues our beloved manse faces. In November, your session approved the formation of a taskforce to do just this. And over the past few months, the taskforce has begun to meet with qualified experts to provide a realistic assessment of what it will take to rehabilitate the home such that it can continue to serve the church for generations to come. I don’t have a master plan to share with you this morning. What I can say is that the scope of this project will require a serious and sustained commitment of the church’s financial resources. In other words: this will not be cheap.

It will not be easy, but we will do it and we will be better for it. We will rise to the occasion and make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that our future is more stable than our present. We will do it because we want to stay the same. We want the pastor to live on this campus, in this community for generations to come.

The second initiative follows the same logic. This church has served the families of our community from the very beginning. While much has changed regarding child rearing, God’s expectation that we raise the next generation in the faith has not changed. Here’s what’s new – what has changed: we find ourselves as a crisis point. There are more families living on the East End than ever before, and we are putting fewer resources toward serving those families than ever before. There are more children and youth in need of a church home than ever before, and we are investing less than we were 20 years ago.

I could frame this issue in existential terms – I could say that, if we don’t get serious about ministering to the families of our community today, there won’t be a tomorrow. Or I can simply say: God has given us this mission and we must accept it. No one else is positioned to step forward for such a time as this. If we do not meet the needs of our families, no one else will.

With this urgency, your Session approved a taskforce focused on beginning the process of calling an associate pastor for family ministries. I realize that many of you are empty nesters and grandparents. You have run the race and finished. In your day, the church adequately resourced this ministry. You might even be thinking – “we did just fine without a youth pastor.” I hear you. But, on behalf of every family in our community, I would humbly submit that times have changed. Statistics tell us that it is more difficult than it ever has been to raise your child in the faith. We cannot expect old solutions to bring new results.

This issue is personal for me. On the one hand, I am your pastor and want to continue building relationships with the families and children of the church. But I speak from experience when I say that they deserve better than a solo pastor pulled in 10 different directions. They deserve more than one hour a week in Sunday school, and 90 minutes every other week at Youth Group. We will not raise a new generation in the faith by giving them our leftover time and attention. This issue is personal for me because I have a son, and soon I’ll have a daughter, and I know that my experience in youth ministry made me into the Christian I am today. I want them to have all the opportunities I had, all of the attention and support that only a dedicated pastor can provide. If we want to once again become the place where families can receive the support and guidance they need to raise their children in the faith, we need to return to the level of investment that made this possible in years past.

Once again, adding a full-time minister to our staff will not be easy, but because this is the mission God has set before us I believe we will succeed. I believe we will make the sacrifices necessary to do right by our families and actively build the future of the church.

So where does this leave us today? What does this mean for the year ahead? Well, we are entering into a chapter where we are finally setting goals that cannot be accomplished in just one year. We will not have a renovated manse, and we will not have a youth pastor by December 31. Instead, we are building the foundation on which these goals will be achieved.

That begins with improving our financial situation. During our stewardship series, I shared with you the dilemma we find ourselves in. When reviewing our giving over the past 3 years, we found that those who regularly give to the church are generally very generous. The problem is that very few of our members give anything at all to the ministry of the church. 50% of our members give generously, and the other 50% give nothing at all. It is very difficult to build a firm foundation when only half of the household is contributing. 

But out of every challenge we will face in the journey ahead, this one should scare us the least. Because this is the challenge over which we have the greatest control. It begins with each of us going to God and determining what we can afford to contribute. Beyond our generosity, there is ample opportunity to tap into our community’s generosity. We are not in this alone. We are eager to explore grants and public funding that may help us finance the Manse renovation. There is funding available from our presbytery and area churches that may subsidize the cost of a youth pastor. With God, there is always a way.

And to your credit, you have already begun to rise to the challenge. Outside of stewardship season, I don’t talk a lot about church finances and money. But you should know that our church isn’t just growing numerically. We are growing in generosity. Total pledges went up by 25% this year. The number of people who made a pledge went up by 30%. For the past two years, we have expected to end the year in a deficit, but instead we have grown the size of our endowment by 32%. 

When you deal generously with the church, two things happen. First, we are able to continue living into our Christian vocation of serving God and our neighbor in spiritual and tangible ways. That means we continue to meet for worship, fellowship, prayer, and service on our beautiful campus. But the second thing that happens is even more exciting. When you are generous with the church, we can move beyond survival, beyond the bare minimum programs into blessing our entire community. We are able to pay our needy neighbor’s heating bill and ask for nothing in return, because God has been generous with us. We can purchase coats and snow boots for children in our schools, so they will know that we believe in a God who is more interested in giving than getting. Although we follow Jesus, the homeless preacher, we are able to pay for our neighbor’s rent.

When we rise to the expectation God has set for us, when we are generous as God is generous, we can invite more people into this community of faith. We can meet the needs of more families and children, we can build bigger tables for bigger crowds. And I know God isn’t the only one setting high expectations for you. I know I have always believed this church is capable of more. My belief today has not changed from the moment I became your minister – God will do great things in this place. You are the people, this is the mission, and now is the time. 

Let us begin to build our future together. Amen.