This Week from Mitch

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This weekend is our annual Kanuga Parish Retreat. Well over 100 St. Martin's folks will head to the mountains around Hendersonville for some time of fellowship and service. This year the retreat will feel a little bit different, in that many folks will not just be retreating. With the effects of Hurricane Helene still being felt, a retreat seemed wrong. Instead, we will be volunteering at a couple of workplaces in the nearby areas. Some will be putting together pallets in a distribution center, making sure much-needed supplies are organized and ready to go. Others will be cleaning crawl spaces, installing vapor barriers, and working around a housing complex. If you have tools you think would be helpful, please bring them! A general contractor will be supervising.

There will still be ample fellowship time, time for walking, time for bingo, and time in nature with good friends old and new. Church and life should be about balance. In our church, we try to always have time for worship, service, education, and fellowship. Each makes up a part of our baptismal covenant, a church community must live a full spiritual life to be healthy. We pray, live, work, learn, worship, and fellowship together because we were created to live in community. Meaningful relationships strengthen our lives and those whom we are in communion with. If you are coming to Kanuga, please enjoy being together. If you stay in Columbia, please come to worship and welcome home our former seminarian, now priest, the Rev. Christopher Johnson, who will be serving at all three services. He's excited and quite frankly, I am too. I can't wait to listen to his sermon on YouTube later in the day. In times of division and anxiety, it is a blessing to be a blessing.

In Christ,

Mitch