No matter where we are, we are better coming together than living separately.
-Becca Stevens and the women of Thistle Farms, Find Your Way Home

At All Saints we say “Whoever you are, and wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are welcome to be here, just as you are.”
That’s about coming together. That’s about a circle that has room for everyone.

When the women of Magdalene and Thistle Farms, women who have seen, as Becca says “the underside of bridges, the short side of justice, the back side of anger and the inside of prison walls,” wrote this book of the 24 spiritual principles that guide their community, the very first principle was:

Come Together.

They wrote:

We come on circuitous paths from prisons, from the streets, from churches because we are tired and we want to live in hope. We come in every color. We come lonely and afraid and do not want to die. We come because our bodies and spirits are sick and our teeth are falling out and we know we need help.”

There is truth there for all of us.

We come together from many different places … and we come together in hope … we come together looking for life … we come together knowing we need something more than just ourselves.

We come together not in the place of strength but in the place of vulnerability.

We come together taking off the masks that the world tells us are only presentable selves. The masks that hide our wounds and imperfections, our addictions and our failings.

We come together trusting that, as our brother Bryan Stephenson says, we are all so much more than the worst thing that we have done.

We come together in celebration and we come together in grieving. We come together to offer our gifts to God, to each other, and to the world. We come together to awaken joy in each other’s hearts and to remind ourselves and one another that love is more powerful than anything that would try to tear us apart.

We come together because no matter where we are, we are better coming together than living separately.

This month, we are launching our 2019 giving campaign, and we are calling it Come Together. Because that’s who we are and what we are about.

I hope you will give deeply and joyfully of yourself to this community so we can continue to become even more what All Saints Church has always been:

… a community that believes in the unique beauty and dignity of every human being.
… a community that invites a world bent on retribution to the joy of reconciliation
… a community that understands that unity doesn’t require uniformity and that diving deeply into our own faith does not prevent us from honoring and receiving gifts of deep wisdom and beauty from others.
… a community where everyone who comes into our orbit feels known and loved … and is challenged to know and love others just as powerfully.

I hope you will give deeply and joyfully of yourself to this community so we can come together and explore what dreams we have for this next stage of our journey.

The greatest gift God gives us is each other. We come here from circuitous paths. We come here in hope. We come here seeking new life.

This fall, Come together at All Saints Church. Come together so we can listen deeply to one another. Come together so we can become something new and amazing for the life of this church and for the life of the world.

Come together in generosity. Come together in joy.
Come together … and see what happens next.