Summer Session Update

On July 20, our new session had a retreat at Pastor Melissa’s house. The members of session are: Bonnie Altieri, Chris Cox, Becky Ludeke, Doug McCleery, Molly Peterson, and Sandy Sherrard.

This retreat followed closely on the heals of a soup-fueled congregational conversation about the mission foci of the church for the 2022-23 program year. During that congregational conversation, over 30 members of the church identified the gifts God has given to HPC and dreamed about the ways in which these could be combined to build up God’s mission in our community. The hope has been to narrow our missional foci so that we can harness the power of our time, talents and treasures and make effective change as we share the love of Jesus with one anther and our wider community. Those foci that came up in conversation were: poverty, mental health, gender & sexuality, housing insecurity, food insecurity, the environment, and youth. On the following Wednesday, Session then took these and narrowed them down concluding that as a congregation during the 2022-23 year we will work to address…

• food insecurity

• mental health

• the environment

Something you might note is that this list is very similar to last years list (poverty, mental health, and the environment). One small shift was specifying “food insecurity” as opposed to “poverty.” As for the similarity to last year, Session noted that we continue to see a need in each of these areas, that we have more to learn/do—and that to make change sometimes we need to spend time working on them. These three will form and shape the way the staff and ministries plan out our education, service opportunities, worship, and mission giving.

In particular, the Generosity Ministry is eager for your input. If you know of an organization that effectively addresses one of these three foci (food insecurity, mental health, or the environment), and you would like to see HPC consider giving mission money to that organization. Fill out the form that you find on the web page linked through the button below:

In addition to determining the mission foci above, Session looks forward to supporting continued conversation and around the relationship between faith and gender & sexuality. As with the mission foci, our approach to this conversation will be firmly grounded in our church’s mission statement, which is to love like Jesus, building up our relationships with God, one another, and our community.

On top of setting the mission foci and helping to cast a vision for this next program year, session covered a lot of other ground:

• Session adopted some policies and practices to help us to work together as effectively as possible as a Session while we seek to discern God’s will for this church. 

• Session re-identified and affirmed those whom we are all called to serve, from the members and friends of this congregation (“Jerusalem”) to the local and wider communities (“Judea and Samaria”), and “to the ends of the Earth”, as commanded by Jesus in Acts 1, verse 8.

• Session resolved to create a Programming Committee which will combine the functions of the Justice and Service, Hospitality and Fellowship, Nurture and Growth and Worship ministries. In addition to helping us program around our mission foci of mental health, food insecurity, and environment, this ministry will help us brainstorm ways to learn about and talk about other topics Session has identified with your help like faith and gender and sexuality. To understand the reasoning behind this change, click here for a presentation they used. Additionally, check out this info chart of the current HPC ministries

Ian Burrow, Clerk of Session
Rev. Melissa Martin, Pastor