The Mid-week Epistle

This last Sunday at 6:00 PM, I joined many civic and religious leaders at the Islamic Center of Manteca.   We gathered to share our grief over yet another massacre of innocent people; this time as they worshiped  in their mosques in Christchurch New Zealand.   And we gathered to show our support of our local Muslim community.   It was a very meaningful and uplifting experience for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and Baha’i to gather together in peace!   I was honored to have been asked to speak and am sharing my comments below.   In Christ’s Love, Jason When I heard of the massacre of Muslim men, women, and children, while they were gathered at their mosque for Friday prayers in Christchurch New Zealand, I thought, “Not again! . . . Not again.”   Shooting a crowd of unarmed people at prayer is an act of an evil coward – I felt anger!   I thought of the tremendous pain and horror of those who had been shot; I thought of the children who had lost a parent and parents who had

Vision Casting at St. Paul’s: What is our COMMON VISION? Back on March 3 rd , during the session where I shared the results and some thoughts about our special General Conference session in February, I shared the results of our Vision Casting sessions.   Over several meetings and Epistle articles spanning several months, we identified five CORE VALUES (inclusiveness, faith, inspiration, serving, hope) and several sketches of a potential COMMON VISION .   On March 3 rd , I invited the participants to rank the sketches of our COMMON VISION and suggest edits .   These were the top three vision sketches: First Ranked We are an INCLUSIVE church which invites everyone into fellowship with us.   Our focus is on helping everyone to grow a living FAITH in Jesus Christ.   We accomplish this by creating INSPIRATIONAL worship and learning opportunities, and actively SERVING God and our neighbors to reveal God’s hands working in the world and share HOPE.   Second Ranked St. Paul’s is