Session Notes

Greetings all once again! Here are the public notes from the Session meeting held, just this last Monday.

Last Monday was one of two Session meetings for the month of May. On May 21st, the Session members of Church of the Pilgrims will be hosting a meeting, joined by the Western Session. This meeting will also be public and taking place at the Pilgrims location. There will also be a Zoom link to the meeting that will hopefully be available soon.

In preparation for this meeting, the Western Session discussed impressions about the Western-Pilgrims relationship as developed during and beyond the Lenten season. We reviewed our core values, what can be offered and what may be sacrificed upon the formation of a new congregation, and any other expectations and concerns. Pilgrims Pastor Erin Counihan also joined the meeting to offer her viewpoint. We all hope that these reflections better inform our approach to the meeting next Wednesday.

Afterwards, we proceeded on to our regular business. We continued last week's discussions regarding hospitality and welcoming, including lessons from Brambleton Presbyterian Church and possibly enhancing our social media presence.

We noted the Visioning Meeting to be held after the Sunday service on May 18, which is about our continued relationship with Miriam's Kitchen and the use of the building.

The Gay Men's Chorus performance on May 31 at 4:30pm is still set to go! Some Western members are working on promoting and supporting this event. Please look forward to more information in the next week.

The Session noted that June, Pentecost, and, therefore, the summer is nigh. Understanding that with this comes our shift in worship hours, we reviewed whether this is something that we wanted to hold onto, or something that can be sacrificed. The Session voted to forgo the shift in worship hours, so we will continue to worship at 11am throughout the summer.

Finally, we discussed the possibility of putting up a new banner on the church, to replace the "Black Lives Matter" banner. This is not to say that we no longer believe in that cause, but we noted that the banner has gotten quite old; and with the new administration, we believe that a new statement to address current events and express our faith-based rejections of such activities would be more apt. That being said, we are soliciting ideas for statements and/or Bible verses to put up, so please contact a Session member if you have any ideas!

Thanks again for reading this note from the Session! As usual, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to any of us.

-Alec Resurreccion, Elder, Class of 2027