Dear Friends in Christ, This week as Jen Demarest was creating the cover for this church’s TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD Annual Congregational Meeting, she was impressed with this church’s longevity. The generations of members of this church have built an institution that is a historic feature of Main Street and has continuously served the Trumansburg community through thick and thin. I can only imagine the changes this congregation and institution have gone through over so many years of gathering to praise and serve God. This institution has persisted through the Civil War, 2 World Wars, and too many others since. You have gone from outdoor to indoor bathrooms and installed electric light. In all that time, you welcomed and bade farewell to many pastors who answered Christ’s call to lead you through all the many changes in society and the church’s response. First Presbyterian Church of Ulysses is in another time of seismic change along with the whole church in America. This change has been going on for the last perhaps 50 years but accelerated in the last 20+ years with the Emerging Church movement—my entire professional ministry experience. That is why I go to the Wild Goose Festival every year to stay abreast of what future we are moving into. That is why I have recommended to you books that describe the changing church context. I assure you, I know of what I speak. And then came the COVID pandemic which laid bare what so many churches were previously able to ignore. Church attendance and membership was less of a priority in people’s lives, in our children’s lives, than we hoped it was. Now a whole generation has largely opted out of the traditional church institution and their children are unchurched, suspicious of the church their parents left for a multitude of reasons, and finding spiritual nurture elsewhere—in nature and nature focused religions, in peace and social action groups, in yoga practice and other ritual practices meaningful to their needs. These younger generations have watched the fights over LGBTQAI+ inclusion, climate change denial based on faulty biblical interpretation, unaddressed, incipient racism, and now Christian Nationalism taking center stage. The church has been discredited in their experience whether we agree with their critique or not. They are open to the teachings of Jesus but want to unburden them from the baggage of the “church.” All this is to say that this season of change is uniquely challenging and difficult, especially for those who love and appreciate the church that they have become comfortable in. The elders’ generation’s challenge is to discern how to support Christ’s communities in the next generations. Will they inherit from us a church they don’t want, like unwanted family china and furniture, the burden of expensive and underused church buildings, timid church people unwilling to discomfort themselves in order to send a clear welcome to the historically excluded or stand up boldly with the ones who most need us to visibly walk Jesus’ walk with them? This church institution may end with you all. And if that is God’s will, so be it. One thing is clear. First Presbyterian Church of Ulysses’ future is unsure. This is a watershed season. There are opportunities that God has for us if we are willing to follow the movement of Christ’s Spirit into uncharted territory in service of those who will inherit what we leave them. Will we leave our comfort zone or leave empty buildings with a lovely, unused organ? Will we let go of insisting this is our church in order to avail ourselves of community partnerships that answer community needs and feed others’ souls—body, heart and mind—differently in Christ’s name? At the risk of boring you with my story once again, I served a church for 17 years that faced closure shortly after I arrived. But God had God’s way with us. Christ’s Spirit transformed us into a very different kind of church, and despite having only a checking account that threatened to go to $0 regularly, we had a joyful, vibrant and inclusive ministry with innovative, participatory, multi-sensory worship and dedicated social justice ministries. We said we would end when God was done with us. When that day came after COVID 19 hit, hope-filled, discerning elders of that church shepherded her legacy and all her assets to found a new Wild Church called Sanctuary + Seed. That’s resurrection. It requires some grieving of the dead but really new life is what God promises Christ’s trusting followers. I wonder what our 223rd Annual Congregational Meeting of FPCU will tell us about what the future life of FPCU will look like? Come and see. Grace, peace & courage, Pastor Susan