As we begin our 2027 Stewardship Campaign, I want to ask you a question I have been asking myself: What makes a church feel like home?
Our theme this year, “Create Belonging,” grows out of St. Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19, RSV). That small phrase “so then” points back to what Paul has just said: Christ “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” and brought near those who “once were far off." Belonging is Christ’s work, not ours. In Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, we who were once outside are now “built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
Paul’s picture is of a house still under construction: the “whole structure,” he says, “grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” God’s household is not finished; there is room in it. To create belonging is to make that room.
This year, our vestry and the Welcome Guild have been working to invite, welcome, and connect: to greet people by name and help them find their place here. Belonging is where that work leads. It is the moment someone stops saying “the church I’ve been visiting” and starts saying “my church, my people.” That is what makes a church feel like home. I have seen it at the altar rail and at coffee hour, in the choir stalls and in Sunday school, in the kitchen as meals are prepared for our neighborhood guests, and in the quiet friendships that form week after week.
People who belong give, not because they are asked, but because this place is theirs, and we care for what we love. Your pledge is a concrete way to say, “I have a place here, and I want others to have one too.” Pledges keep our doors open seven days a week and sustain the liturgy, music, and ministries of beauty, mercy, and welcome we offer to Edgewater and beyond. Above all, they make it possible for the next stranger through our doors to be welcomed as a member of the household.
Between now and Christ the King Sunday, November 22, you will hear fellow parishioners, at Mass and online, share how they came to belong here and why they give. Please listen with attentive and curious hearts.
As you consider your pledge, I invite you to reflect on two questions:
• When did I first know that I belonged at Atonement?
• Whom can I help to belong in the year ahead?
If you have never pledged, please make this the year, whatever the amount. If you have, please prayerfully consider an increase in thanksgiving for the home God has given you here. Jay and I have already submitted our card, increasing our pledge from last year.
You should have received our stewardship mailing by now. On November 22, we will bless the pledge cards received and the ministry they make possible. You also have the option of completing the form below to record your pledge. Together, let us continue to create belonging: for one another, for the stranger, and for the glory of God, who made us members of his household.
Thank you for your generosity, and for making Atonement a place where strangers become family.
God’s peace,
Fr. Charles
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Rector