By Chris Fastnow
Hey! It’s Pledge Season! Woo Hoo!
Our theme for the Fall 2024 pledge campaign is A Crowded Table, a vivid illustration of Pilgrim’s new vision statement, implying both the justice we champion and our inclusive welcome. Pilgrim inclusively, abundantly welcomes, feeds, and warms our church community, our valley, Montana, and our global family at our Crowded Table.
This year, I have seen Pilgrim’s Crowded Tables:
covered with children’s activities in the sanctuary,
ringed by youth and adults asking each other questions and listening intently to the answers in the Boyd Room,
filled with potluck dishes shared among congregants practicing tricky holiday conversations,
papered with sticky notes documenting honest and loving disagreements about strategic planning,
loaded with fancy teas (and pastries!) at the local tea house to celebrate an important milestone,
draped in a rainbow flag with stickers and information about Pilgrim’s wide welcome during Pride weekend,
and reverently holding the elements as we celebrated Christ’s inclusive invitation to communion together post-pandemic.
What does Pilgrim’s Crowded Table look like for you? Is it a table at Fork and Spoon, in another country where friends have traveled to provide medical support, at a hospice bedside, in a kitchen celebrating or grieving with a trusted friend, hosting a potluck for Groovin’ Spirits, covered with quilt fabric and a humming sewing machine, lifting up toys and board books in the nursery, under the trees at Red Cliff, Mimanagish, or a Women of Pilgrim garden party, or in the back of the sanctuary holding sound and recording equipment for online and hearing-assisted worship?
To paraphrase the Highwomen’s wonderful song (click here for the Groovin Spirits’ version), I want a church with a Crowded Table. Crowded Tables may be in turn warm, noisy, festive, solemn, satisfying, cozy, and uncomfortable. We might have to scooch over to make room or pass on a second dessert for our neighbor to have theirs. We might need someone else just to hold the fork for us one week but prepare a lavish feast the next. What an apt metaphor for a thriving church!
Pledge season is a great time to celebrate and support this important work. Will you join me by making your pledge? Click the Donate button on the church website to set up automatic payments, and send in a pledge card (you can email me: stewardship@uccbozeman.org if you don’t get one this week… or misplace it along the way).
It’s Pledge Season! Let’s celebrate!