Once a month, usually on the Second Sunday of the Month, I plan to host a “Coffee With the Pastor” time in my office. This will be a time where recent visitors and/or new members will be invited for a time to learn more about Kessler Park, and allow me a time to listen to each of them and their concerns.

I’ll plan to do this each month, even if nobody shows, trusting that once we get into the routine, folks will indeed start to come by.

I probably undercut my own brilliant idea this month, in that last week I actually met personally with two visitors for coffee in the neighborhood.

(So many coffeeshops…so little time…)

I mentioned those meetings in my sermon Sunday. In both those meetings, *both* of these visitors were grateful for the generous welcome and genuinely open-hearted feeling they got from their visits to Kessler Park.

They talked about how they loved our inclusive and progressive theology. They talked about how they had been warmly greeted by you on Sundays.

I say this to remind you of the point of last week’s sermon: “Remember to Be Grateful.”

Sometimes, as we said Sunday, we are so close to our own routine that we can’t actually see how blessed we are. We get busy, we get distracted, we just start to take certain things for granted. Sometimes it takes outsiders to see what we no longer do.

These two visitors see us with *their* eyes, and they are excited and touched by the community we have at Kessler Park.

It’s a tough world out there. There is much wrong with the world. The news is a weekly parade of horrors. And everyone is busy with family and commitments. So, it can be easy to forget just how rare a church like ours still is…progressive in theology, warm in Spirit, welcoming of all, passionate about connecting to the world.

I give thanks for the community at Kessler Park. And these visitors did too.

So, as I said, I’ll be doing “Coffee With the Pastor” every month. Nobody came this month. (As I said, I undercut my own plan…) But I trust they will in the future.

If you’d like to help spread the word, you will always be able to find the dates for upcoming gatherings at this link on our website.

See you Sunday,

Eric Folkerth