Dear Incarnation,
I loved Katie's sermon from Sunday and the imagery of drinking the cup that God has offered us. And I loved the contemplative way Kaela and Russell led us in "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" afterward. That imagery feels particularly resonant with where we are in the life of our church, and I am praying that God will supply us the courage and faith to follow Jesus and to drink his cup down to the dregs.
Thanks to all who stayed for our parish meeting on Sunday! There was a LOT of news to take in, and I know processing these things takes time. I am praying for all of us, and I hope you'll reach out if you have questions or would appreciate more conversation. If you weren't at the meeting, or you'd like to revisit what was discussed, below is a recap of what was shared.
Vestry Transitions
You have elected Elena Benning and Katie Foran to serve as our new vestry members! (Read their bios here; despite appearances, an asymmetrical pixie cut is not an Incarnation vestry criteria.) I am grateful for the myriad ways Katie and Elena have served our church already, and look forward to their gifts enriching our vestry. Thanks to everyone who voted, and thanks to Emily for administering another seamless electronic election.
The current vestry will continue through the end of this calendar year. In January, Grant Sung will roll off of vestry and Elena and Katie will roll on. We will formally commission our new vestry and thank Grant at a Sunday service in January.
This year has been a particularly significant one for our vestry. We have been in prayer and deliberation about questions this church has never faced before, while being one member short for half of the year (you might recall that Kaitlin ended her term early). The 2024 vestry has done some incredibly heavy lifting, particularly our wardens Will and Grant, and they’ve done so prayerfully, thoughtfully, faithfully, and with incredible kindness and wisdom. It is abundantly clear to me that God has called this particular group of people to serve us in this particular year, and I could not be more grateful for them.
Warden's Update
Grant shared a brief update on all that has happened in the life of our church since our last parish meeting. He reminded us of the call to "ordinary church" in Acts 2:41-47, our sermon series from earlier in the year, and helped us to acknowledge and give thanks for all of the extraordinary ordinary in our midst! Among the highlights mentioned:
Russell returned from medical leave and began a new role as Worship Pastor and Curate. He's been doing a great job shepherding and onboarding musicians and systematizing the way we lead worship
Another joyful Pentecost Sunday with our traditions of paper airplanes, multilingual songs and readings, impromptu testimonies, and birthday cake
The baptism of Chloe Goebel and the preparation for three others for fall baptisms
Grace Brooks' summer internship
A summer preaching series on "neighboring" that included testimonies from across our community: Bruce Weaver, Matt Wooldridge, Emily Williams, Juliana Dourado
An amazing first-ever summer Wild Wonder Camp in partnership with Natural Leaders
Partnering with Restoration Immigration Legal Aid on a matching grant and prayer event for World Refugee Day
Visits, events, and lunches with outreach partners from Casa Chirilagua, Partners-Al Hol, Nepal, and West Asia
Another summer featuring the gifts of our community through congregation-led Wild Wonder Sundays
Our largest-ever fall retreat, with 84 dumpling-wrappers in attendance. Who knew Josie could do such a killer Russell impression?!
Fall small groups across DC, Maryland, and Virginia, including a group meeting at L'Arche, and a group studying James
13 new members, as of last week!
And as usual, we said some tearful goodbyes to the Pienaars, Eva-Elizabeth, Anthony, and our college-bound grads, James and Meredith
Testimony: Anna Yong
Anna Yong shared a beautiful testimony about how God brought her family to Incarnation and the ways they've experienced welcome here, just as they are. I won't try to recap it here, but I encourage you to meet Anna and Joel and their kids, Elias and Eliana, in the coming weeks!
Looking Back at our Parish Discernment
In February of this year, we invited our church into a discernment process over the season of Lent by prayerfully considering these questions:
What do you sense God is calling Incarnation to be or to do?
What do you sense God is calling you to be or to do within Incarnation?
I said at the time that this discernment process was an attempt to “strike while the iron is cold”; there were no pressing problems or urgent decisions in front of us. The church was, and is, flourishing. But we have experienced a significant amount of change, and were feeling some of the disorientation and anxiety that change naturally brings. And so in order to make sense of the changes we were observing, we wanted to first pause, reflect, listen, and anchor ourselves in a strong shared sense of who we are as a church, and how God might be calling us forward. So we spent the season of Lent listening.
I shared the results of that discernment at our last parish meeting, about six months ago. But in the time since that discernment, the iron has been getting a little bit warmer. And the themes that emerged from that discernment have continued to shape the kinds of challenges and decisions facing the vestry and staff. So I refreshed our collective memory on the big themes that came out of that time of discernment.
The first theme was that Incarnation is who we say we are, and God is simply calling us to keep being who we are and doing what we're doing. We really are a place of worship, a place of wonder, and a place of welcome, particularly for those who feel far from God or outside community. Our church is experienced as a refuge by many people. And our call is simply to continue in the work God has given us.
I shared the image that someone in our community had of a field that used to have structures like fences and barns to contain the harvest, and it used to be surrounded by menacing woods. But all the structures had been completely overrun by a golden harvest that could not be contained. Grain was spreading everywhere and knocking stuff down. And instead of those woods encroaching inward, the field was expanding outward and pushing back the danger. This person had a phrase that came with the image: “Refreshing the church-weary.” And the sense was that the church-weary constitutes a very big harvest field, and that perhaps God was calling us out like laborers into the harvest.
Another theme from our discernment was that Incarnation has a particular focus on ordinary faithfulness. We try to help people look for, listen to, and follow God in their ordinary, daily lives. Our pastoral care walks alongside people in the places they actually live and work.
And finally, I talked about the tension we hold between pilgrimage and permanence. Our pilgrim mentality and unflinching adaptability is a huge strength of our congregation. But it’s also tiring, and we feel the wear and tear on our staff and volunteers. There is a tension in always feeling unsettled.
That discernment process also clarified the questions that we would be asking in this next season of our life together. These are the questions I read at the last parish meeting:
How long can we sustain worshiping in a school without burning out our staff and volunteers; should we be looking for a more permanent space?
What is our path to financial sustainability?
How do we make sure that all our people — whether in Maryland, the District, or Virginia — have access to the ministries of this church, to pastoral care, to community and to ways to serve right where they are?
How do we make sure everyone has something they can invite their church-weary neighbors into?
These really summarize the kinds of questions and broader themes that the vestry has been focused on over the last 5 months. You'll probably recognize those themes in each of the forward-looking updates below.
Sabbatical
As we have announced before, the vestry has approved a 3 month sabbatical for me in summer 2025. Our bylaws stipulate a sabbatical for the rector every seven years. The timing is good for me and my family; to be honest, I'm tired. I am so grateful for the vestry’s commitment to my rest, health, and longevity in this role, and especially for their trust in God as the shepherd of this flock.
We will share more detailed updates and plans as we have them, but for now, I simply wanted to remind you that the sabbatical will happen. Thank you for allowing me to take this sabbatical, and to be a pastor who lives within my limits (or tries!).
Location Changes: Advent and Christmas
I shared a brief update on our relationship to the Greenbrier Baptist building, where we continue to office. Greenbrier has been a wonderful second site for us over the past few years, generously sharing their space for all the services when we can't meet in a public school (Shrove Tuesday, Holy Week, Christmas Eve, Saint Francis Day, Healing Eucharist, Midweek Eucharist, Saint Nicholas Day, and more). When their sanctuary has been full, they've even let us put a tent on their lawn.
However, over the past 6-12 months, Greenbrier has undergone significant changes. Central Union Mission moved into the main floor of Greenbrier in August; more and more ministry partners share the building throughout the week; Coracle continues to occupy the third floor (where we moved our office this summer); and three congregations worship in the building on Sundays. In addition, the building continues to pose other challenges for our congregation: disability access is extremely limited, and the location is further west than our geographic center as our congregation stretches into DC and MD. The bottom line is that Greenbrier is becoming a less and less viable second site for us.
We have a small team of of people who keep their ear to the ground about other worship space possibilities, and a surprising opportunity has recently emerged at Beverley Hills Community United Methodist Church in Alexandria. The church is just 1.5 miles from our current location at Drew Elementary; off the same exit from 395 and on the same bus line. It's completely ADA accessible and has a fantastic natural playground. The church sits on the threshold of the Chirilagua/Arlandria neighborhood, and was the original home of Casa Chirilagua, our long-time outreach partner.
I reached out to the pastor there for a coffee a few months ago, just trying to keep our options open. She was enthusiastic and welcoming; we talked honestly about our denominational differences and shared experiences; and within a few weeks her leadership team had offered us use of the building on Christmas Eve – for free. This kind of generosity — especially across denominational divisions — is pretty rare, and I don't take it lightly.
Several weeks later, we heard from Drew that we would need to find another worship location for 3 consecutive Sundays in December and January: Dec 22, Dec 29, and Jan 5. We asked Beverley Hills, and again they said yes! But like Greenbrier Baptist, their service time is the same as ours, making Sundays a bit more complicated to plan than Christmas Eve.
On December 22, the last Sunday of Advent, we will worship at our usual time of 10am with the Beverley Hills congregation in a shared Advent Lessons and Carols service. This was another generous concession from Beverley Hills. It will allow us to keep our service time intact for all 4 Sundays of Advent, and is a wonderful opportunity to build a relationship with their congregation through shared worship. We will worship there again on Christmas Eve (time TBD).
Then on December 29 and January 5, Beverley Hills will keep their 10am service time and we will worship in their building at some other time, either very late morning (11:30am/12pm) or later in the afternoon (4/5pm). I know these service times are not ideal for those with napping-age children, and I'm sorry for the disruption of this temporary change. Please let me know if you have strong preferences between these options, or ideas for making them more palatable (a pre-church coffee/brunch has already been proposed!). We will provide more details as soon as we have them. And we'll be back at Drew Elementary on January 12.
In the meantime, please join me in thanking God for the remarkable, unexpected, and generous provision of this new relationship with Beverley Hills!
Maryland Small Group and Monthly Service
Finally, I shared about an area of growth and wonder that we have observed in our midst since the last parish meeting, something that was completely off our radar even just 9 months ago. This is an area where it feels like the old structures are being overrun with a harvest that we didn’t expect.
Katie shared:
"In January of this year, we offered a small group in Maryland for the first time, co-hosted by the Hamlin and the Benning families (the only Incarnation people in Maryland). On our first meeting, Elena Benning prayed that this little group would be like a tiny spark that God would fan into a flame.
Within a few weeks the group began to grow as people invited their friends and neighbors. We now have six families who have been meeting together pretty steadily since the spring. They have sometimes invited friends and neighbors, so that the group’s size has fluctuated from about 25 to 30 on a given week. Most of these families are now members of Incarnation, and they serve in every area of our church — music, kids, liturgy, setup/teardown, sound, prayer, and more.
But as early as last Holy Week, we began observing how the distance between Arlington and Maryland challenged our desire for spiritual formation to happen where people live, in their ordinary lives. We saw how many of our Maryland small group members couldn't attend Holy Week services. And although these folks are involved on Sundays, they also can’t easily participate in other opportunities for worship or community that happen outside of Sundays.
From a 'laborers in the harvest' perspective, they also can’t really invite their neighbors to church, even though this is otherwise an invitational group of people who are engaged in their neighborhoods. It’s one thing to drive 30-40 minutes yourself when you are already committed to a church, but it’s another to invite a church-weary neighbor to do that. And finally, it is increasingly tough for our staff to provide pastoral care and opportunities for formation across such a large geographic area."
We've been praying about how to respond to this unexpected growth. Our Lenten discernment had made it clear to us that God wasn't calling us to fundamentally change who we are as a church or how we do discipleship. Instead, God seemed to be inviting us to consider how we could continue to be a church that emphasizes pastoral care, ordinary faithfulness, worship, welcome, and wonder – but across a wider geographic spread than we'd ever imagined when Incarnation was first planted in South Arlington. Responding to these changes was going to require courage, creativity, and humility from all of us.
After much, MUCH prayer, we believe that the next step of discernment in all this is to begin offering a monthly Eucharist service in Maryland, tentatively slated for late January. We have committed a portion of our 2025 budget to this project and are seeking grants to cover that cost, as detailed in the Finance Report. This service will be one Sunday per month in addition to our regular weekly service in Arlington, staffed by our usual pastoral team. Katie Hamlin will lead this project. We are now actively looking for meeting space in the Hyattsville/Brentwood/Mt Rainier general area.
We believe this is how God is inviting us to respond to the unexpected growth we are seeing in Maryland. It will ease the burden of travel on these households, and we hope it will open up opportunities for worship, welcome, and wonder that aren’t currently available.
A few months ago, our vestry read an article that talked about how people who are already Christians will travel a long way for church. But those who are exploring or returning to faith (i.e., the "church-weary") really need to have a church nearby. This part of Maryland is something of a church desert; there is a healthy Anglican church nearby in Takoma Park, but they will be moving into DC in 2025. It seems like there may be opportunities for church-less people to find a home in whatever Incarnation offers in Maryland; but we'll see.
You are probably wondering, will this monthly service become a church plant? And the answer is, we truly don’t know. We only know that this seems like the right next step to be faithful to God’s calling and to the people he’s entrusted to our care. We are stepping out in faith, trying to respond to what God is doing, with a posture of openness and wonder. We are prayerfully curious about what will come next.
But we also know that even if this monthly service does grow into a church plant, it won't happen quickly. As a reminder, I’m taking a sabbatical next summer, so our staff will already be taking on additional responsibilities. We are committed to not burning through our people to make this happen, and our financial resources are tight. But God knows our constraints, and God always provides for the work he calls us to do. We believe he will bless our commitment to continued discernment, to the well-being of our staff, to a balanced budget, and to the flourishing church community we already have here at Incarnation — so we are choosing to trust him with all that lies ahead.
This is all a lot of change to process. And all change, even very good change, carries some sense of anxiety and disorientation. That is normal; the staff and vestry and I feel it too. Throughout the past six months, I have often felt as though God is leading this church into places we have not yet gone and cannot yet see, and without the resources I think we need to go there; much like his sending out the 72 disciples on mission. I believe (help my unbelief!) this is where our life with God is truly found — out past the bounds of our own understanding, our own resources, our own performance or capability. We will be called upon to support each other in new and stretching ways through whatever lies ahead. But Jesus our Good Shepherd has already gone ahead of us; he is faithful and sure, and he will not lead us astray.
We will have a time of Q&A after church on Sunday, Nov 10, so that you can bring more thoughts, ideas, hopes, and questions after you've had time to digest this news. In the meantime, please reach out to me or Katie!
Financial Report
Our fiscal year ended on September 30. We ended 2024 in a much better spot than anticipated, due to a sustained increase in monthly giving since June. Thank you for your generous support of this church! As a result, our year-end deficit was -$39,021 (significant, but much lower than the budgeted -$78k deficit). We supplied this deficit through our cash reserves.
We gave $49,724 toward outreach programs and partners in 2024 ($18,900 of this had been carried over in our outreach fund from previous years). You also gave an additional $26,316 in special offerings for L'Arche Bethlehem (Advent), Rock Recovery (Lent), and Russell's medical recovery. You are an incredibly generous church, and it is a gift to be your pastor.
You can read the full 2024 Year-End Finance Report here. You can also view our 2025 Budget here. In addition to the numbers, these reports also provide context and details for decisions made regarding outreach giving in 2024 and 2025. If you have questions about any of these numbers, please reach out to me, Emily, Gabi, or Jared (contact info listed in the report). And please note that full financial reports are always available upon request.
Attendance
Finally, we reported on attendance. Average Sunday attendance is 96 since the last parish meeting; up from 86 at this time last year, and 76 the year before. That year-to-year growth may sound modest, but you are probably feeling it in ways that the numbers don't quite capture. That's because previous year numbers also included online worshipers; 2024 numbers do not. For the first time in our life as a congregation, we regularly have over 100 people ("ensouled bodies or embodied souls," as David recently preached) gathered for in-person worship each Sunday. This is another area where we are feeling the old structures being overrun, and I welcome your prayers!
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Please reach out as questions and thoughts come to mind. Or perhaps your personal life has enough to manage without worrying about the affairs of the church right now — no matter what's on your mind, I love to hear from you and cherish the opportunity to pray with you.
With love,
as we drink the cup together,
Amy
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