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DiggThe Art of Sending
A letter from the Rector of Trinity Wall Street, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper.
What does your parish bulletin board look like?
In visits near and far, I’ve noticed that every church has one. The bulletin board is as common as the prayer book, but decorated with pictures of new Habitat houses, disasterrelief centers, and letters of gratitude from mission partners.
Yours might feature the homeless shelter down the street, or a refugee camp across the world. In this blessed variety, we frame the documents of the Church’s mission. Taken literally,“mission” means “to send,” and that ubiquitous bulletin board wonderfully expresses the outward outlook of the Church, which we all share.
If we brought all the Church’s bulletin boards together, what would the picture look like? Parishes, linked together, have the power to change the world in ways great and small. We convene for worship, and from that worship we hear the call and find the energy to be sent into the world as God’s glad partners.This is the heart of our existence as people engaged in the life and work of the Church.
In some sense, that universal, church-wide bulletin board already exists. Our job is to see it, to understand it, and to keep tacking those pictures, maps and letters to the board.
Faithfully,
The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, Rector
