Dear beloved community,

With the coming of the new year, I hope you’ll join me in looking forward with optimism for Emerson’s future.

I understand that might not be your first instinct, given that we’ve had several difficult years, with the passing of Mark, Becky’s retirement, hurricanes, and COVID. Plus, churches of all kinds across the country are steadily losing membership. So it could be easy to fear that Emerson’s best days might be behind us.

But I think that Emerson has great opportunities ahead of us.

Our first reason for optimism is our finding Reverend Ed, our wonderful new minister. He has entered his second year with us, and that’s significant because as one of our members recently told me, the second year is when new members start to show up. So that’s great news and something to look forward to.

Our second reason for optimism is the tremendous financial gifts we’ve recently been given. These generous donations will give us the opportunity to try new programming, enlist new support, and find new resources. We can do more now to engage and inspire our existing and new members. We have a chance to reverse the trend.

With that in mind, we will have some new and exciting initiatives in the coming year as we revitalize Emerson.

Two major new initiatives:  Emerson’s board has created a Leasing Committee to help us better use our fantastic property to generate more income for our important work as a church. If you’ve got enthusiasm for the idea of helping us connect with potential new tenants, please reach out to me, even if you don’t have real estate experience.

Emerson’s board has also created a Belonging Committee. To quote from the charter, this committee is responsible for “continually enhancing and elevating church programming and … creating an inviting, attractive, and dynamic environment that meets the spiritual, social, and communal needs of its members.” If that sounds like fun to you, please let me know.

In addition, we have a couple of subcommittees that we’re helping to recruit for:

• One is an Aesthetics Subcommittee attached to the new Belonging Committee. This group will spruce up, tidy up, and beautify every surface and corner of Emerson in order to make the most of our beautiful campus. Please reach out to me if this sounds like your wheelhouse!
• The second subcommittee is a Latecomer’s Committee. We’re looking for folks who are willing to spend half the service in the Gathering Place for those visitors who sometimes arrive 15-20 minutes late. Please reach out to the Membership Committee if you’re interested!

Let’s all look for ways to make Emerson look and feel revitalized, and please share your ideas with me and with our wonderful committees so that we can all work together to realize them. Please feel free to send me your suggestions at president@emersonhouston.org so that I can bring them before the board as needed.

Thank you, and happy new year!