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Message From The Pastor

Together we closed out the Season of Easter with our 47th Annual Chicken Teriyaki Bazaar on June 1st. There were several changes this year - we had community tables and asked them to volunteer in order to reserve their space, time schedules for prep changed, we restructured the organization of the event, and this was the first year that our chair of at least 20 years, Marge, wasn’t officially the chair. Although she did still help out quite a lot. There were some surprises along the way that invited us all to really step up and, considering we implemented foundational changes this year, CTB went impressively smooth and was successful, also despite the cold, overcast weather and the morning street closures due to Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon.

There’s always something great happening in the city and every year our CTB contributes to the richness of SF! Every year, our faith community and the volunteers contribute.

This year, 10% of CTB’s net proceeds will be divided among the 4 community groups that were present and gave their volunteer time just to build and deepen connection with us - API Equality Northern California, ASPIRE, National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns (NEFFCON NorCal), and Network for Religion and Justice for API LGBTQ people.

It isn’t just about money. This is a one-time contribution to these groups as a symbol of our intention to delve into these relationships this year. Each of these organizations has a church member already connected to them. We hope that this contribution to their organizations helps our shared work in social justice for API LGBTQ people, Filipinos here and abroad, and API undocumented immigrants.

Although the objectives of these community groups may differ, ultimately they speak of the same purpose - the rights and dignity of people. Pentecost is a time when people of different languages, culture, and understanding came together in proclaiming the same thing - our presence, all of Creation’s presence, in God. God is in diversity and diversity is in God.

Stepping out of the season of Easter, we begin heading into Pentecost - a time when we reflect on and take up the intention to recognize the ways that the Holy Spirit descends into this world. For some of us, the connection and movement of the Holy Spirit is more obvious at huge events like CTB, but this is a time when we are invited to see the potential of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the everyday moments and things - including our everyday relationships that we may sometimes take for granted.

For regular Sunday worship goers at Pine, it’s come up several times, and more often as CTB approaches, the question of why the CTB crowd do not show up the rest of the year. I hope that we reciprocate our presence to these folks the rest of the year, as well. I realize many of them are family members whom we see outside of church on a regular basis, but I hope they are being affirmed as people of God’s collective light regularly somewhere, if not at Pine. And maybe Pine can be that space where we learn together how to affirm God’s light in different ways, at least on a weekly basis.

As we wind down and recover from the joy and busy-ness of CTB, may we all remember that the Holy Spirit has moved through our faith community and how we, as community and as individuals, continue to be called to follow the Spirit’s movement in concrete, practical, and life-giving ways. May we see Pine as a place of renewal and restoration for all people, no matter when or how often they come through our doors. And let us also reflect on deepening relationship with one another, that the Holy Spirit’s movement resound even louder, in our diversity, through these connections.

Pastor Jeanelle