Friends,
What a joy it will be to welcome you back this Sunday for the beginning of the 2026-2027 church year at First Church in Salem. After a summer of rest, study, and planning, I’m eager to be back together worshipping and learning, building community, and working for justice! We will kick off our church year with the theme, “Faith Like a River.” In addition to being appropriate for water communion Sunday, it strikes me as a meaningful metaphor to carry us through this year. Like a river, we are a community with a deep and powerful history that has provided spiritual nourishment to people for centuries. At the same time, this community has never been static. Like a river, it flows and adapts and takes on new shapes—always ready to meet new challenges and respond to changing times. As we get ready to celebrate our 398th year as a worshipping community, can the image of a river help us find ways to honor our past while we chart our course for the future? I can’t wait to explore these ideas together!
A few important housekeeping items as we begin the church year:
Water communion: This Sunday we will celebrate Water Communion. We will combine water from our individual lives into a shared vessel and then will use that water throughout the year for blessings, child dedications, and other rituals of community care. So bring some water with you to church on September 13th. It can be from a summer trip, a place that’s special to you, rain collected in your garden, or even your kitchen tap! It is simply a way to represent our individual journeys and how they come together to make up the collective life force of this congregation.
Fellowship: For the month of September, we will have community fellowship hour. This means members and friends are invited to bring a snack to share and help clean up after. We welcome elaborate dishes! We welcome buying a pack of oreos and putting them on a plate from the kitchen when you get to church! We welcome showing up empty handed and enjoying what others bring! Seriously. There will always be coffee, tea, and lively conversation. Everything else is an added bonus. We hope to begin weekly Fellowship sign-ups in October.
Our dedicated fellowship chair, Alicia D. is taking a much deserved step back this year. Committee chair turn-over is really healthy for a church. It gives newer folks a chance to bring fresh ideas and allows the departing chair to share their time and talents in different ways. We’re looking at filling the fellowship coordinator role in creative and collaborative ways (perhaps in the context of a new committee). If you enjoy feeding people, welcoming guests, planning fun events, keeping lists, or generally creating a sense of community, send me a note! If you need inspiration to volunteer, you can read about my love for fellowship hour in this blog from last year.
Pastoral Care: Many of you have asked about the best way to let me know about pastoral care concerns, ask for prayers, or share important life events and milestones. You are always welcome to e-mail me or set up an appointment directly. But this year, thanks to the wonderful Pastoral Care Team leadership of Pat S. and Debbie S., we’re adding a prayer and pastoral care request form. An electronic copy is available here (and the link will always be accessible on our website and in the e-news). There are also paper copies and a secure drop-box on the desk outside my office.
I imagine this is only the beginning of many such updates this year. As I meet with the Standing Committee, committee chairs, and others, I feel a real sense of imagination, commitment, and can-do spirit heading into the new year. There is so much good work to do together. I hope you’ll join us!
In faith,
Rev. Danielle