Scott’s Column: State of the Church 2025

Here is the text of my annual State of the Church Address, delivered to the Annual Meeting of the Congregation on Sunday, February 9.

We live in difficult and challenging times.  We are experiencing these challenges in our personal lives and our collective life as a congregation.  People are searching for how to make sense of the world, to find meaning and belonging in something bigger than they are.

How do we respond faithfully and effectively?  How do we develop the capacities we need for resilience?  And how do we thrive and flourish?  How do we approach this as a time of opportunity, creativity, and the movement of the Holy Spirit?  What are we doing at First Central to answer these questions?  How are we doing at answering these questions?

This is my fifteenth Annual Meeting as Senior Minister here at First Central.  And I feel great joy and confidence in saying I experience the congregation at one of its high points—strong, healthy, and vital.

Look at all the baptisms.

Or the growth in the choir—church choirs across the country are not growing.

Or the ever larger number of kids we see participating in worship, Sunday school, and all our events.

Plus the new families of kids attending and participating—churches across the country are not growing in young families with kids.

Or ending the year in the black.

While undergoing so many remodeling projects at once.

And the many volunteers carrying out those projects.

Or the number of new visitors, especially those who keep coming back.

And the growth in new members this year.

I’ve been saying it for years now, since we began bouncing back from the pandemic, that this church is doing so well we ought to celebrate every day.

Read through the annual report and see everything that’s happening.

But also see how intentional the activities are at addressing all those questions I started with.

We’ve focused on community and relationship-building, nurturing a sense of belonging, and mutual care, all of which responds to so many of the needs in our congregants and the wider community.

We’ve developed more intergenerational opportunities for kids and adults of all ages to interact, play, learn, and fellowship.  These activities are vital in addressing our human well-being.

We’ve focused on building skills and capacities around emotional awareness, diversity and inclusion, spiritual practices, leadership development, and social justice.

We’ve had in-depth explorations of major topics that help us in meaning-making.

Our attention to governance in the last year has been for the purposes of cultivating leaders and developing best practices as we live into our mission and our commitments.

Our worship draws from our traditions while embracing creativity in order to uplift our spiritual and humane values.

We offer a place where you can come to rest and restore from everything that occupies you during the week.  While also being a place where you can reflect on what is going on in your life and in the world with other people of goodwill.  While also being a place where you can learn what you need to be more effective in all the other aspects of your life.

Our kind of church—inclusive, curious, authentic, relational—is needed right now.  People need a community where they belong, that helps them make sense of the world, where they are encouraged and inspired and cared for, and where they can engage in collective action to address the problems of the world.

Yes, these are difficult and challenging times, but they also create an opportunity for us to truly help people and fulfill deep human needs.

Let us celebrate how God has worked through us this last year, and open ourselves to how God will use us in the year ahead.