Recognition Sunday – Easter 5

This weekend we’ll recognize some extremely important people. At the 9:00 service, we’ll recognize our 10 graduating high school seniors: Jewel Allred, Rena Gray, Audrey Griffin, George Mercer, Chris Mewing, Ryan Ubl, Caroline Schmidt, Trevor Tankersley, Cameron Washington, and Rachel Wilson. You may not recognize all their names, but you no doubt have seen these women and men around Transfiguration for years. They have served as acolytes, lectors, choir members, outreach and formation volunteers, babysitters, and youth leaders. This is a fantastic class of seniors, and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to recognize and pray for them on Sunday morning.

Then, between our two services, we’ll gather in Roper Hall to recognize dozens of extraordinary volunteers in our music and formation programs. We rely on a huge corps of dedicated people to teach all our formation offerings for kids, youth, and adults. These folks spend many hours during the week preparing, show up early, stay late, and teach their guts out. And they do it because they love it. They love this church, our people, and the opportunity to help others grow in this beautiful faith we share.

And the same is true for our music program. Kim and Chris Ahrens skillfully guide our three choirs for kids – Holy Family (grades 1-3), Canticle (grades 4-7), and Youth Choir (grades 8-12) – but the excellence of our choirs depends on the dedication and involvement of all the choristers. In this day and age of extremely busy kids, we mustn’t take it for granted that families choose to make the church choir a priority. So we’ll say a big thank you!

I hope you’ll come this weekend and share in this act of recognition. It’s been an amazing year in our formation and music ministries, so it’s good to pause, look back with gratitude, and honor those people who made it all possible.

See you this weekend.