We are on a Journey!

Watercolor cut outs dance together, full of fun and wonder, they reach for something. I’m reaching for something also. I hope you might reach with me, and perhaps, reach past me and grasp it first. 

Transfiguration is on a Journey this year, and so the name of our parish magazine never seemed more appropriate. We are doing something bigger than we have done since the founding of our church. We are preparing our space for the future of ministry here, a ministry that will outlast our current leadership, and provide a foundation for decades to come. We are also building ministries to fit into that new accessible space. There are many things we want to do with our new space, we want it to be a place for fun, healing and education, for music and fellowship, there is one ministry that we are pouring a lot of energy into right now in particular though: an Early Learning Center that will provide a place of wonder and play for local families.

As we have been creating a mission statement for our ELC, we realized that we wanted to make sure people understood what we were about just by looking at the name of our new center. So we got some help from Jennifer Sanders, a colleague of Sarah Del Rosso, and asked her to design a logo for our new endeavour. The logo we have chosen is printed above for you to enjoy, wonder about and begin to imagine us using in our new work.

Betty Strombom, Michele Maia, Sarah Del Rosso and Amanda Duquete helped us get to this final logo, and we are so excited about what it means for the future journey of our parish. It is playful, it takes inspiration from craft activities, it is full of energy and life, it makes us wonder what those children are so excited about. It is entirely in keeping with our vision for the new Early Learning Center. Please read our current draft of that vision on the following page. Currently we are receiving applicants for a new Director, and we invite you to circulate the advert on our web site to anyone who you think might be a good fit, with the experience necessary to lead this new adventure in parish life. 

Another thing happened as we developed this logo for our ELC. We recognized that we wanted to look at our parish logo again. So I talked to Bill and Michelle, our Wardens, and they gave me the go ahead to discuss a parish logo redesign project with Jennifer. I discussed this with the Vestry at our retreat yesterday, and we are moving forward with this project. 

We love the spiritual journey that our current logo suggests, climbing a hill together towards transformation. We want to make sure we capture the essence of what Transfiguration is in our new logo, so I am inviting you to go to do something for me. Take a photograph of something on the site, or in parish life that really sums up what Transfiguration is for you. It might be a piece of liturgical art, it might be the choir singing, it might be one of the stained glass windows, it might be a feature in our landscaping, it might be a group of children playing. 

Take the photo and email it to me at: matthew@transfig-sm.org with a single word summing up why you think it speaks about the identity of Transfiguration. I will take these photos and post them to instagram/facebook with your name and your word for everyone to see. If you take a photo with people in it I will have to get their permission first before posting, but let me do that bit of admin work. I would love to build up a bank of images and words we can share with our designer to help us create this new logo. We hope to have it finished and in use by the launch of the program year this fall. 

Finally, thank you to Mike Robinson for your work on developing our current logo, and thank you for talking through your hopes and dreams for our new logo with me!

We are on quite a journey this year at Transfiguration, get your hiking boots on and come and join us, reach for the future we are building as a parish with me. Maybe you will get there first!

Love

Matthew+

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