Our pastor, Abby Norton-Levering:
Abby came to Glenmont Community Church in February of 2008. She is a graduate of New Brunswick Theological Seminary and is married to Bill Levering. They live in Niskayuna with their cat and ferret. Abby plays fiddle and knits for fun when she is not working.
Abby likes to be out and about visiting with folks, so you won't often find her at the church, but she'd love to meet you. So give her a call or email her at pastor@glenmontchurch.org to make an appointment to have coffee.
Abby likes to be out and about visiting with folks, so you won't often find her at the church, but she'd love to meet you. So give her a call or email her at pastor@glenmontchurch.org to make an appointment to have coffee.
NEWSLETTER ARTICLE FROM PASTOR ABBY, August 2009:
Dear Friends,Last year on one Sunday morning, I handed out crayons and paper to the children of our congregation and I asked them to draw pictures to illustrate what they thought church was all about. When I gathered up their drawings, I was surprised to see that they all decided to draw pictures of items in the sanctuary: the communion table, the baptismal font, even the hymnbooks and Bibles in the pew. One young lady carefully and accurately drew a picture of one of the banners hanging in the sanctuary. It’s a cheerful felt banner, of multi-colored flowers that are growing from seeds, and in between are the words: “GOD’S LOVE”. I was struck by her choice and asked her what she thought the banner meant. Without much thought, she gave me an amazing answer. She said, “well, all the people here in church are the flowers, and we’re all growing in the dirt of God’s love.” (True story! This was one of those moments that made me feel really happy to be a church pastor.)I’m not going to over-analyze the young lady’s remarks to you. But this week I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it is that one of our youngest members could summarize what we believe at Glenmont Community Church.This leads me to talk about our new mission statement. Last winter, while we were in the process of meeting and talking about our plans for the next few years, our congregation agreed that our old mission statement just wasn’t compelling enough, and that we needed a new one. So this summer a group of volunteers started working on the project. We prepared by talking to other GCC members. We collected ideas. We studied other churches’ mission statements. We read up on how to write one for ourselves. We talked for hours. We pondered our past, present, and future mission. We considered many thoughts, phrases, and words that might be included in our statement. We prayed together for God’s Spirit to guide our work.We knew that we didn’t want our statement to be long and wordy, but we also wanted to make sure it was comprehensive. We wanted our statement to describe who we are already, but we also wanted our statement to lay out a challenge for our future. We wanted our statement to be Biblical, while at the same time written in language that’s simple to understand. We wanted our statement to be easy to remember, so easy that any member of the church could rattle it off without looking it up. We hoped that anybody who had studied the mission statement would be able to do as the young lady did, and summarize what Glenmont Church is all about.At long last, after two meetings and emailing and informal conversations and internal meditation, we finally boiled everything down to a small statement. We agreed that our mission is:
to share God’s love in the community
with open arms, open hearts, and open minds
The GCC management team approved this mission statement unanimously at our August meeting and agreed that we would include it in our publications and our worship materials. So look for this statement to start appearing in church and around town!“Sharing God’s love in the community with open arms, open hearts, and open minds.” It’s a pretty simple statement to come out of all that work. But simple is good in this case. What matters now is what we think it means, and where we go from here. What do you think our mission statement means? What does “sharing” mean? What does “God’s love” mean? Where and who exactly is our community? What does it mean to you to be “open”? How are we going to carry out our mission? Lets talk about it. I’d like to hear what you think.One final challenge to you all: the first ten people who from memory are able to recite our new mission statement to me will receive a special prize!
Your Pastor, Abby
February/March 2009 NEWSLETTER ARTICLE FROM PASTOR ABBY:
Dear Friends,
This month I learned something very important about Glenmont Community Church (Reformed). I learned it as I was watching parents hug their children and listening to children laugh at the church Bowling Party last week. I learned that together as a congregation, we need to have more fun.
More fun? Some of you might be wondering, is it okay with the Bible to have fun? Are we Christians supposed to enjoy ourselves? We read the papers and watch the news on TV, and we see that the world is a hard place, full of danger and inequality. Sometimes I cry when I read about children mistreated, the natural world in danger, and wars that seem to go on forever. Why should we bother about having fun?
In contemplating this question, I remember that simply because a great deal of pain and suffering exists in the world doesn’t mean that it is God’s will that God’s creatures suffer. As Christians we believe that God is working to bring a new Kingdom into our world, a reign of radical justice and radical peace that trumps all passing sorrow. Though the Kingdom of God is not fully here yet, God gives us many good gifts that can help us face the troubles that life inevitably brings.
This doesn’t mean that we have the right to hoard our happiness as if it belonged to us alone. We are commanded to share our joy with others. We do need to have more fun, so that we are strengthened in community to serve the world.
Fun is good. Joy is a precious gift of God that should be nurtured and appreciated, not squelched. So lets do our best to have fun, to hug our children and laugh with them. Then lets take that joy out into the world.
Your Pastor, Abby
Dear Friends,
This month I learned something very important about Glenmont Community Church (Reformed). I learned it as I was watching parents hug their children and listening to children laugh at the church Bowling Party last week. I learned that together as a congregation, we need to have more fun.
More fun? Some of you might be wondering, is it okay with the Bible to have fun? Are we Christians supposed to enjoy ourselves? We read the papers and watch the news on TV, and we see that the world is a hard place, full of danger and inequality. Sometimes I cry when I read about children mistreated, the natural world in danger, and wars that seem to go on forever. Why should we bother about having fun?
In contemplating this question, I remember that simply because a great deal of pain and suffering exists in the world doesn’t mean that it is God’s will that God’s creatures suffer. As Christians we believe that God is working to bring a new Kingdom into our world, a reign of radical justice and radical peace that trumps all passing sorrow. Though the Kingdom of God is not fully here yet, God gives us many good gifts that can help us face the troubles that life inevitably brings.
This doesn’t mean that we have the right to hoard our happiness as if it belonged to us alone. We are commanded to share our joy with others. We do need to have more fun, so that we are strengthened in community to serve the world.
Fun is good. Joy is a precious gift of God that should be nurtured and appreciated, not squelched. So lets do our best to have fun, to hug our children and laugh with them. Then lets take that joy out into the world.
Your Pastor, Abby