Happy Summer, St. Luke’s,  
 
Summer’s official start date is today, June 20!  For many, summer starts when school lets out and the rhythm of the week changes, maybe even slows down for a bit with a different pace. Not around here!  We just got started!  Already, we’ve held theater camp, preschool camp, two mission trips and one that leaves on Sunday for our middle schoolers, we are hosting Camp Windermere for the summer, Vacation Bible School, and believe it or not, our staff just planned the Fall Kickoff for Sunday, August 11!  (Mark your calendars now!!).   
 
This week marked the celebration of Juneteenth!  On June 19, 1865, Freedom finally came to all enslaved black people when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. That day the last 250,000 slaves in the southeast were told of their freedom, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Bishop Tom Berlin has sent a challenge to all Florida United Methodists to spend this time between Juneteenth and July 4th learning about our freedom.  He invites us to embrace this as an opportunity to “foster a community of informed people, committed to make a difference and uphold the values of justice, unity and freedom”, by spending time reading important foundational documents of the United States:

• The Constitution
• Washington’s Farewell Address
• Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
• Frederick Douglass’s powerful speech,  “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”

You can watch his challenge video here. I think this is a great challenge for all of us as we seek to understand one another and seek to live our values of acceptance, hospitality and community as our superpowers. The reality is, when we start to become more of the beloved community God intended, where we accept and welcome others who are different than ourselves…it gets tough sometimes.  This is why we always state our values in a particular order because the next superpower that needs to be embraced is discipleship. Truth is, when the going gets tough in living in true beloved community, disciples dig deeper!  I’ll see you at 9:30 and 10 as we look at our next superhero of the faith who teaches us about how to dig deeper and use our superpower of discipleship to help us live into God’s call to create a beloved community.

I can’t wait to see you Sunday – whether on campus or online!  Because Summer and St. Luke’s are not the same without U!

Jenn.

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