Welcome to Christ Episcopal Church

I’m an unrepentant data nerd. I spent 16 years working as a public policy researcher and analyst, and during my career there was nothing I liked more than having a data set to play around with.

It even bleeds over into my personal life. When I started running again in 2012, I started keeping a log of how far I went each day – and 14 years later, I’m still taking careful notes. For the record, I just hit 17,000 miles. In short: I find numbers endlessly fascinating.

Some numbers, though, are more helpful than others. For instance, I don’t think Jesus ever said, “Go forth and build up your ASA” – your “Average Sunday Attendance”. Don’t get me wrong, having people show up at Christ Church is important. It’s hard to disciple people if they’re not in the pews or our Parish Hall on a Sunday morning. And we need financial support to pursue our mission of changing the world through loving God and loving our neighbor. But attendance and membership and financial information is seductive in large part because it’s so easy to track. Go to the national churches website, and you can find this information for any parish in the country for the last ten years.

And that makes it easy to forget that the mission is the most important thing. In the Gospels, Jesus calls his followers to love their neighbors, promote justice, feed the hungry, and care for those who have been pushed to the margins or just been plain forgotten. Time and again, Jesus speaks about preaching the Good News to the poor and setting the captives free. In his ministry he taught us, by word and example, that mercy and service are the highest priorities in the kingdom of heaven. As apprentices of the Master, we are to do as he has done. The reality is that when we live out the Gospel – the Good News that Jesus has overcome sin, death, and the devil – we touch countless numbers of lives each week. We have the potential to impact nearly every person in and around Red Wing. And that number matters far more than attendance, membership, or finances – as important as all those things are.

One of the things I like best about being at Christ Church is how we punch above our weight. Our ministries — our coat shed, our Tower View food shelf and clothes closet, and our support for Hope and Harbor (just to name a few — bring healing, hope, and love to more lives than many churches two or even three times our size. In the end, what we’re doing is what Jesus has called us to do—to share a treasure called “the Gospel”. As we spend time this summer letting many of our ministries lie fallow so that we can rest and refresh ourselves, the question we need to be asking ourselves is – as disciples of Jesus, how can be share this treasure with even more people in this work who are desperately in need of it? Blessings,

~ Pastor Aaron

Thank you for sharing your worship with us. 

May the peace of God fill your heart and mind, and the Blessing of God Almighty—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—be with you, and remain with you, always.