As you will recall, when I started this article it was about the characteristics of a Vibrant Parish. Our Patriarch and Synod of Bishops have called our entire Church to think about what it means to be people who are excited about our faith and feel called to bear witness to God’s revelation about human life through the Person of Jesus, the Christ. To this end I continue to present ideas in the bulletin about certain things: Spirituality, Worship, Scripture, Doctrine, the WAY, and the meaning and purpose of human life. All of these are a part of what I have termed our Call to Holiness. I believe that people who understand that they are called to holiness, will bear witness to God and work to make His Kingdom real here and now.

All the things I have shared so far have meant to help people become aware of their vocation to bear witness to God’s presence in our world. We cannot do this if we haven’t realized that we are called to holiness, that is a personal relationship with our God which is built on a real and personal relationship with others who are, in God’s Kingdom, our brothers and sisters. We learn this, in the beginning, within the context of our family.

We continue this growth, hopefully, in the context of our parish family. And then finally, we learn this in the context of the society in which we live. Each on the contexts in which we learn how to be God’s children provide us with certain challenges. Remember, it seems that human growth is only brought about when we effectively learn how to manage the challenges that life presents.

God’s call to holiness must, eventually, result in our involvement in the broader context of the society in which we live. Now one of the problems we face as an Eastern Church is that while our worship space is       located in one community, most of our members reside in different communities. This is our challenge.