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Dear Friends,
Sixty years ago tomorrow, with the blessing of what was then the Presbytery of Southern Arizona, 82 charter members voted to form a new congregation. The founding pastor, Rev. Richard Ohden, had already been knocking on doors and leading worship for over a year, but on October 31, 1965, Immanuel Presbyterian Church was officially born!
That’s sixty years of gathering around the font and table. Sixty years of listening to sermons (most of them good!). Sixty years of choir rehearsals, potlucks, meetings, Sunday school, mission trips, laughter in hallways, tough conversations in offices, work days, youth group shenanigans, memorial services filled with tears and resurrection hope, and countless ordinary acts of being the body of Christ. Whether you arrived in 1965 or dipped your toe in the water last week, you are part of this unfolding story of what the Holy Spirit has been doing in and through Immanuel. Happy birthday, IPC!
This milestone arrives at a fitting time of year. Here in the Sonoran Desert, many cultures pause to remember those who have gone before us. We are especially grateful for Día de los Muertos, a tradition deeply rooted in Mexican and Indigenous communities. With ofrendas adorned with marigolds, photographs, candles, and favorite foods, families honor their loved ones with creativity, beauty, and joy. It reminds us that grieving can be communal (not isolated) and vibrant (not always somber), and that actively remembering stories is an act of love.
Around this time, some Christian traditions observe All Saints’ Sunday. The PCUSA Book of Common Worship describes it this way:
“Saints’ days began as a way to mark the anniversaries of the deaths of martyrs—their birthdays as saints through the completion of their baptism. By the middle of the church’s first millennium, there were so many martyrs that it was hard to give them all their due. All Saints’ Day was established as an opportunity to honor all the saints, remembered and forgotten, known and unknown. It has been celebrated on or around November 1 since the ninth century.”
“In the Reformed tradition, the emphasis of this festival is on the ongoing sanctification of the whole people of God. While we may give thanks for the lives of particular luminaries of ages past, we also give glory to God for the ordinary, holy lives of believers in this and every age. This is an appropriate time to give thanks for members of the community of faith who have died in the past year, and to pray that we may be counted among the company of the faithful in God’s eternal realm.”
In other words: All Saints’ isn’t reserved for the “varsity squad” of Christians or the celebrities of church history. It’s about ordinary saints whose faithfulness helped make us who we are today—not just those preserved in stained glass, but the living, breathing Jesus-followers with whom we shared life, service, and worship.
As we celebrate Immanuel’s 60th birthday, we stand on the shoulders of those who imagined a church on this patch of desert before a single brick was laid. We give thanks for members who have died in the past year, trusting they are held in God’s eternal embrace. We remember our neighbors’ traditions of honoring loved ones with beauty and reverence. We celebrate God’s faithfulness over six decades. We give thanks for saints named and unnamed who have shaped this community.
And we renew our commitment to join in what God is still doing here today, trusting that the Spirit continues to shape us into saints-in-the-making.
May the One who has shepherded this church for sixty years continue to lead you forward, surrounded and cheered on by “the great cloud of witnesses!”
In faith, hope, and love,
Pastor Bart
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