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Incarnation’s Life Together Doesn’t End at Noon on Sundays
Incarnation’s Life Together Doesn’t End at Noon on Sundays
We invite you to learn about our church's small groups and ministries, both those that enrich our community life and those that do outreach in the broader community. Our congregation is small in numbers currently, but stable, generous, and engaged. If you would like to know more about any of these groups, please send an email to: Administrative Assistant Catherine Daligga, admin@incarnationannarbor.org, or to the specific group contact person listed below.
Meeting the Needs of Our Church and its Members
Meeting the Needs of Our Church and its Members
Many people work to nurture our building and grounds, our members and friends, and our spiritual life together.
Building and Grounds Committee (First Thursday of the month, 1:00pm)
Jim Paul, jamescalvinpaul@yahoo.com
The committee tends to the care and maintenance of the building and grounds. In all we do, we are committed to green/sustainable solutions. We also focus on the safety and comfort of all who enter our space. There is always work or larger projects to be done. We would greatly appreciate having a couple more members who can help with the physical work of maintaining our infrastructure and grounds.
Children's Ministries
Children at Incarnation are invited to join Sunday morning youth programming, which takes place during the worship service in our youth room each Sunday morning, beginning at 10:30am. Programming ranges from a youth reflection time at the beginning of service, to arts and crafts, stories, and other activities appropriate to children's development and questions. Our children's ministry seeks to be a space where all know that they belong, and is welcoming and affirming of our children's experiences and wonders. For more information, please contact Pastor Donna Lockhart, Priest in Charge: pastordonna@incarnationannarbor.org
Choir (Sundays at 9:30 a.m.) Brian Buckner, Music Director, bebuckner@gmail.com
Our choir is an eclectic ensemble. In alignment with the church's broader mission, we explore a variety of musical styles and vintages from "down-home gospel" to "high-church hymns," with everything in between. We celebrate the beauty of other cultures from around the world, incorporating music from other parts of our global family--singing in other languages at times--and also love to express our faith through finding spiritual connections in pop music as well! All levels of experience are welcomed; you just gotta want to sing!
Creation Care Committee (meets as needed) Catherine Daligga, cdaligga@gmail.com
The Creation Care Ministry (CCM) connects members of ECI to local and global movements for transformative environmental and social justice. We believe that addressing the climate emergency requires creation of a world-wide culture promoting mutual care, respect, and interconnection of all beings rather than one based on exploitation and extraction. We sponsor and support public actions and engagement as we seek policy and program changes in every possible arena. We focus our activism on water protection and water affordability for all communities to honor our obligations as residents of the Huron River and Great Lakes watersheds.
Finance Committee (Second Thursday of the month at 2:00pm) Michael Steer, Treasurer, msteerECI@gmail.com.
A group to support the work of the Treasurer, helping to oversee financial processes, provide checks & balances, and looking to the future, while maintaining confidentiality and appropriate reporting.
Hospitality Ministry Hilary Hefferlin, jaahjh@aol.com
Ever gone to visit a church and find there is no one there to greet you, no one to direct you to the place of worship, or no one to tell you where the bathrooms are located? Our Hospitality Ministry does all those things on Sunday mornings and more. The Greeter receives people at the door and assists those differently abled or needing help. Welcome Table Attendants provide information and go out of their way to make newcomers feel welcome and members feel warmly received as well.
Meal Ministry Barbara Steer, barbarasteer@gmail.com; Beth Vermett, BethVermett@gmail.com
Meal Ministry is an informal ad-hoc group of people helping with all things food: providing meal support; food drives; helping with our potlucks; pantry stewardship; helping with FedUp Ministries and more.
Men's Group Jerry Walden, jswalden@umich.edu
Contact Jerry for more information about the group.
Pastoral Care Committee (Third Thursday, 11:30am) Michael Steer, michaelrgt@gmail.com
The Pastoral Care Committee works to identify and support Incarnation's members who are struggling with illness, economic stressors, or other issues.
Prophetic Path (Wednesdays at 7:00pm) Hilary Hefferlin, jaahjh@aol.com
The first half of each gathering is spent sharing about our lives and what is on our hearts that evening. The second half is spent in lectio divina, reflecting on scripture, poetry, or other writings to listen for holy inspiration.
Publicity Dawn Wolfe, wolfedawnr@gmail.com
Finding ways to share the word about what Incarnation has to offer, standardizing our message across various platforms.
Solidarity Open House (Wednesdays 5:30-7:00pm) Catherine Daligga, cdaligga@gmail.com
On Wednesdays, we hold 5:30-7:00pm open for community gatherings in our Social Hall. We often have special speakers or activities, but sometimes it is simply a time available for anyone to come to chat and chill.
Spirituality Discussion Group (Alternate Mondays 1:30-3:00pm. ONLINE) Pat Gurin, pgurin@umich.edu
We are a group of people who share our journeys of beliefs, practices, and perspectives. Some of us consider ourselves Christian; some don't. We are not a reading group. We discuss topics that emerge through our relationships with each other and through sharing our lives for several years. We welcome new members who also want to gather with others who are open and inclusive of many points of view.
Stewardship Development (Third Thursday of the month at 2:000m) Hilary Hefferlin, jaahjh@aol.com
We help highlight how ECI people utilize our gifts of time, talent, treasure, and time together. We coordinate an annual pledge drive to help support the ongoing work of the church. This allows the Vestry to come up with a realistic budget. Stewardship is the utilization of all our resources intentionally to help meet our goals, and in alignment with our values. It includes the time we give in service to others, the talents we use to bring wholeness to our neighbors, and the money to use to help heal humanity's wounds.
Vestry (Third Tuesday of the month at 7:00pm) Dawn Wolfe, Co-Warden, wolfedawnr@gmail.com; Vickie Wellman, Co-Warden, macwellman1@gmail.com
The Vestry operates as the church’s board of directors. They meet monthly to discuss church business and make decisions on everything ranging from equipment repairs/replacement to major building enhancements to determining goals for the church. Leadership roles on the Vestry include Senior Warden, Junior Warden, Secretary, and Treasurer. Vestry members serve three year terms.
Worship and Music Committee (First Thursday of the month at noon) Pastor Donna Lockhart, Priest in Charge: pastordonna@incarnationannarbor.org
This committee works with the pastor in the enhancement of the Chapel appearance for our weekly and special worship services and programs. It exists to be a resource to the pastor in the creation of bulletins the development of socially conscious and responsive liturgies and engaging and transformative music experiences. The Worship and Music Committee is also tasked with having ongoing conversations with the congregation that helps us to ask and answer the questions: "What serves us well in our worship at Incarnation? What do we wish to change? How can our worship further our commitments and values?"
Youth Advisory Committee
Youth Ministry at ECI is in a space of rebuilding. We give thanks for Leah Barson and Rick Boyd, who have led youth programming in this last several years, along with several volunteers. We hope to soon hire a 10 hour/week youth ministry coordinator, who will be responsible for engaging and leading Sunday morning programming alongside our youth volunteers. Our youth program emphasizes relationship-building, interfaith experiences, and community service. Our youth ministry strives to live our progressive values and offers a space where youth will be able to recognize and understand the challenges of life and our world and how spiritually-rooted responses can serve them and their families. For more information, please contact Pastor Donna Lockhart, Priest in Charge: pastordonna@incarnationannarbor.org
Working for Justice - Related Ministries
Incarnation has been actively engaged in justice outreach since our inception. Below are some of the community groups we’re involved with. They are focused on issues around social and environmental justice. If you would like to know more about any of these groups, please send an email to: Administrative Assistant, admin@incarnationannarbor.org, or the specific group contact person listed below.
FedUp Ministries (fedupministries.org) Barbara Steer, barbarasteer@gmail.com
FedUp is a food truck in Southeast Michigan. FedUp serves good, healthy, food truck style food with dignity to communities that are food insecure and economically exploited by unjust racial and economic systems in the United States. Founded by an ELCA pastor, FedUp seeks to blur the lines between faith and food justice.
ICPJ (Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice) (www.icpj.org) Vickie Wellman, macwellman1@gmail.com
Mission: ICPJ empowers our communities, people of faith and congregations, mutual aid groups, network organizations, and individual volunteers, to make radical systemic change with love within Washtenaw County and across Michigan.
We do this by building capacity to:
center racial, economic, and environmental justice;
create spaces for co-learning, healing, conflict resolution, connecting with others, and collaboration; and
move between work to educate, mobilize, and organize with a focus on coordinated systems-level change.
Nicaragua Project Lorrie Douglas & Marshall Thomsen, ladouglas11@gmail.com & thomsen.marshall@gmail.com
The Nicaragua Project has provided assistance to El Puente, a group in Catarina Nicaragua working to develop jobs in their community. Our organization was started by members of Incarnation, but was spun off as an independent charitable entity. Currently, half of the Project Board members have ties to Incarnation, and half are other community members. We are presently winding down this program.
Poor People's Campaign (poorpeoplescampaign.org)
In 2018, The Rev. William Barber helped launch a new Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the inter-connected evils of systemic poverty, racism, militarism, and environmental devastation, as well as to create a new moral agenda for our country. In May of that year, 25-30 members of Incarnation were involved in a 40-day campaign of protests in Detroit and Lansing. In January of 2019, we organized a day-long summit to address how we can best challenge the racial and economic caste system in Washtenaw County and we have been working on ways to do that ever since.
Restorative Justice
In our first year as a congregation, we decided to focus our outreach on criminal justice reform. Over the years this has taken many different forms, from sponsoring prisoner organizations like the National Lifers of America and Hasta to leading Bible studies in the Women’s prisons to doing major educational programs like Teach-Ins to organizing the Washtenaw County branch of the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative (MPRI). In response to the success of the MPRI program the Department of Corrections cut our budget by 60%, so some of us decided to focus on working to build a restorative justice system in our county. This led us to help launch a group called Friends of Restorative Justice (FoRJ). FoRJ is responsible for restorative justice being centered in the recent campaign for county prosecutor, and its current priorities include: working to pass state legislation to make restorative justice an option for all crimes everywhere in the state; working to establish a restorative justice center in Washtenaw County; and continuing community education around restorative justice.
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