A MESSAGE FROM THE REV. J.C. AUSTIN: A DAY OF GRACE
I think I’m right in saying that Friday is the only “Day After” holiday that we celebrate in the United States. Some other countries, particularly those with ties to Great Britain, have Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) or Easter Monday as public holidays, but not here in the United States.
No, the Day After Thanksgiving is the only one, and while it is 
not a federal holiday, it is so widely given as a holiday by state governments and employers that it might as well be one. In recent decades, of course, it has come to be known as “Black Friday” by retailers eager to jump-start the Christmas shopping and get their ledgers “into the black” in terms of turning an annual profit, and that has become so competitive that Black Friday has started to colonize Thanksgiving Day itself with midnight or even pre-midnight super sales on select inventory.
But long before that, the Day After Thanksgiving was simply a holiday of grace, creating a four-day weekend that is perfect for short family reunions and celebrations (and eating through the leftovers of the Thanksgiving meal!). I want to encourage all of us to reclaim something of that original grace of the Day After Thanksgiving and enjoy this day as a kind of Sabbath, wherever you may find yourself, and continue to give thanks for the good things in our lives with which God has blessed us.
One of the things I have been most thankful for in the past year has been the mission strategy work we have been doing as a congregation. It is only slightly more than a year since the Session and Trustees came out of a transformative officers’ retreat with the conviction that we as a congregation needed to both expand and deepen our missional impact in our community, and utilize our church property as an extraordinary resource for doing so.
Not long after, the Session created the Missional Strategy Steering Committee, comprised of both Elders and Trustees, to explore the possibilities and best opportunities for doing so and come back to the Trustees and Session with recommendations. I am deeply thankful for the amazing work that Steering Committee has done in the past year, and especially for the leadership that Donna Taggart, Don Robertson, and Lindsey Altvater Clifton have contributed so faithfully and well in these efforts.
If ever there was a proof of God’s hands at work, it’s in the development, in less than a year, of our twin initiatives (check out the new webpage at fpc-bethlehem.org/campus-vision) to transform the utilization of our existing facilities and our wider church property to achieve a level of missional impact in the community that we simply have never had before.
To that end, I want to urge you all to attend the next Community Meeting that we will be having on Tuesday, November 28, at 6 p.m. in Fellowship Hall. This meeting will focus on hearing a report from the City of Bethlehem about affordable housing, an in-depth engagement with the results of the community survey we’ve conducted, and opportunities for discussion, questions, and feedback on all this.
It’s important that we have a strong turnout from the congregation not only so that you can make sure your voice is heard, but also to be in conversation with our neighbors about all these possibilities, as well. There will pizza provided for dinner, so you don’t need to worry about that. This gathering will also be livestreamed on our Facebook page and website.
I hope you all have a happy and blessed Day After Thanksgiving, and I look forward to being with you next Tuesday!
Grace and Peace,
J.C.