For ten years after college, I lived in New York City, where I put in sporadic appearances at Park Avenue Methodist Church. It was another cavernous structure, and while I got to know the minister, I don't think I ever met another soul there.

In 1979, my husband and I moved to Summit. Again, I tried the Methodist Church, but I still felt lost in the crowd, so for a time, I limited any further churchgoing to my visits to Texas and The One True Church. At least it made my grandmother happy.

Then children came along, and my husband said, "You know, the boys should get some religious education. That'll be your job."

And a friend of mine said, "Try Christ Church. It's really different. I think you'll like it."

It was different all right. For starters, it was small—cozy even. And in one of the first sermons I remember, the minister, Allan Tinker, hung a pendulum from the rafters and let it swing from one side of the apse to the other, back and forth, throughout his sermon. He was demonstrating some principle of physics that I no longer remember, but I'll never forget that pendulum. At another service, the entire hour was committed to a dramatic presentation by The Illuminators. Another week, we did nothing but sing hymns. And I thought, "This place is different."

But what impressed me most was the communion service. At The One True Church, we filed solemnly, row by row, down the aisle to the front altar where we were served by the two ministers. It never struck me as anything more than a snack before lunch. At Christ Church, everyone crowded together around the table, singing: "Let us break bread together," "Let us drink wine together," "Let us praise God together." Lots of focus on "together." And suddenly, for the first time in my life, I connected the concepts of "communion" and "community"—that whole idea of being together—working and worshiping together. At that first communion service, I looked around at the crowd; I saw the handful of people I already knew, and the ones I didn't know but who seemed happy to share this moment of community with me, and I was overwhelmed with a feeling I can only describe as gratitude.

So over the last 17 years, whenever we've celebrated communion, I've been acutely aware of how much my sense of community has grown, as I added one name after another to those I knew:

• Frankie Shaner, who was happy to share a pew with me even though I had a two-year-old who slept every week in my lap;

• Bill Kellogg, who helped me teach a Sunday School class of unruly third graders;

• Jean Fellows, who introduced my son Will to the magic of bell ringing, and Wayne Bradford and Mary Campbell and Squire Knox, who nurtured that talent in the Jubilation Ringers;

• Margie Bultman and Dave Bunting, who first worked with me on the Property Managers Board;

• Vivien Hardy and Dave Graepel, when I served on the Executive Board;

• Cynthia and Terry Baker, who taught me about Family Hold Back when we were running out of food at the Advent Workshop;

• Dennis Bushe and Sarah Rosen the year we shot past our goal in the Stewardship Campaign;

• and last night, I added Patty and Steve Caputo, who graciously opened their house for the progressive dinner.

So what does Christ Church mean to me? It means community—a community of spirit, a community of support, a community of people who want to make a difference. And every year, as the number of familiar faces around me grows, I know my cup runneth over.

Now, I'm not up here just to tell you how far I've come from The One True Church. I'm also here to help out the Stewardship campaign. Of all the jobs I've done in this community of Christ Church, the hardest one was the Stewardship campaign. Those people work their fannies off trying to figure out how to coax a few more wallets open so we can keep doing the things that make this place hum. It turns out that "community" and "communion" are from the Latin words for fellowship and mutual participation. So please participate, and be generous when you fill out that pledge card. The community cannot survive on spirit alone.