Annual Gathering
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To the delegates, visitors, and vendors, young adults and youth, clergy and lay and staff, children and grandparents, neighbors and friends, to all 132 churches of the Southern California/Nevada Conference, you are invited to gather together June 20 and 21 for our 2008 Annual Gathering!
I am very grateful to our hosts, the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Glendale, to our Annual Gathering Planning Committee, to our conference staff, and to all the volunteers from around the conference who are stepping forward to weave together a spirit-filled time for us this year. In this year of transition as a conference, it will be a great joy to strengthen the ties that connect us together in covenant as we renew old friendships and are blessed by new ones. We will be filled and nourished and inspired with food and music, preaching and storytelling, fellowship, fun, and even by the business meetings, as we are given the privilege of looking forward to our conference's mission in this region in the future.
I encourage you to plan to come, and to bring a friend. Your story is a part of our story. Our conference continues to change and grow in the rich diversity of God's beloved creation, and God's grace gives us the opportunity to build a strong community in the midst of our unique congregations, in order to continue to share God's love and peace and justice and hope with all our world. See you in June!
In Christ's peace,
Rev. Petra Malleis-Sternberg
Conference Moderator