This is a picture of First Congregational Tucson early in my tenure here in the Southwest Conference.
On Saturday, we gathered as a Conference to dissolve the church. It was a sad, celebrative day. A day in which a church's history was recounted with pride and dignity. A day when tears were shed - some of them in grief, some of them in joy.
Mission partners were present to receive gifts from the proceeds of the sale of the property: HIV-AIDS support networks, relief agencies for Somali refugees and Zambian orphans, Camp scholarships, and new church starts - among others.
Cakes were cooked from recipe books published by the church in 1909.
Names and faces and stories attached to them emerged throughout the afternoon.
A courageous former Missouri Synod Lutheran preacher came back home to the church that was first willing to receive her ministry: the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper.
If you want to see more, go here and see how a very good photographer captured images that tell a deeper story about the day. His images reveal much.
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