Pastoral Letter for November 2025

"The foreigner who resides among you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” 

-Leviticus 19:34

Dear Keystone Beloved Community,

I am still “walking on air” after our wonderful Day of Discernment on November 2nd. I was particularly struck by the fact that each and every one of your stories reflected the same theme: coming together as a community to work to enflesh the realm of God’s justice. Whether it was Barbara reminiscing about John running the carpet sweeper, Marilyn remembering the way everyone built the wheelchair ramp in the back, numerous stories of working together at the Sacred Heart Shelter, putting together the Festival of Hope, or marching together at dozens of protests and demonstrations over the years, it was clear to me that every member of Keystone knows and cherishes our collective “why.”

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and our collective Why is more pertinent than ever as we witness the cruelty of our federal government. Last Monday, I attended the multi-faith convening on migrant solidarity, where leaders from the Church Council, Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice, WAISN, CAIR-WA, Faith Action Network, and Intercommunity Peace & Justice Center made clear that this is a moment to be firm on the values our religious traditions share – to welcome the stranger, to care for our neighbor, and to treat others with dignity. 

I know that Keystone will do everything we can as a small but mighty community to support our neighbors who are threatened with violence and imprisonment, and who live in fear during this season. Keystone is now a partner with the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, and our members will be attending accompaniment and rapid response trainings over the next few months. We hope as many people as possible will participate in the next rapid response training over Zoom on December 10th – details to follow. Book Club will move to the 17th to accommodate the training. We will also partner with Living Water, our sister community in the building, to offer support to families at Casa Latina over the holidays. These families are in need of groceries and household items, and will be sending their “wish lists” to us. 

Thank you for everything you have done, and everything you continue to do, to live as ambassadors for God’s realm of peace, justice, and kindness for all people.  Thank you for supporting me at my wonderful ordination last month. I am proud to be your pastor.

With love 

Rev. Adina

Pastoral Letter for October 2025

We plant the seeds of the Kingdom here,

And we trust that God will bring them to fruition,

That God will bring about a new heaven and a new earth,

A world where justice and peace will reign forever.

-Bishop Ken Untener

Dear Siblings in Christ,

First of all, I must apologize for not starting our Bible study last month – we will start it after my ordination/installation on October 19th, and after the Day of Discernment November 2nd, which are both just around the corner. Time is flying by this fall, as we approach one of my favorite days, which used to be called Christ the King, and now is sometimes called Reign of Christ. This holiday, celebrated on November 23rd, marks the end of the liturgical year – it is the Sunday before Advent, which comes on November 30th this year. (On a side note, please do join us for that Fifth Sunday joint service, when the cantor choir will sing Advent songs both old and new.)

The Gospel readings from Luke, as we move towards the end of the liturgical year, focus on this concept of the “Kingdom of God,” as Jesus calls it. This coming Sunday, we will hear Jesus speak the famous words reminding his disciples that the Kingdom of God is “in your midst,” or “within you,”  or “among you,” depending on which translation you read. We may find the word “Kingdom” as outdated and distasteful as we find the phrase “Jesus is Lord.” Especially nowadays, when we hear most American Christians using dominator language to describe Jesus, we tend to cringe and want to change the language to something like “Kin-dom” or “Realm of God” and change the word “Lord” to “Love.”  These are wonderful and appropriate sentiments, but we should not forget, as we witness the hegemony of the white supremacist, misogynistic, militaristic cult known as Christian Nationalism in our country, that during the time of the Romans, saying “Jesus is Lord” would have gotten you killed by the imperial government. It is a radical statement of resistance to empire.

This past summer, Pastor Alfredo Lopez of Downey Memorial Christian Church in Los Angeles confronted ICE agents in his church parking lot as they were arresting a man there. He asked for their identity and if they had a warrant. Not only did they refuse, but they pointed their rifles at the pastor. When Pastor Lopez told them they were on church property, the masked agent responded, “This whole country is our property.”

My siblings, this is why the authors of the 1934 Barmen Declaration in Germany proclaimed Jesus Christ as their “One Lord.” In response to the rise of the so-called “German Christians,” who “took the union of Christianity, nationalism and militarism for granted,” these pastors, theologians, and other church members resisted by writing a confession of faith which rejected the false doctrine of the German Christians. I encourage you to read the document in its entirety; here is just one passage:

“As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.”

The concepts of “joyful deliverance” and “free, grateful service” lie at the heart of the celebration of the Reign of Christ. As we prayerfully approach the end of the liturgical year which proclaims that Jesus Christ as the head of our church, we call out the lie—and the sin—of Christian Nationalism. We proclaim the peaceful realm of God, in which all people are welcomed and protected, where all have food and shelter and safety—a realm of justice, of love, and of deep community and communion with each other, with the earth, and with our loving Creator. May we continue to work together for collective liberation, to bring about the freedom and joy which enfleshes the Kingdom of God among us. 

With Love and Blessings,

Pastor Adina

Keystone Pastoral Letter

“You are exactly what God had in mind when God made you.” -Greg Boyle

Dear Keystone,

I spent the month of August traveling in Iceland and Ireland, and boy, am I glad to be home! I love the routines of fall: gardening, cooking, and of course preparing worship in what has  come to be called “Ordinary Time,” even though it is anything but ordinary. In this season, as we prepare to celebrate the end of the liturgical year with a day that acknowledges the Reign of Christ in and through all things, we can celebrate our Mission Statement: “Keystone Church proclaims the good news that God’s realm is in our midst.”

As a congregation, we continue to speak out against the disastrous misappropriation of Christian language into a violent theology that supports the current regime. As individuals, we continue to live into God’s Realm through our individual ministries and missions – gathering socks and hygiene supplies, political organizing and campaigning, registering voters, demonstrating in solidarity with those who have been put in harm’s way, writing letters on behalf of incarcerated people, and much more. 

Our first Day of Discernment celebrated the many gifts of Keystone: our work for justice and inclusion, our warm and welcoming community, our inspiring worship services. We also discussed some challenges we face: a shrinking and aging population, a building that requires increasing maintenance, a decreasing interest in attending church. In response, I created the “Welcome to Keystone” video which highlights our strengths. The leadership team also sent out a survey, asking about priorities. For our second Day of Discernment, which will happen November 2nd after the worship service, I invite you to send me questions to ask the congregation. These questions will guide our discussion of Keystone’s future.

Over the summer, the leadership team and I read the book A Little One Shall Lead: Small Congregations Create New Ways of Being Church. A number of themes emerged from this project studying small congregations like ours: “small is good” was one! Others were highly engaged laity, celebrating the gifts of every person, and church as “home.” If you would like to read this remarkable book in preparation for our second Day of Discernment, please let me know; I will have several copies to borrow in the office. 

As you know, Keystone has no “committees.” The community sets and carries out the agenda for justice, inclusion, supporting our neighbors on the margins, and creating the sacred space for our worship services. The community has, in the past, organized the Festival of Hope, the central event in Keystone’s year, raising money for important community and justice-centered organizations. As our population shrinks and resources dwindle, the question presents itself: are we content to continue with this model? Or do we have something else in mind? If so, what? These are some of the topics that may generate questions for our next Day of Discernment.

Several folks requested a Bible study with the Pastor, so I will be offering that on the third Wednesday of each month following our regular lectio divina. Many thanks for that suggestion – I always love diving more deeply into Scripture, and we will decide together how to proceed at our first meeting on September 17th. I hope you will join me!

Until then, I send you love and blessings.

Pastor Adina

Pastoral Letter Summer 2025

Dear Keystone,

“Let us not grow weary in doing what is right.” (Galatians 6:9) This exhortation, which Paul uses in his closing of the letter to the church communities in Galatia, is easier said than done. At this time when our news feeds are full of pictures of emaciated children, videos of our neighbors being kidnapped and disappeared, and stories of politicians and millionaires breaking the law with impunity, it can be easy to grow weary. Capitalism, the domination system, the consumer culture all thrive on isolation and overwhelm, leading individuals into weariness and feelings of powerlessness.

The antidote to weariness lies in community. We reach out our hands to one another, welcoming one another with extravagance, courage, and unconditional love. We follow in the steps of Jesus, our friend, who showed us the way to create a new humanity beyond the small divisions which can wear us down.

Keystone is a small community, and we find strength and power in our connections with other small communities in a web of care: St. Paul’s and Prospect UCC – our tri-church sisterhood; the communities that share our building, the Seattle Taiwanese Christian Church, Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community, the Seattle Peace Chorus and the Seattle Labor Chorus.  We now host Wallingford Indivisible and other resistance groups. We also remain strongly connected to the Faith Action Network, Nueva Trinidad in El Salvador, and of course the Justice Leadership Program. The early Christian communities that Paul established were each unique, but connected by the same web of care. At one point in his letter to the Galatians, Paul mentions that the “O.G.” Christian community in Jerusalem had approved of his preaching the Gospel to other diverse communities, as long as they all “continued to remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10).

Of course, some communities were regarded with suspicion, particularly the Galatians, who were – as I told you a few weeks ago – considered to be barbarians by the Romans. They struggled alongside other gentile and Jewish communities to stay true to the Way of Jesus in the face of the domination and brutality of Rome, which included the requirement to worship the Emperor as a God. In the face of persecution, Paul encouraged them to avoid dissention, bitterness, and dividing into factions - or worst of all, falling back into the cult activities of Rome. In his letter, Paul begs them to live by the Spirit, and to remember the Cross of Christ, which gives them a common identity and true unity in their differences.

In her book, Christianity After Religion, Diana Butler Bass writes that we are in the middle of what she calls a “Fourth Great Awakening,” times in which “old patterns of religious life gave way to new ones and, eventually, spawned new forms of organizations and institutions.” Like Bass, I believe that Christianity can and must evolve from its tribalism and dogmatism into a vibrant community of faith where “all will be one in communion with God, in harmony with the cosmos, loving each other.”

I believe this was Paul’s vision as well, which is why I will be preaching a mini “summer sermon series” on Paul’s letter to the Galatians in August. I hope you will enjoy diving deeper into this short but incredibly influential letter.

Blessings

Pastor Adina

Pastor Adina’s Letter for the Season of Pentecost 2025

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our tender fragility, in our struggles as we wait. We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Herself intercedes with sighs too deep for words?

-Romans 8:26

Beloved Keystone Community:

I was deeply honored and humbled to hear that you have called me to be your Designated Pastor for the next two years. I especially cherish the fact that you had your congregational meeting on the day of Pentecost! Since Keystone is still in a state of transition, I believe this is the perfect way to continue our relationship. I have loved being here over the past year, and as the song says, “We’ve only just begun!” 

I am looking forward to spending more time with you, in worship and study, in action for justice, and as we discern more about Keystone’s future. We are small but mighty! This summer, I have invited the leadership team to join me in reading the new book, A Little One Shall Lead: Small Congregations Create New Ways of Being Church. In it, the authors relate “encouraging stories of congregations that – despite limited worship attendance and financial resources – have outsized community impact with their ministries.” Keystone could probably have written at least a chapter of this book, if not the whole thing! I am also excited about the new book club selection, The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr, which Matthew and I are reading aloud to each other.

On July 10th, I will have my ordination interview with the PNC Committee on Ministry. I am hoping that, because of the call you have offered me, I will be able to be approved for ordination in the United Church of Christ. My gratitude is overflowing. Please keep me in your prayers during this important time.

Later in the summer, I will be sending out a follow-up survey to reflect on our first Day of Discernment and to ask you for your detailed thoughts about Keystone going forward. You will have the option to answer anonymously, so you can say what’s really on your mind.

In the meantime, for the next ten days, I will be on a silent contemplative retreat. I brought the Keystone directory with me so I can hold each and every one of you in prayer. I am overjoyed to serve as your designated pastor for the next two years, and I know the Spirit will be with us all as we continue to deepen our relationship.

With Love and Joy

Pastor Adina