This video was included in the August 9, 2024 edition of First Light. Read the transcript.
Greetings First U! Rev J here, with my first First Light message. And the title of it is, “I’m Here!”
Yes indeed, I got to Toronto, Canada, last week, and this week is my first week officially on the job, and I don’t want to minimize, by just saying those two words, of what it actually took for me to get here.
So first of all, I want to acknowledge the perseverance and patience of the Interim Minister Search Committee, and I also want to acknowledge Tanya and Chris, your co-chairs, who are not just working out the details of negotiating my contract, but also with the immigration process, and what it took to get me across the border. So thank you for your hard work and perseverance there.
And as I mentioned, I officially started this past Tuesday, and the first person—the staff person that I met with initially in order to process my paperwork was Mary Anne, who is absolutely a wealth of information, so thank you for that onboarding experience and making me feel like I wasn’t necessarily drinking from a fire hose, but rather, thank you for sharing information with me as if I were a sponge, just waiting to absorb all the juicy bits.
Now, over the next month or so, I’ll be doing some more onboarding and training, so I really appreciate your patience, because on the one hand, I really want to get to know you better, and your specific area and passion of ministry, and on the other, I want to focus on as good of a start up and a beginning as possible.
So, I promise to do as much connecting work as possible this coming fall, and again you’ll be hearing about so many exciting opportunities for us to meet one-on-one, or to gather together in social events, and for you all to connect with each other, and, who knows! I could probably pay you a visit in your neighbourhood as I begin to explore Toronto more, and the Greater Toronto Area more, and we have opportunities to meet your friends and neighbours as well.
And we are also working on figuring out creative ways in which we could gather together for worship services on Sunday mornings, in person, in addition to our first
Sundays at Nia. So please be on the lookout for that, First Light is gonna be your go-to place for ways that we communicate this information to you, so please, please, read that religiously, every pun intended.
If you want to know more about me in the meantime, please feel free to check out my website, jonipher.com, that has my bio in there, and also a couple of sample sermons that I’ve given in the past, and for now, speaking of sermons, I hope you continue to enjoy Reilly’s thought-provoking and heartwarming services online.
And, before I leave you, make sure to mark September 8th on your calendar. That’s when we’re going to hold our homecoming service, and that will be my first time on the pulpit, that’ll be my debut to you all, and it’ll also be our water communion Sunday. I look forward to our adventures together, and as quoted in the end of the movie Casablanca, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
