Thank you!

Dear friends and members of the Waterbury Congregational Church,

It is hard to put into words the various swirling emotions I had and still have about last Sunday -- above all though, gratitude. Thank you for taking the time to mark this 25th anniversary, thank you for the kind words and the gifts and above all for your presence. It was a day I won't soon forget.

I do find it hard to believe I've been here 25 years, having never previously lived in any one community for more than 10. It is good to put down roots. It is good to have worked through the problems anyone encounters who tries to put down roots. I am grateful to you for your patience of me as a young preacher 25 years ago and now as an old one who still wants, even publicly to work things out (sometimes with less than stellar results) about about the most important matters. I will forever be grateful to you for the way you embraced me and my family with so much care and concern after my 2010 illness. I am grateful for the way this church is so beautiful and proud and the way, at the same time, our doors are open to anyone.

In short we've done this together. Our celebration last week (and even the week before) is about a mutual ministry, one which could not be done without the other.

Love, Peter