Taking the Momentum from 2025 into 2026 by the Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Girata

A Message from the Rector, the Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Girata

This past year—2025—has been a remarkable experience for me. When I put this past year in context with 2024, I’m amazed by some of the engagement growth we’ve experienced. I’m an eternal optimist, always looking at what is possible and truly believing that we can build a better future. But I think I’m a specific kind of optimist. I heard a speaker once describe himself as a “rational optimist,” and it was like a bell went off in my head. That’s the combination of two specific traits that I find resonate in me most of the time, and I want to share a bit of that with you.

As I said in the opening, this year has been remarkable. We can certainly define remarkable as a vibe. Week in and week out, I’m stopped by people who love our church and tell me about a good experience they’ve had in worship, in a class, in interactions with other members, or serving in the community. Those good vibes are critically important to the momentum of a community, especially a church, and I love to feel the pulse of goodness all around.

Yet the remarkable nature of this year is not just a feeling. Being rationally optimistic also means that objective measures matter. As Former Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, once said in a talk here at Saint Michael, “In God we trust, everyone else bring data.” I could not love that sentiment more, so I’m here to bring you some data.

As I write this, we are less than two weeks away from Christmas Day, which means there are three weeks left in 2025. When I compare data from the first 49 weeks of 2025 to the first 49 weeks of 2024, some good news emerges. I wish we could measure dozens of data points objectively, but there are three specific data points we measure weekly that show growth and engagement trends that I think you will find both inspiring and objective: worship attendance, Sunday offering totals, and Sunday class attendance. Let’s take each one separately.

WORSHIP ATTENDANCE

Sunday worship attendance is defined as simply as it sounds: How many people are physically present in our Sunday worship services. This number does not include those who stream our worship services online, although we do track that number and it increased in 2025. This number does not include extra services throughout the week that are not part of our Sunday worship offering. In the first 49 weeks of 2025 compared to the same weeks in 2024, we’ve experienced a 14% increase in worship attendance.

SUNDAY OFFERING TOTALS

Sunday offering total is also as simple as it sounds: How much undesignated giving is received in our Sunday offering plate. This number does not include any giving that is designated to a particular end, such as payment against an annual pledge or support of an outreach initiative. This number is only the amount of money given in our Sunday offering plate that is for general support, given especially by visitors. In the first 49 weeks of 2025 compared to the same weeks in 2024, we’ve experienced a 19% increase in our Sunday offering.

SUNDAY CLASS ATTENDANCE

Finally, Sunday class attendance is like worship attendance: How many people are physically present in our Sunday classes. This number includes all ages, from our youngest members in Godly Play, to all adults in the four regular weekly tracks, as well as any special offerings such as baptism preparation. The data in this measurement is truly eye-popping. Obviously, the new education space has made a wonderful positive impact in our Sunday class attendance, but I was blown away as I tracked the numbers throughout the year. In the last half of 2025 compared to the same weeks in 2024, and correcting for the weeks in 2024 when we couldn’t hold class because of construction, we’ve experienced a 135% increase in our Sunday class attendance—that’s more than double!

I find this data, coupled with the really good vibes we experience each week, to be remarkably heartening for the future of our church. If all we had was good vibes and good data to indicate growth, that would be good enough. However, I certainly don’t need to remind you that we’ve spent the entirety of 2025 under construction! The growth we’ve experienced in 2025 is despite the inconvenience of construction in the core of our campus. Even when people are walking around the outside of our building to get to worship and again to get to classes, we’ve experienced very healthy growth.

Now, with all that great data established, I want to pivot to the new year. As with every new year, we have the opportunity to consider who we are and many of us choose to set new goals for ourselves. In my experience, those goals or resolutions can often be highly ambitious. Whenever our goals are a bit too ambitious, we will struggle to remain committed. So this year, I encourage you to consider a goal that is directed at your spiritual health and well-being, and is one that challenges you enough to grow, but not so much that you can’t stick to it.

This year, I want to encourage you in two ways: First, with prayer, and second, with service. Prayer is key to who we are as disciples of Jesus. Prayer centers us on God’s presence and on our giftedness. I’ve spoken at length in my Bible study many times about the function of prayer. One central idea that often shocks people is when I say that prayer is not primarily for God, prayer is for us. The reality of prayer is that we never inform God of something He doesn’t already know. Rather, when we pray, we commit and submit ourselves to God. When we pray, we are moving our hearts and minds closer to God’s presence, and that habit shapes us in profound ways over time.

In addition, giving of our time and talent in service is critical for our spiritual health. We can talk about our faith all we want, and we can even take actions for our own good, but until we focus our gifts through acts of love toward others, we do not become the active disciples Jesus calls us to be. We are made to love, and love is an action. Just as we encouraged you to commit to service last fall, we continue to encourage you now. If you haven’t made a commitment to service in 2026, now is the time. There are many ways to serve through Saint Michael, both inside and outside our community, and now is the time to make it happen for you.

This year will bring our church so much joy, and it will be a privilege to share it all with you. That we can build on the momentum of 2025 makes it all even better. Happy New Year to you, and may God continue to bless us all. And may we have the courage to be part of the work that makes tomorrow even better than today.