All Saints’ Sunday

On Sunday, November 5, your church will celebrate All Saints’ Day, both a festival of the wider church and our anniversary celebration. 

In 1968, the churches of All Saints’, Concord and St. James, Kannapolis held their individual congregational meetings and separately voted to merge into one congregation beginning January 1, 1969, with the plan to acquire land and build a new church at the border between Concord and Kannapolis. The site was mutually inconvenient for parishioners from both towns. All were grateful for the creation of Branchview Drive, which made it much easier to access!  

The merger was a bold move for the churches, which served two different towns, each with their own distinct heritage. Both towns had a population under 20,000 and both have increased five-fold since then. It is easy to forget in 2023 as the boundaries between these towns slide into one another, that there was a fierce rivalry between these two who were both convinced that they were the best place in Cabarrus County. 

And it was fierce. People from the two churches may have been physically worshipping together, but it took many years for them to become one congregation. I wonder if one reason All Saints’ today is so passionate that “All Are Welcome” is because they had to work hard to make it a reality after the merger. 

All Saints’ today offers many different expressions of community, all grounded in making Jesus’ Great Commandment “To love God and Love your neighbor” tangibly present. Over the years, we have found that gratitude born of God’s great bounty builds a community where each person can feel valued and supported. Participating in this community of faith counters the cultural message of scarcity. Here possibility and generosity come together and then overflow into the wider community.

There are many ways we will celebrate both our church and the saints among us on All Saints’ Sunday. In worship, we will remember those who have gone before and give thanks for their legacy of love. We will also place our “Estimates of Giving” on the altar, remembering that everything we have comes from God, who wants the best for each of us, and all of us. At 10 AM, between the services, we will have a time of celebration for the gift of this congregation and one another. 

Remember to set your clocks back one hour Saturday night, and I look forward to seeing you for All Saints’ Sunday!

Blessings,

Nancy+