As churches grow, the need for careful strategic planning becomes more important. Many things just happen in a small church; you notice when people are missing, you know each other well enough to understand the needs, and you can welcome any newcomers well. If God blesses a church with growth, it will become impossible for one person to know everyone well, and more than possible for new people to be missed or pastoral needs to be neglected. Structures are needed to do this well, and structures need planning.

Some people like to plan for the future; others just seem to deal with whatever might happen to them. I am a planner. I like to make lists. I like to know what my diary is likely to look like next week, and what major events are planned next month. I realise that not everyone is wired like I am, and the idea of strategic planning to some people seems as interesting as watching paint dry. Yet hear me out: leaders in the local church need to plan for the future.
The local church is not like a company. It would be foolish to measure the performance of a church by the number of new members, for example, when we know that so much is due to God’s work and unpredictable from our perspective. We always need to take into account the fact that whatever we might plan, God might have other plans for us:
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”- 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
 (James 4:13-16 ESV)
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for the future. Traditionally, churches have often added “Lord willing” after their planned events to remind us that nothing we plan is certain; God might have other ideas. We plan to meet together next Sunday, Lord willing, for example. This means that we think we will meet as brothers and sisters next Sunday, but perhaps there will be a riot, a building fire, or maybe Jesus will come back this week.
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All of the blessings of the new covenant are bound up in Christ and represented by baptism, and are received by grace through faith. As Christ preached in the days of Noah, so He preaches in our day to come to Him and be saved. 

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18, NKJV).
Peter begins his letter by identifying himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. His first words in the body of his letter have to do with God’s mercy in Christ and the living hope that is found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter will close his epistle with the benediction: “Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus.” Jesus is the subject and focal point throughout.
So it is no surprise that Peter in addressing our conduct as aliens and sojourners brings to bear an overarching view of Jesus Christ. He offers three vantage points.
Jesus is our redemption and our reconciliation.
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On June 7, the school held its first-ever Pride Chapel event for its lower school, in which Grace Church Schools chaplain Rev. Mark Hummel began the service by sharing a few words on the importance of Pride. Students also learned about the history of the rainbow-colored Pride flag and sat through a reading of “Twas the Night Before Pride” with their parents.

Grace Church High School — a progressive independent Episcopal school in the East Village that charges over $59,000 for yearly tuition — invited renowned New York City drag queen Brita Filter to its sixth annual “Pride Chapel” event for a live performance on April 27.
The event was sponsored by the school and organized with the help of the students and faculty advisers in Spectrum — the high school’s LGBTQ+ support club.
Brita, whose real name is Jesse Havea, performed a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The artist then sat down with the school’s queer director of vocal music, Andrew Leonard, to answer students’ questions about drag performing, queerness and the importance of pride, according to the school.
Video posted on TikTok shows Filter entering the back of the church in full drag, dancing up the aisle in a short-cut orange and blue dress and matching go-go boots as students clapped and cheered him on from the pews.
“I literally went to church to teach the children today,” the performer wrote in the video caption. “A Catholic High School here in NYC invited me to their Pride Chapel. Visibility matters and I’m so honored to have had the chance to talk to you about my work as a LGBTQ+ Drag Queen Activist.”
In another clip of the performance posted to Instagram, Filter — who was a contestant on Season 12 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — can be seen singing a rendition of the classic “The Wizard of Oz” tune, dancing up and down the aisle and up to the altar while students stood and watched.
“Who said you can’t have a drag queen at church? Would you go to this service?” Filter wrote in the post, adding it was a great experience to hear “the beautiful brave queer stories and songs from your students and faculty.”
“I will never forget this beautiful moment,” the performer concluded.
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