Linda Fitzgerald, Worship Associate

Kevin Mathie, Music Director

In the theologian Rheinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer, he wrote about three things: the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Niebuhr wrote it as a petitionary prayer but I’m I’ll set that aside as I present a series of sermons, beginning with this Sunday, talking about the three main elements of the message. As this is my first sermon with Emerson, it is the beginning of the year – a year that finds us confronting many potentially anxiety-producing scenarios – and this month’s theme is “renewal,” Sunday’s sermon will be about the serenity to accept the things we cannot change in the context of new beginnings.