More Than Enough

From the moment we wake up, we are bombarded with messages to perform. Be more productive. Be more informed. Be more mindful. Be your best self. Our culture puts an incredible burden on us as individuals to fix ourselves and, somehow, to fix the world.

It’s a lonely and exhausting way to live. We feel the full weight of the world’s problems on our shoulders, and can’t help but be overwhelmed by the knowledge that our individual strength is never quite enough.

What if the way forward is found not in perfecting what we have in isolation, but in offering it to be multiplied within a community called to love, serve, and help heal a broken world?

A Community That is Transformative

At All Saints Sharon Chapel, we believe the deepest form of community is transformative. It’s a place where we move from being a collection of disconnected individuals into a single, unified Body.

This transformation is at the heart of our worship. We listen to our shared story in the Scriptures. We pray for a broken world. And most profoundly, we gather at the Eucharistic table. It is here that we are reminded of our truest identity. When we receive the Body of Christ in the form of bread and wine, we hear the ancient call to "become what we receive."

Our "Amen" is our commitment to that call—a promise to live as the Body of Christ, participating in the healing and redemption of the world.

From Belonging Flows Our Strength

We stop being isolated individuals and start belonging to each other in a new way. And from that deep sense of real connection flows our collective strength.

This is where the miracle of the loaves and fishes becomes our story. We often feel like we have so little to offer against the world’s great needs—just a few loaves, a couple of fish. But we bring these small gifts of our time, our energy, and our passion to the altar. And here, our humble offerings are taken, blessed, broken, and shared, becoming more than enough to feed the community and do the work we are called to do.

This is how our belonging becomes action:

• It leads us to the work of reparations, not because we have all the answers, but because the Spirit calls us to offer what we have to this work. So we are helping to found the Northern Virginia AAHGS chapter, leveraging our collective energy to restore the stories of those whose histories were intentionally erased.

• It calls us to be stewards of the very land we inhabit, recognizing its complicated past. Our ministry of stewardship extends across all 4.5 acres of this wooded, biodiverse ecosystem, including our historic Sharon Chapel cemetery and memorial ash garden. So we offer the full measure of our gifts to this work: the talent that secured a grant for restoring native plants; the time and energy of our community in hands-on care for the grounds; and the treasure that sustains this commitment for the future. Through these gifts, we leverage our small patch of earth to be a place of healing, remembrance, and renewal for all of creation.

• It moves us to nurture the spiritual lives of our children in a loud, distracting world. So we offer our dedication to our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program, collectively creating and maintaining a sacred, quiet space for the children of our parish. And like the loaves and fishes, this offering has been multiplied. What began years ago with the seed of a diocesan Mustard Seed Grant has since grown into a recognized training center, a place where we can share this beautiful way of nurturing faith with the wider church.

An Invitation to the Work

We are not a community that has it all figured out. We are a community committed to the messy, faithful work of showing up, listening for the Spirit, and acting together.

If you are tired of feeling small and disconnected in a big world, we don't offer easy answers. We offer a place to belong, a community to practice with, and meaningful work to do. Come find your place with us, and let's discover what the Spirit is calling us to do next, together.

Join us for worship this Sunday at 8:00 or 10:30 AM. The work is ready, and there’s a place in it for you.