 Hello, Massachusetts Rhode Island and Connecticut UC Sears. It's a joy to greet you today. I'm Sarah Drummond, Dean of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School. My name is Ian Douglas, and I am the Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. My name is Stephen Ray, and I'm the President of Chicago Theological Seminary. Greetings, friends, and blessings. I'm Sue Phillips, and I'm a co-founder of Sacred Design Lab. This is Bishop Jim Hazelwood from the Lutheran Church here in New England. I am the Reverend Dr. John C. Dorhauer, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. I'm Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean of Boston University School of Theology. Hello, my friends, in the UCC Church. I'm Doug Fisher. I'm the Bishop of the Episcopal Dioces of Western Massachusetts, and I am so blessed to share a ministry with you. In John chapter 11, we hear of that wonderful story, that miraculous story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. In the Gospel of John, we learn about the story of Lazarus, who had died and was bound up with bandages and placed in a tomb lovingly. But then Jesus came to him and woke him up from the sleep of death. And as Lazarus came out of the tomb, he had to be unbound before he could walk again. Jesus says to the crowd, unbind Lazarus. Jesus said, take off the grave clothes and let him go. Narratives that we rehearse to one another of decline and diminishment have simply got to stop. You are messengers of life to the Church. If we have resurrection around us, are we willing to take off the bandages? Or do we want to stay in the tomb? Lazarus is unbound and what appeared to be many of us as the decaying rot of a dead body is simply the pause of a body in need of new breath and new life. And the question is how are we going to respond and live into it? What we have to learn how to do is to liberate all of what we're great at for repurposing in the modern world. UCC's mission and message are more alive now than they ever have been. And so in the untie of those bonds from Lazarus, we untie the bonds that others feel in their lives. Jesus invites all of us as Christians to be unbound, to be unbound from those things that hold us back from living the life-giving gospel of Jesus. We're a future-focused tradition, constantly reexamining our call in light of the current generation and looking to the next horizon for how we can love more, care more, and heal more, especially with those who most need love, care, and healing. So I invite you to be set free to a world of creativity and collaboration. Unbind your Lazarus. You members formerly of the Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut conferences now together as one. We can do what Jesus did, feel our feelings, lick our wounds when we have them, and then get busy bringing about new life. I invite you to be unbound, be free in the gospel of Jesus to serve God's mission of restoration and reconciliation in the world. We have a profound responsibility to ensure that our part of the Commonwealth, our part of the world is maintained so that all indeed may benefit from whatever it produces and whatever it brings. Now is the moment when you are shouting the Holy Shout. Come out Lazarus. Unbind the body. It is not dead. New life, new breath, new vision is breathed into it. Then may the Holy Spirit send you forth from your time together to breathe that new life into a world desperately in need of it. May it be so. The world needs you my friends and know that I'll be cheerleading right alongside you as you learn how to do that. God bless you.