Annual Theme

Each September during Homecoming worship, AHCC clergy reveal the theme they have carefully and prayerfully discerned will guide worship, programs and events for the program year (September – June). These themes are meant to offer people both focus and freedom; it focuses the community on a common vision while at the same time gives each person the freedom to explore what God is revealing to us as individuals.

From Generation to Generation

The theme for the 2025-26 program year is “Dusting Off The Pages.”

As we turn the page to begin a new program year, we invite you to join us on a spiritual journey we’re calling “Dusting Off The Pages.”

This year’s theme is more than a clever phrase – it’s a call to rediscover the power, poetry, and presence of God in scripture. Not by taking every word literally, but by taking every word seriously. Together, we will explore sacred texts not as static relics, but as living invitations to compassion, justice, curiosity, and transformation.

Too often, the Bible has been used as a weapon – twisted to exclude, control, or condemn. But we believe it is time to reclaim its heart. Beneath the layers of history and translation, beyond the culture and context of its time, scripture still sings with God’s liberating love. The pages may be old, but their wisdom is alive – if we’re willing to dust them off and listen anew.

This year, we’ll ask bold questions, wrestle with ancient stories, and look for where the Spirit is still speaking. We’ll honor tradition without being bound by it. And we’ll trust that God’s Word becomes flesh – not just in a book, but in how we live, love, and serve.

Whether you’ve read the Bible cover to cover or haven’t cracked it open in years (or maybe even ever), you are welcome at Asylum Hill Congregational Church. Let’s open the pages – literally and metaphorically – and see what new life is waiting there.

Some past themes have been “From Generation to Generation” (2024-25) as we leaned into our predecessors and our legacy; “To Know and Be Known” (2023-24) focused on the need for connection; “On Earth As It Is In Heaven” (2022-23) as we endeavored to bring about God’s vision for us into the world; “Making All Things New” (2021-22) which comes from the Book of Revelation and tells the story of John’s apocalyptic prophecy; “For Such a Time As This” (2020-21) inspired by the story of Esther, a young Jewish woman who finds favor with the king, becomes queen, and risks her life to save the Jewish people; and “Wading Into Deeper Waters” (2019-20) from the book of Isaiah and the promise that God is with us through trials and difficulties.