St. Lydia's is an important part of my life. It is where I work, and where I find God. I learned I love to sing at St. Lydia's. I learned to massage my kale with oil at St. Lydia's. When we meet in person someone cooks a big meal and we eat outside in the garden with the food on our laps. The eucharist is rosemary ciabatta. We clean up together; we hug again.

St. Lydia's is in some ways, a church for people who have fled other versions of Christianity, which fills it with diversity, despite the Lutheran stamp. It is also a church that not only welcomes me as a Jew, but thanks me specifically for my perspective, and sermons on the Hebrew Bible.

I didn't expect to attend a church, or to work for a church. I will always be Jewish. I just can't imagine a God that cares so much about labels. St. Lydia's is my community and just as it loves me, I love it. Right now it needs money.

I'm asking you, friends and family, to give $18, which is, chai, life in Hebrew.