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January 28, 2007
I think it's safe to assume that the Chair of our New Member Ministry, George Kittredge, would not view our Gospel this morning: "Flogging, Dragged before government officials; Family members betraying you, even to the death" as a user-friendly welcome for our visitors to being a Christian at St. Paul's.
But, as we have learned, faithfully taking to heart and soul our Baptismal covenant with God and each other: 'to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being' has cost us members and money. The most recent news accounts, reports that two of the largest parishes in Virginia are going to court to try and leave the Episcopal Church, with its financial resources and property. Reasons given: the actions of General Convention, four years ago, to confirm the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as Bishop of New Hampshire, as well as the blessing of same sex relationships.
It is difficult to see life-long Episcopalians leave their spiritual home. I am thankful to several of you who I know struggle with these issues and have remained here as part of this faithful community. You embody core Anglican principles of being open-minded, tolerate ambiguity, mystery and paradox that lead to new and greater truths. We, Episcopalians, do not pretend to know the mind of God; instead we try our hardest through prayerful worship to discern what God is asking of us.
I believe God is asking us to be a prophetic church, grounded in the incredible, all-inclusive love of Christ that reveals the spiritual truth about recognizing, blessing and ordaining Gay and Lesbian men and women. I thank God for that. I believe God continues to call us to speak for justice and peace in Iraq, Darfur, Israel and Palestine.
We are a great Church, when we strive to be a community of justice, reconciliation and transformation.
I was delighted to hear that Robin Williams is an Episcopalian. In his funny and quirky way, he lists the following reasons why he is an Episcopalian: "You can believe in dinosaurs; male and female God created them, male and female we ordain them; you don't have to check your brains at the door; Pew aerobics; Church year is color-coded." The number one reason he gives to be an Episcopalian: "No matter what you believe there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you."
"We are a broad Church" says John Danforth, Episcopal priest and retired Senator from Missouri. In his recent book, Faith and Politics, Danforth passionately writes that the Episcopal Church is dedicated to encouraging and tolerating a wide diversity of opinions. We must not let ourselves, or our nation, be high jacked by the rigidity of opinions from the religious right. "Nobody can or should claim a righteous certainty of knowing the mind of God," he says.
We do strive, primarily through our worship together, to discern what God is asking us to do: to be faithful to being resurrected people.
How have we accomplished this in 2006? I want to highlight just a few of our accomplishments together:
In our worship, we continue to add new hymns and service music, process with doves and brightly colored streamers to celebrate the joy of being resurrected people of God. Worship is our heart and soul as a parish and, even with "pew aerobics", we nourish and challenge each other on our spiritual journeys.
There is a Pakistani tradition that when you are served your first cup of tea, you are a stranger, your second cup, you are a guest, your third cup, and you are family. Under the leadership of George Kittredge, and his committee members, the New Member Ministry tries to serve "3 cups of tea" to all our visitors and seekers. As a result, we have had 43 people fill out newcomers' cards and identify themselves as seekers. Our hospitality of welcome is the number one reason they say that they have chosen to return.
This past year your, clergy expanded the pastoral care for our parish. On average, Tom, Leslie and I, through phone calls or visits, have contacted 60-80 parishioners a month. Under the leadership of Ann Refermat, Judy Carpenter and Sally McGucken, the Stephen Ministry, has focused on one-on-one relationships, built on listening and visiting, has trained nine people in our parish. Initially, parishioners were hesitant to have a Stephen minister, now they can't imagine not having one. I know that many of you quietly, and with great care, visit people known only to you.
In 2006, our stewardship program, under the leadership of co-chairs Angie Jones and Paul Berezney, made personal visits to as many people as possible. As a direct result, we had over 100 parishioners increase their pledge and added 37 new pledges that helped us to exceed our pledge goal by $4,000. When taking into account the 25 pledges that are still to be received, we will exceed our pledge totals by 10-15 pledges compared to 2005.
Under the direction of Barbara Warner, our Christian Formation programs continue to grow. With added adult classes we are finding that we need more time on Sunday morning, between the services, to adequately learn and discuss issues of our faith.
Thanks to the leadership of Leslie St.Louis, Laura Hayden and Louise Moore, our St. Paul's Youth (SPY) is the strongest it has been in years; combining fellowship activities, such as skiing and bowling, mission trips to Chebeague Island in Maine and volunteer at an assisted living facility.
We have always been a parish that believes in using our financial and parishioner resources to support people in need in the Rochester area and around the world. In 2006, Ayanna Hoffman represented St. Paul's by giving an Unusual Mission Opportunity grant of $7,500 to Trinity Church, Pas Christian Mississippi that was devastated by hurricane Katrina. Through the leadership of Ann Marie and Jerry DeLuccio, we supported seven of the young men of Sudan for higher education. We doubled the anonymous challenge grant; originally set at $5000, to raise close to $10,000 for Salva Dut's "Water for Sudan". Through the leadership of Hank and Kathy Kingston, we continue our four-week volunteer hosting of homeless families for Paul's Place. And, under the chairship of Liz Cook, the Adopt-a-Classroom program continues to give children at Schools #9 and #46 a head start in reading.
There are many other accomplishments, which are too numerous to mention here, so I urge to read the parish reports that were handed out to you after the service.
What challenges and opportunities for ministry is God calling to us in 2007?
We will continue to engage the City of Rochester through our many ministries. Our Lenten program in March will focus on the city's continued violence and seek ways we may respond as a faith community. Mayor Bob Duffy and the Assistant to the Chief of Police have been invited to be two of our Lenten series speakers. We will have world-renowned bible scholar, Walter Brueggemann, as our Bible and the World lecturer in November.
The St.Paul's Youth are planning a major mission trip to New Mexico in February.
We have worked hard over several years to refurbish and repair our Church and parish facilities. John Bero has been simply amazing in his expertise at guiding us with our property needs. However, we still must repair leaking roofs over our Church School and parts of our Church roof. Over the last several years we have had acoustic and organ consultants advise us of the condition of our Skinner organ, and decisions must be made in the near future as to when we must have our organ restored.
As Judy Loveland, my Administrative Assistant, accepts a new position that she just couldn't refuse, so begins anticipated staff changes. Nancy Wood is very close to finishing her MBA and has graciously agreed to stay until early April. While we make plans to celebrate David Fetler's remarkable musical ministry at St. Paul's this spring, we will also be welcoming a new Director of Music in July. We will be saying goodbye to Laura Dunbar and celebrating her ministry with our youth and alleluia choirs as well as giving thanks to Adam Peithmann for his one-year appointment as our organist. Under the chairships of Les Kernan for Human Resources and Ted Curtis for the Director of Music, both of their committees will be helping me to access and evaluate how to best fill these important positions. We have some incredibly talented people that we are interviewing for these key positions.
Lastly, a no-brainer for any Christian Church, we must continue to grow, not just in numbers but in spirit. Thanksgiving, graciousness and joy are the fruits of spiritual growth that we strive to embody in this great community of faith.
Although we won't be handing out any mugs that say "Welcome to the Flogging", we will continue to be challenged by our baptismal covenant that calls us to be prophetic witnesses for justice and peace. All the while, honoring our historic identity as Anglicans: a faithful people, who love God and walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We are resurrected people and God calls us to live in this wonderful truth for ourselves and for the life of the rest of this world.
I give thanks to your hard working Vestry, especially to Wardens, Chris Moore and Stan Refermat.
It is a blessing to be your Rector.
Fred Reynolds