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January 28, 2007
I stand before you to deliver the Warden's Report for the Annual Meeting of 2007. My purpose here is to discuss with you the goals and objectives that the Vestry set out for the parish for 2006 and how the Vestry and the parish attempted to address these goals and objectives. And then I will share a few thoughts with you about the coming year and its possibilities.
Everything the Vestry does starts with the Parish's Vision statement:
We pray that all who enter St. Paul's experiences God's presence in this community of faith, a community that through Christ strives to be loving, joyous, inclusive, transforming and filled with God's grace.
I think that we can all agree that St. Paul's has a wonderful message of caring and loving to share with the whole world. So, keeping this statement of purpose squarely in mind, the Vestry met in retreat in February, 2006 and laid out three major goals for 2006: to improve the parish's Communication strategies, to build on and enhance the delivery of Pastoral Care, and to creatively address the areas of Stewardship & Membership. I will talk about each of these items in turn.
In the area of Communications, the Vestry recognized a need to find more ways of sharing the St. Paul's vision both within the walls of St. Paul's and with the wider world.
For example, with Wayne Reinert's help, the parish website, stpaulsec.org has been consistently improved throughout the year. With nearly every month, more and more information is available to everyone with a computer with just a few simple keystrokes.
The Communications Committee, under the very able leadership of Bill Watson, has begun to standardize and enhance the delivery of all written communications to parishioners and to the community at large. For example, take a minute to review the new ad in the Yellow Pages that Bill and his Committee put together. It is direct, simple and powerful.
Or, this can be something as simple as making sure we all know what a particular term means. For example, when I hear the term "SPY" or read about it in the newsletter, I sometimes wonder how many people know that it stands for St. Paul's Youth. My bet is that most, if not all, of us in this room understand that connection. The question is: what about those who are visiting us either in person on Sunday morning or electronically on the Web? The goal here is to make sure that all such terms are defined each and every time so that visitors or long-time members of the parish it may feel included.
The overall goal is to deliver our message of love and caring in an easily understandable, consistent and powerful format.
On the subject of pastoral care, all of us will experience times where we need the loving care of a member of the Clergy or a fellow member of the Parish. Whether it is in coping with the illness of a loved one, the death of a friend or family member or some other crisis, we will all need to depend on each other for support and love. The clergy have devised ways to better coordinate their work in this crucial area of service to the parish. In addition, the Stephen Ministry has been enlarged to help with this all-important service to our members.
The goal is to make sure that each and every person in the Parish who needs or seeks care may find it and in so doing be nurtured by the loving arms of Jesus Christ.
Let me address the last goal area by splitting it into its component parts. First, I'd like to talk for a minute about Stewardship and then spend a little time on Membership.
We all know that the Stewardship canvass has been a challenge for several years now. While the average pledge has been consistently rising, and we should all be proud of this fact, the total dollars given to the Church has fallen. This has been and will continue to be a very important area of focus for the Vestry and by extension the Stewardship Committee. Under the able leadership of Angie Jones and Paul Berezhney, the Committee devised a more direct approach to the Stewardship campaign this year. The results are in: 34 new pledging individuals and families and a surpassing of the fundraising goal. This is good news indeed!
On the subject of membership the goal is to meet the issue of recently declining membership head-on. One initiative that the parish undertook was to reach out in a more consistent and direct way to our own neighborhood during 2006. We have invited literally everyone within the immediate area to come to St. Paul's and see for themselves what a physically beautiful and spiritually rich environment we have built. We have seen clear evidence of the effectiveness of this approach as we all see new faces and new families in the pews beside us. In fact, the clergy are aware of at least 40 new families or individuals who are actively interested in making St. Paul's their spiritual home.
To further efforts in this area the New Member Ministry Committee, under the very capable and energetic leadership of George Kittredge, has developed a Welcome Bag and a Visitors' Table. You can see these things in action as you enter St. Paul's every Sunday. In addition, there is a periodic brunch to which those who are new to St. Paul's are invited to come. I had the pleasure of attending one of these events last Fall. I still marvel at the energy and enthusiasm that I felt in that room. To hear the stories of caring and love that people feel when they enter St. Paul's is very powerful. I would encourage any of you who are invited to one of these events to go. You will find yourself renewed and reinvigorated. In short, the goal of the Committee is to make sure that all newcomers to St. Paul's feel welcome and included in whatever manner they wish.
Let's talk a little bit about the coming year. The Vestry will be on Retreat in a few weeks. It will look hard at the Parish Plan that was devised a few years ago, update it to 2010 and develop a series of objectives specifically for 2007. These objectives may or may not be the same as those of 2006. In any event, the Vestry, as always, will look for ways to move the Parish forward in 2007.
Before I end today, let me talk a little bit about the Music program at St. Paul's. As we all know this will be a year of significant change here as David Fetler retires after literally a lifetime of service to this Parish. The first half of the year will be spent in honor and celebration of his many contributions to the life of this Church. We will all have ample opportunity to share in acknowledging and commemorating his career among us. There is indeed much to celebrate.
The second half of the year will see the coming to St. Paul's of a new Director of Music. I believe that this will be a time of tremendous opportunity for the Parish as we build on our wonderful musical traditions. I believe that a flourishing music program has been and will continue to be essential to a vibrant community life at St. Paul's. I believe that the program is a vital part, along with worship, education, fellowship and all of the other wonderful things we do here, in helping us to grow both in terms of stewardship and in terms of membership. I look forward with eagerness but no less with a sense of loss to this new and exciting period in the life of St. Paul's.
In closing, let me circle back to the Vision Statement that I quoted at the outset of my talk:
We pray that all who enter St. Paul's experiences God's presence in this community of faith, a community that through Christ strives to be loving, joyous, inclusive, transforming and filled with God's grace.
The Vestry will continue to live into this vision and with your prayers develop strategies to help the parish reach new heights of Christian fellowship and love.
Thank you.
Christopher Moore, Warden