I am so looking forward to spending time this weekend in prayer with you all as Bishop Doyle visits and we are blessed to Confirm and Receive 6 individuals into our Church and into our Parish Community. I hope you can make it to celebrate with us at our one, great celebration beginning at 10:30AM.

I am also happy that we had a great turnout for our Annual Meeting last Sunday. One of the discussions that the Vestry continues to have, an issue that was confirmed at our meeting Sunday, is the continued need for volunteers from among us and the efficient coordination of those volunteers.

Dear Friends at Holy Spirit,

We need your help with a couple important things:

I’ve been here a couple months and have often opened Realm, the Church Data Base, to find information, addresses, phone numbers and the like. One thing that would be MOST helpful would be a picture… of you! Learning names is rough but hundreds and hundreds is even more difficult. If not for me, for your new Rector. Please log in and upload a picture of yourself, if you would, please. Thanks!

Over the last seven years I have had the unique experience of being a ministry leader for Holy Spirit Church and School as Director of Family Ministries for the Church and Chaplain for the School. I am an active staff member of both the school and the church. As the first School Chaplain at Holy Spirit Episcopal School, it was an intentional decision to hire me to have roles in both the Church and the School to help bring together our community.

School Sunday is one of our many community events that brings us all together.

It’s that time of year when I get questions about giving and stewardship from members of the finance committee, vestry, and parishioners.

Every fall we have a Stewardship campaign where the Stewardship Chair reaches out to our congregation and asks us to prayerfully consider our connection to Holy Spirit Episcopal Church. This encompasses time, talent, and treasure because we rely on our parishioners to share all of these in varying degrees so that our community can flourish in faith, fellowship, and outreach. We are collecting those pledge commitments now!

This Sunday, 15 October, we will Celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism, NEW LIFE, for our sister-in-faith to be, infant Clara! Come and join us as we gather around the font and the altar and welcome her into the community of followers of Jesus. We will prepare ourselves, and all are welcome, at our regularly scheduled Sunday School session in the parish hall beginning at 9:30AM. There, we will study about Baptism as well as our other Sacraments in the Episcopal Church.

I have now been at Holy Spirit as your Interim for one month. What a month it has been! I remain delighted to be here and even more interested in what we might be able to do together in the upcoming months. I have addressed some of the requests made to me by the Vestry, especially focusing on our common Liturgy and Christian Formation. I’m delighted in the participation on Sunday mornings in our study of the Beatitudes as well as Wednesday morning’s Isaiah Study. It’s been wonderful to gather and share our faith together.

On 4 October the Church celebrates the Feast of St Francis. We here at Holy Spirit will remember him as we do the “Blessing of Animals” during the 5:00PM Service this Sunday. I have been associated with the Franciscan movement and Franciscan communities since high school. I love the Spirit of Francis and Claire of Assisi and have spent much of my life studying and attempting to emulate that spirit in my day-to-day life and in my prayer.

Peace and every Blessing to each of you!

I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for the great work that so many of you did to make our Ministry Fair a wonderful experience for our Parish Community. A special thanks to those who generously offered their TIME and TALENT as we begin our STEWARDSHIP program at Holy Spirit. We first, most generally, think in terms of a pledge amount (which is important, of course) when we think of Stewardship. I think we do ourselves a disservice when not recognizing all the talent that resides among us as a fundamental gift to each of us from our Creator. These many talents, unless shared in community, can be taken for granted, or worse, be forgotten. Our giftedness is given for the Kingdom, as scripture teaches us, and so, to share time and talent is a fundamental Christian obligation and a way of making God’s Love known. We still need ministry assistance in many areas. After just a couple weeks here I have noticed that a lot of the organization of parish activities as well as the ordinary management of many of these ministries has fallen to the staff. I pray that folks who are gifted and feel called will continue to come forward to help lead some of our vital ministries. I thank those who have committed themselves over the years to such a call here at Holy Spirit. Please contact Suzy Spencer or me if you have interest in volunteering in any of our Family or Liturgical Ministries.