Rector’s
Annual Report
Rev. Adam T. Trambley
January
29, 2017, St. John’s Sharon
This morning is our annual parish meeting. I want to take a few minutes to talk about
where we have been this past year, which has been a good one, and where we
might be heading.
Our readings this morning act as good anchor for us as we
look at our common life. In our first
reading, Micah asks what God wants from us. The answer isn’t something costly or
impossible, that that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Then
in the gospel, we hear the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. Again, we are given some concrete instructions
on the path to love. We are to either be
with or become the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those hungering and
thirsting for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers,
and those persecuted for righteousness’s sake.
As we think about our life at St. John’s, we want to keep
these instructions before our eyes.
Ideally, as we gather together in this place, we should be helping one
another grow in doing justice and loving mercy and walking humbly with
God. We should be a place that lifts up
the meek and comforts those who mourn and fosters peacemaking and purity of
heart. Although talk about things like attendance
and budget figures, building maintenance, and our schedule of programs and
activities, in the end, all of that only matters because this church stuff
helps those of us who show up here live the life that God wants for us. If we could easily measure the important
things better, this report would be shorter.
I could just say: we now have score of 87 on doing justice, which is up
one-a-half points from last year, our loving kindness score is down a bit, and
we should be very proud of our incredibly high walking humbly with God score. But since we can’t measure that, we talk
about what we can.
We can talk being effective at bringing people closer to God
in a variety of ways. I regularly hear people talk about the ways they have
grown, or have looked at their faith differently, or have developed some new
prayer or spiritual discipline, or found a healing or peace that they were
looking for. These comments come from both
longtime members and newer members. They
also come from people who came to St. John’s only for a particular season. One of the ministries we have had recently is
providing healing or reconciliation with God or the church to people who have
needed it. Folks have come from
different places for different reasons, and they have come and worshipped and
even gotten involved in our ministries. Then, after God has done whatever work
he has had for them to do here, they have been able to go back to their
original spiritual home. We have served
a similar purpose for some people who have come to St. John’s toward the end of
their life, and who have found healing and a peace with God before they went to
meet him more fully. While it would be
easy to underestimate the value of this ministry, especially since it doesn’t
seem like a long-term growth strategy, God is using our parish to make an
incredible difference in people’s lives at a crucial time, and that is a great
blessing.
Last year we celebrated our 150th Anniversary as
a parish. We put out a new directory and
parish history that included work by Art Locke, Darlee Jackson and Tom
Lipinski. We honored veterans and those
in the armed forces. We celebrated
Pentecost with a parish homecoming and luncheon at the Corinthian. This fall, Bishop Sean joined us for a
celebration with representatives from other churches in our diocese and in our
community. We even had a proclamation
from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and September 12, 2016 was
proclaimed to be St. John’s Day in the City of Sharon. I hope you all sent out the appropriate greeting cards. Overall, we were able to look back and
celebrate the incredible ways that this parish has Worshipped God, Cared for
People and Grown as Christians for a century and a half, while also stopping to
appreciate some of the impact our work is still having today. Special thanks go to Ron and the choir for
all their work on the music for our events and to the entire committee that
worked hard on different aspects of our year-long celebration.
A second major initiative in 2016 is the stone work on our
buildings. As part of the Believe and
Prepare Capital Campaign, we have now received pledge payments sufficient to undertake
most of the pointing and tower repair, as well as a few smaller items. Some of this work is still on-going and will
be finished up this summer. The new sign
is in the hall near the office stairs – we are waiting until the spring to have
a stone base built to install it on the corner of State and Irvine Avenue. The one major piece that will be delayed
until closer to the end of the campaign will be repairing the frames and the
plexiglass that surround the church’s stained glass windows. We also have discovered that we need about
$20,000 for unexpected expenses for roof and stone work at the top of the
stair/elevator tower and over Allen Hall. Gratefully, at this point our
contributions to the campaign are running ahead of the amount that was pledged. I cannot thank everyone enough for their
generosity to this effort. We know we
have a number of pledges probably cannot be fulfilled due to sickness or other
unexpected causes, but we still project we will be able to do what we need to
do because of your generosity. Thanks, too, to Donna and Angelo Stamoolis for
chairing this effort.
While we are talking about funding, I would also note that
we did fairly well this year, financially.
Our operating budget came out about $15,000 in the black, which is
incredible, due to savings of over $7,000 in utilities, $4,000 in other plant
expenses, contributions of almost $6,000 from outside groups using our
building, and savings of over $20,000 since Jane’s job offers family health
insurance coverage with a reasonable employee contribution. If you aren’t around during the week, you may
not be aware of the number of people and groups taking advantage of Allen Hall
and the upstairs dining room. We have a
Presbyterian Church plant that meets in Allen Hall on Sunday afternoons, a Girl
Scout Troup, AA meetings, Behavioral Health Committee Meetings, Relay For Life
meetings, Model Club meets, Cana’s Corner Coffee House, and a variety of
parties, showers and other one-time events in addition to our Community
Lunches, ECS distributions, ECW events, and other parish meetings. Thanks to Fred our sexton for his work. He just had knee surgery, but is returning
tomorrow. Thanks to Mike Gutowski for
filling in while he was recovering, and for everyone who helps out with
cleaning and straightening and making sure that the facilities stay in good
condition to welcome others. Thanks to
Rich Billioni who is in here regularly polishing brass and trimming hedges,
among other projects. Thanks, too,
especially to Tina for all of her work, that includes coordinating with those
using the building and doing the bookkeeping.
To keep our finances straight, we have counters each week, a finance committee,
a budget committee, and significant work done by Bob Edeburn throughout the
year and by Nick Baron to get the budget into the computer. Thanks to all of you who help with facilities
and finances that allow us tools to do the work we need to do.
Diocesan changes also affected St. John’s over the past
year. St. Jude’s re-divided into three
congregations, and Redeemer in Hermitage closed its doors. At the same time, the Diocese decided to look
forward and initiate a new church plant in Hermitage. Jason Shank, the church planter, has been
with us at St. John’s a number of times, and he is reaching out in the
Hermitage area to otherwise unchurched or dechurched folks and forming the core
of a new church. Deacon Randy decided to
be a part of the getting that effort off the ground, and then he discerned a
call to assist Father Doug at St. Clement’s in Greenville. We at St. John’s said farewell to Randy and
welcomed Deacon Erin and her family. We
have also been able to welcome a few families from St. Jude’s who have decided
to make St. John’s their new church home, and we are grateful for the
contributions they have already made to our parish life.
While a new church plant is focused on reaching new people
constantly, reaching new people is also important for us. About a half-dozen people from St. John’s
participated in two seminars and some follow-up phone calls with the church
planting coaches to learn techniques for reaching new people. While I don’t think we can point yet to any
great successes, we have tried some things, and a few doors have opened
up. In particular, Laurel Technical
Institute has adopted me as its official unofficial chaplain, and I’ve been
able to eat lunch about once a week in their lunch room with students, offer
prayers at some of their events, and even offer some thoughts on non-profit
finance to an accounting class. Thanks
to Tracy Schliep for making that possible. I’ve also been having lunch about
once a week at the Penn State Shenango cafeteria, and have gotten to connect
with faculty, staff and students. These
institutions are both made up of people who are likely to stay in the area
long-term, but most of whom aren’t currently regular church-goers. They are strategic, near-by places for us to
reach out to.
Our Vestry is also preparing to do some strategic planning
work over the coming year. In 2011, we
put together our Purpose Statement, Guiding Principles, and Strategic
Directions. Our Purpose Statement and
Guiding Principles were meant to capture who St. John’s was throughout its
history, but the Strategic Directions were based on opportunities at the
time. Five years have passed, so we want
to take another look at where we are.
Special thanks go to one of our newer members and vestry members, Gary Funderlich,
who brings his experience as a corporate board attorney to help lead us through
this work. Also, thanks to all our
vestry members who have done some great work this year, especially Madge Tamber
our senior warden, Al Seladi our junior warden, Barb Lipinski our clerk, and
Keith Rowlands our treasurer, and Curt Myers, who has finished his term and
will now have some more Monday evenings free. Your parish leaders work hard, are willing to
have honest and sometimes difficult discussions, and are a real joy to work
alongside of.
A Natural Church Development team is also looking at where
we are in our parish life from a slightly different angle. Natural Church Development helps a
congregation see what are its current strengths and what areas of its life can
use some attention. NCD’s premise is
that healthier churches grow, and all churches have areas of their life that
can be improved. The area of health we
are currently working on is loving relationships, which includes the depth of
our relationships, how affirming we are with one another, and how we handle
conflict. Over the next month or two,
the NCD team will put together a plan containing concrete ideas to help us grow
in this area. Thanks to all those who
are participating in that work.
St. John’s continues to do a wonderful job of caring for
people and meeting their basic needs.
Episcopal Community services provides food bags and other services twice
a month. They have also just received a
grant and a new refrigerator to distribute milk to their clients. Our community lunches provide a good meal
every Saturday along with opportunities for fellowship and prayer. The Episcopal Church Women raise money
through two rummage sales and Winterfest that is then distributed to groups
inside and outside of the church. The
ECW women have also been helping with bereavement lunches following
funerals. Literally hundreds of people
from our parish and from other churches and the wider community volunteer to
help with these outreach ministries. I
am grateful to each of you for this important work that you are doing to help
others.
Another way that we care for people is by reaching out to
our sick and shut-ins. Over the past
year, we have had some significant turn-over in our Eucharistic Visitors. Doddy Crawford has gone to Georgia to be closer
to her family and David Bricker has gone to heaven to be closer to Jesus. Both
had visited a number of people every month.
Others continue this ministry, including Gerri Bricker and Vicky
Barletta, but I’d encourage everyone to think about joining us in this
important and very rewarding work.
St. John’s continues programs to help us Grow as Christians,
as well. Laura Peretic, Sherri Lowery
and Amy Clark have been teaching Sunday School, and Heather Ulan has offered a
children’s chapel at the 8:00 o’clock service.
Tracy Schliep, Barb Lipinski and others have led an adult Sunday School
group between services. We had a wonderful
Wednesday night supper and discussion group this summer. Matt Ciszek and Michael Wachter initiated a
Read-the-Bible-in-a-Year group that connects via Facebook. Katherine Huff, Laura Peretic and others put
together a two-day VBS last summer, and First United Methodist is interested in
working with us on a VBS this summer.
After a successful Wednesday evening Advent service, we have continued
with a weekly Eucharist, with music, every Wednesday at 5:30, followed by
dinner in the upstairs dining room. This
has been a wonderful opportunity for people to gather for prayer and for
fellowship, and one of our newer members, Hungarian Joe, has even made a
delicious Chicken Paprikash for us.
We also continue to Worship God here every Sunday, and I
just want to recognize all the people who help make our worship inspiring. We have youth and adult acolytes, Eucharistic
Ministers, readers, ushers, greeters, choir members, the altar guild, our
dancers and flag line, and everyone who comes to sit in the pews and pray,
respond, sing, and/or come forward to the rail to encounter Jesus one more time
before going out to do the work that God has given us to do. Your prayers and presence make a difference in
all that we do at St. John’s.
St. John’s is a very special parish. I remain honored and happy to serve you as
your priest and rector. May God continue
to bless us as we carry out our work over the next year.
