Rector’s
Annual Report
Rev. Adam T. Trambley
January
28, 2018, St. John’s Sharon
Psalm 111 says Hallelujah!, I
will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the
upright, in the congregation. At its
core, what we come to St. John’s to do is to give thanks to the Lord with our
whole hearts, to give thanks in this assembly of the upright, to give thanks in
this congregation. While we have our
programming here at St. John’s -- our liturgy, our fellowship, and any number
of activities to accomplish and tasks to perform – in the end what really
matters is bringing the lives that we live outside of this place and offering
them with thanksgiving to God who created us and sustains us and loves us. What we are as a parish only begins in the
moment after we have come in thanksgiving with the gift of ourselves and all
that we offer in thanksgiving to be the Body of Christ.
We come to give thanks to the Lord with our whole heart, but we do
not come by ourselves. We come to give
thanks in the midst of one another. Our
thanksgivings to God are made together so that we can receive each other’s
witness of the joy and wonder of God at work in our lives. As we receive that witness, we share in our
thanksgiving, and in that act of thanksgiving the Holy Spirit moves among us
and begins to create something that is fulfilled in the act of our Great
Thanksgiving when we encounter Jesus together in the Body of Christ of the
bread and wine as the Body of Christ here at St. John’s. If our church is built on the great
foundation of Jesus Christ, the building takes shape as we give thanks to the
Lord with our whole hearts in this assembly.
One way we continue to build the church is by giving thanks to God
for each other. We have much to be
grateful for as a parish and many people to be grateful to. This sermon will serve as my own annual
report to the parish, and I do have some pieces to highlight later. Yet, the best report I could give would
probably seem like a frenetic academy awards acceptance speech, where I read a
couple hundred names off of note cards until Ron starts the next hymn and
Jennifer Aniston and Harrison Ford come and drag me out of the pulpit. While not many movie stars show up here, at
least not since Patrick Swayze played basketball in the old gym while filming
Tiger Warsaw, the list of thank you’s to be read for just the past year would
number in the hundreds. Hundreds of
people financially supporting St. John’s.
Hundreds of people coming to worship.
Hundreds of people volunteering in different ministries. Hundreds of people using our buildings in
ways that build up the community, support our facility costs, and extend the
reach of our relationships. Hundreds of
people praying for what we are doing here.
Thousands of people receiving the witness we offer of thanks and praise
for God in our lives and being at least in some small way transformed by what
God is doing here. I give thanks for
every one of you here today because I am grateful for the thanksgivings you
offer here, for your support of this congregation, and for your work for the
kingdom of God. Whether or not your name
is specifically mentioned in some way, what you do matters greatly to our
church and to our mission and ministry.
I would start by thanking our parish staff,
which works very hard and very effectively at keeping our worship, our
facilities, and our programming on track.
They regularly go above and beyond out of love and concern for this
church and its people. Tina has again
been a rock, and continues to learn and try new things as technology and
communication changes. Ron leads our
music in worship, but also does a wide variety of other things to nurture and
sustain our church community. Fred works
to keep the buildings clean and in good order so we can welcome the many people
who use the building each week, from our community lunch guests and ECS clients
to Cana’s Corner Coffeehouse to the Girl Scouts to the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church plant that meets here Sunday afternoons to the Mental Health Commission
to twelve-step groups to people taking music lessons to the model club to the
Relay for Life to cooking classes to birthday and anniversary parties. Deacon Erin and her family have been a
blessing to St. John’s in a number of ways, including her continuing work
exploring how we can engage younger families who don’t attend church but are
seeking to find a faith community in the midst of busy and often overwhelming
lives.
Thanks for helping us with our facilities also
goes to Jesse Fiske and his crew for their work on the building over the past
two years. In addition to repointing our
buildings, they have installed storms for our office windows that have made a
big difference this winter, built a base for our new sign, repaired and
protected the stained-glass windows in the choir room, cleaned out the narthex
tower, put an awning over the ECS staircase, and completed a few smaller
projects. Thanks, too, for all who
contribute to our Believe and Prepare Capital Campaign that has made all that
work possible, and to Donna and Angelo Stamoolis who have headed up that work.
Thank you, also, to all who support to St.
John’s generally. As you can see in our
Annual Report, we received more contributions in almost every area than we
budgeted. That generosity has allowed us
to finish another year in the black. We
also should offer our thanks to those who have gone before us and made final
gifts to our parish. The bequests made
by many, of all sizes, at this point provide an income of about $100,000 a year
to support our parish. Wills and other
end of life planning documents are important for you and your family, and as
you do that work, I would encourage you to consider leaving a gift to St.
John’s to support our ministry over the long-term.
Because people are so generous to this church,
financial transparency and accountability are important. St. John’s has a long history of prudently
and responsibly caring for its resources, but technology and software changes,
so we have signed up for a new database and accounting package. We are taking it one step at a time, and
every step is slower than might be hoped, but we expect over the next year to
allow people to make on-line gifts as well as check their own giving records
and their church directory profile on-line through their own password-protected
account.
This new accounting software was one of our
goals for this year that was initiated by Gary Funderlich, who in a short time
at St. John’s touched many lives deeply.
A significant part of our work this year was saying goodbye and
commending Gary and others of our parish and family into a fuller life with
God. We conducted sixteen funerals at
the church this year, in addition to a number of former parishioners whose
funerals were elsewhere, and there were many other funerals of family members
of parishioners who were truly part of our extended parish family. I have never been a part of this many
funerals in a single year. Our witness to the resurrection of Jesus as we give
thanks for the lives of our loved ones is an important part of the life of the
church.
We have had other transitions this year, as
well, as we continue to welcome new members and say goodbye to people as jobs
or other opportunities take them elsewhere.
This spring, Bishop Sean confirmed seven people at the Easter Vigil,
including four adults, and many others have become part of our congregation
since.
In addition to our facilities and financial
software, we have focused on a few other projects this year. Our Natural Church Development Team looked at
ways to deepen the loving relationships within the parish. We spent much of Lent exploring ways to deal
with conflict in a Christian way. We learned
about emotional triangles and overcoming resentments, and worked at talking
across differences, while also developing a guide for Christian conflict
resolution. The NCD team initiated the
“Person of the Month” and the “thank you” box in the lounge, as well as the
specific recognition of some of our ministries during our services this
year. Thank you to the NCD team, which
includes Tracy Schliep, Hannah Hancock, Katie Tingler, Ron Gracilla, Sandy
Geiwitz, Debbie Gibson, Cleo Myers, Josh Herald, and Michael Wachter.
The vestry this year spend some time exploring
where we are as a church generally, and whether there were any major course
corrections that needed to be made. We
spent a meeting with a consultant on strategic planning, and we thought about
what St. John’s means to us. While we
know that there are always areas to work on and improve, and we would like to
develop a more specific vision for the future of St. John’s, we believe that we
are on track. Our purpose statement,
that we Worship God, Care for People, and Grow as Christians, still
rings true, and our guiding principles are still the basic values of our
congregation.
The vestry also had some robust discussions
about best practices for caring our community, especially as we have become
more engaged with our changing neighborhood over the past few years. A sermon series this fall shared some of the
dilemmas that I have had determining how best to help people coming with
significant needs, as well as raising questions of vocation and goals for our
outreach work and sharing some best practices.
The parish alms fund which we use for direct emergency assistance has
been well funded this year, in part because donations to me or the church from
weddings and funerals go into that fund.
We have given out about $10,000 in emergency assistance this year, which
is almost double some past years, and working with people in crisis has been a
larger portion of my work this past year.
This summer during my doctor of ministry
residency, I took a class on community engagement and these issues with my
colleagues. I also completed my ministry
project for my thesis this fall, which was taking eight community leaders on
prayerwalks to help them see their community through God’s eyes. One of the people who is helping me with my
thesis work is the consultant we engaged for our parish Seeing Through New
Eyes process, Dave Daubert. I am
currently working on writing and editing the final thesis, and will share some
of what I’ve learned that at an appropriate time later this year when I’m
finished.
I want to thank the vestry for all of their
very good work this year. Thanks to
Madge Tamber, Barb Lipinski, and Tracy Schliep who are finishing their terms,
to Keith Rowlands for stepping into the role of Senior Warden mid-year, Nick
Baron who came on the vestry to become treasurer mid-year, to Al Seladi for his
work as Junior Warden, and to Linda Hauk and Robert Barletta. Thanks too to Matthew Ciszek who served as
secretary, but who has moved to Erie for a new job. He and Michael will be missed.
In many ways the annual report is the time to
highlight what has made this particular year different or significant. Yet the primary work we do here is the
steady, consistent work of worshipping God, caring for people, and growing as
Christians that happens week in and week out.
I want to thank all those who help us with the crucial work of worship,
including the altar guild, the choir, our ushers, lectors, Eucharistic
Ministers, greeters, acolytes, and those who decorate for our special
services. So many people care for so
many others, and I want to thank those who work with and support Episcopal Community
Services, with our Saturday lunch, the ministries of the Episcopal Church
Women, our fellowship opportunities like the morning munchies, and our
Eucharistic visitors who take time to care on many levels to our parishioners
that can no longer make it to church. I
also want to recognize those who help us grow as Christians, including the
adult Sunday school group and our tween and children’s Sunday School
teachers. This parish does wonderful
ministry on many levels that touches many lives, and whatever gifts you offer,
they are appreciated. I finally just want to say thank you for the continuing
privilege and joy of being your rector.
This parish is a great community that I am grateful to be a part of, and
I look forward to our ministry in 2018!
No comments:
Post a Comment