Epiphany
3A 2019
Rector’s
Annual Report
Rev. Adam T. Trambley
January
27, 2017, St. John’s Sharon
This morning’s readings are good ones for an Annual Meeting
Sunday. Today we will hold/have held our
parish annual meeting between services.
At the meeting we elect vestry members, receive reports and the annual
budget, and take care of any other necessary business. Rather than squeeze it into the meeting, I
want to take this time to give my annual report to the parish.
In Luke’s gospel, we hear Jesus lay out his mission
statement. Reading from Isaiah, he proclaims
his vision of the year of the Lord’s favor. The good news is preached to the
poor. Captives are released. The sick
are healed. The oppressed go free. Jesus begins by saying that the Spirit of the
Lord is upon him, and Jesus finishes by saying that this great vision of God is
now fulfilled in his life and work. If
we are following Jesus and living into his vision, than we too should be
anointed by the Holy Spirit to bring good news and healing and freedom while
letting people know God’s favor and love for them.
Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians takes this
vision of Jesus, that Jesus fulfills just by being Jesus and doing his Jesus’
stuff, and helps us operationalize it in our own lives. He talks about being part of the one body of
Christ, while we each have different gifts.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon each and every one of us, just as it was
upon Jesus. As Paul says, in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
a body that has not one member, but many members. We are to take the gifts we have as a
metaphorical hand or eye or spleen or pituitary gland and use them to benefit
the body as a whole. In just this way,
with each of use using the gifts we have to build up our parish, our community,
and the greater Body of Christ, we can see glimpses of the fulfillment of the Kingdom
of God that Jesus was talking about. The
Lord’s favor breaks in upon us and upon those we love and serve. People’s lives are changed. People are healed. Good news is shared with the poor in a myriad
of ways. And we, the Body of Christ at
St. John’s, are increasingly blessed as we live deeply into the life of Jesus.
Our purpose statement that describes the particular way that
God calls us at St. John’s to use our gifts to live out his vision is Worship
God, Care for People, Grow as Christians.
We live into this purpose week in and week out in a variety of ways
based on the different gifts that we as members of this parish have been
given.
Overall, I would say that this past year has been one of
focusing back on the basics. Two years
ago, we celebrated our parish’s 150th birthday with a couple of
celebrations and the proclamation of St. John’s Day in the City of Sharon. Last year, we undertook significant upkeep
and updates on our building facilities, as well as initiating a new accounting
and database software package. This
year, we have lived into being a congregation with such a meaningful history
and beautiful, useful facilities.
The first part of our purpose statement is Worship God, and
worship continues to be at the center of our parish life. We gather every Sunday morning at 8:00am and
10:00am, as well as on Wednesday evenings.
Many of you work to make our worship life possible. I want to thank all the ushers, greeters,
Eucharistic Ministers, lectors, acolytes, oblationers, and those who help
decorate for our special services. The
altar guild sets up and takes care of the many of the beautiful items we use in
our worship. I want to thank Linda Houk,
Ada Ehrlich, Flo Bett, Marilyn Callahan, Tony Kropp, and Ron Gracilla for their
work, and Linda wants me to let you know that the altar guild is looking for
new members. Thanks, too, to Gerry
Bricker, Vicky Barletta, and Donna Stamoolis who regularly take communion to
our parish shut-ins and bring our worship life out to them.
Special thanks for their role in worship goes to Ron and the
choir. As people have come and gone over
the past few years, Ron has done a great job of retooling our hymns and anthems
for worship. He has also done a great
job incorporating special musicians for Christmas and Easter, and for working
with our musical scholars. We are
grateful to our musical scholars for being with us. We have about a half dozen students in the
Sharon High music program who join us for choir rehearsals and worship, as well
as for an hour of formation during the week.
Thanks to Jane Trambley for working with them, as well, and to the
supper group that meets after our Wednesday service who have welcomed them for
dinner before their class.
Our parish has marked a higher number of life events in
worship than we have over the past few years.
We have had more weddings than any time in the past five years and we
celebrated a dozen children’s baptism and one adult baptism. We have also commended many of our loved ones
to God again this year. Some of those
deaths have been people who were very involved in our parish life for a long
time, and we as a church continue to feel their loss in many ways. Thanks to Robyn Sherman and all who help with
lunches after funerals for the families of the deceased.
While we Worship God, we also Care for People. Those ministries reaching out to others touch
lives in many ways. The Episcopal Church
Women had a successful Winterfest this year, and they had a great time baking
cookies together. Thank you to Connie
and all the ECW members for your work, and for your generosity with the funds
you raise. Our Family Kitchen completed
its seventh year, and served 8,512 meals last year! Thank you to all those involved, especially
Madge and Ron Tamber, Curt and Cleo Myers, Donna Billioni, and Paula Ference, Sherri
Lowery for her work with the children, Katherine Huff for her prayers with our
guests, Rob Ridgeway who handles the fifth Saturdays with his and Gary’s
extended families, and so many others that donate, cook, clean and volunteer.
Our food pantry, Episcopal Community Services gave out over
1,700 bags of food to 278 families last year.
This could not be done without the 60 volunteers who do everything from
pick up food from grocery stores, unload the truck, pack bags, register
clients, carry bags up the stairs, staff the bread room, clothing closet and
Doddy’s pantry, and who take care of the administrate side of the food pantry. Thanks to you, and to those in our parish who
contributed over $8,000 last year to support the ECS. Thanks, too, to Matt Wertz who has taken over
as ECS President this year. At this
time, I’d also like to recognize Bob Edeburn who served as ECS President for
the past decade, and has just transitioned out of that role. He has also recently retired from the
financial roles he served with precision and wisdom in our parish since the
1970’s. This parish has been rich
blessed by his many contributions, and, on behalf of the parish, I want say “Thank
You.”
Our parish cares for people in many other, less structured
ways. Our alms fund distributes
thousands of dollars annually to those in need. Our youth had a hat and mitten
tree to collect winter items and distribute them. Sherri, Katherine, and others responded to
the fire down the street. Numerous
parishioners also work or volunteer in different organizations dedicated to
caring for those in need in a variety of capacities, and I am proud of the way
this parish puts our mission and our values into practice.
We also live out our purpose as we Grow as Christians. Certainly worship and service help us live
out Jesus’ Way of Love. We also have a
number of opportunities designed for learning and growing. Sunday between services we have an adult
class that looks at a variety of books, films, and other resources, as well as
two children’s class that have studied everything from songs and bible stories
to writing icons. Thanks to Laura
Peretic, Sherri Lowery, and Heather Ulan for their work with Sunday School, and
to Donna Billioni for sharing her icon skills, as well as to Barb Lipinski and
Madge Tamber who have taken a lead in both our adult Sunday school and our
Wednesday fellowship meal. Our Kettle
Corn brigade, led by Kettlemeisters Dick Steingrabe and Frank O’Stafy, have
both raised money to send our young people to camp and popped for community
events. They upped their game this year
with a new automatic stirrer. We also
have a parish library with numerous books on various spiritual and religious
subjects that Barb Bogolin does a wonderful job curating.
Over the past two years our Natural Church Development Team
has helped our church grow corporately in the area of loving
relationships. This past year they
continued their work of increasing the sense of love and affirmation we show
one another by spot-lighting a person of the month and through our thank-you
box in the lounge. Anyone can note
someone who did something they are grateful for in the parish, and a note will
be sent from the parish. Thanks to Cleo
Myers, Hannah Hancock, Katie Tingler, Tracy Schiep, Ron Gracilla, Debbie
Gibson, Sandy Geiwitz, and Michael Wachter for their NCD work this year. Next week we will begin the next NCD cycle by
beginning to gather information about where our parish’s health could improve.
We also grow as Christians by connecting with and learning
from brothers and sisters in other churches.
We gathered Ash Wednesday with other congregations for a service at
First Methodist and hosted the area’s Good Friday service and a joint Easter
Vigil. To commemorate the 50th
Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s entrance into eternal life, we held a
special Sunday service with guest musician James Willaman and readings from Dr.
King’s writings. Some from St. John’s
joined our new church plant in Hermitage, Church of the Resurrection, for their
official public launch in September.
Members of St. John’s also participated in our Diocesan Convention in
Niagara Falls, where we decided to formally enter into deeper cooperation with
the Diocese of Western New York.
All of these activities couldn’t happen without significant
work behind the scenes. I am so grateful
to Tina for all that she does to keep things running smoothly. Ron does a great job with our music programs,
but also does many other things that just need to be done. We also have a dedicated vestry. I am grateful for all that they do. I enjoy our vestry meetings and feel like we
are all working together to do what is right for the future of the church. Thanks especially to Keith Rowlands, Nick
Baron and Al Seladi as they finish their three-year terms. All of them served as vestry officers. Thanks, too, to Robert Barletta, Linda Houk,
Frank O’Stafy, Donna Stamoolis, and Matt Wertz for their work on vestry. We have gone through a full year with our new
accounting software, and it is working well.
We are still hoping to incorporate a number of features, such as on-line
giving.
We have been blessed with wonderful, beautiful facilities,
but we have to keep them clean. I am
grateful for Fred Dickman who retired after a number of years as our Sexton, to
Eric Hanson who filled in for a few months, and for Woody Raymer who just took
over the job as the snowpacylpse hit last week.
He’s still getting the hang of things overall, but he knows how the snow
blowers work now. Over the past year,
we’ve replaced the lighting in our parking lot, and the outside landscaping was
redone by the generosity of Mary and Bud Polonus’s family. We have also received an anonymous donation
that will pay for a new sound system in our sanctuary in the coming months and
help with the remaining work to be done as part of our Believe and Prepare
capital campaign. I am incredibly
grateful to all who have contributed and are still making their pledges. We hope to replace the discolored plexiglass
on our stained glass windows to protect them better and let a little bit more
light in, while also taking care of one of our windows that is bowing a bit. I would also note that our facilities were
highlighted this summer in a community screening of Tiger Warsaw for its
thirtieth anniversary, a film that featured our church bells as well as Patrick
Swayze playing basketball in our former gym.
On a personal note, this year was significant for me in a
number of ways, in addition to sending off one of our young choir members to
New York city for college. This spring,
I completed and defended my doctoral thesis about taking community leaders on
prayerwalks. I also co-edited a book
that looks at chapter eight of the Acts of the Apostles as a template for
mission and evangelism. I just found out
Thursday that our book won an Illumination Book Award silver medal in the Bible
Study category. I also got to help lead
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for high school students with young people from
our Diocese and the Diocese of Western New York. I know that what I’ve learned has seeped into
various sermons and other work here, and I hope you have found benefits from
these experiences, as well.
Next year, I look for us to continue living our purpose out
more and more fully. We will gather
weekly for worship, for loving service, and for formation opportunities Starting next week, we will spend a few weeks
looking at the Presiding Bishop’s Way of Love.
A new NCD team will invite us to grow and change in some helpful ways
later this year. We will take advantage
of opportunities to pray and minister with other churches in our diocese and
our community. We will all use our
individual gifts to Worship God, Care for People, and Grow as Christians
together, and we will invite others to join us as we share with Jesus’ love in
word and action.
