With plans to introduce a new Sunday evening service, our goals will be to welcome the
community and provide a spiritual experience to include participation by those who cannot
attend morning services and for those who may be seeking a different worship setting.
The ability to do all the things possible as a church is solely the purview and success of its
members, friends and partners. We should not be amazed or surprised at what has been and
can be accomplished by our parish. When needs are realized, we have risen to the need and
provided above and beyond to make sure those needs are met. When we have identified the
needs to be a church that welcomes and invites others, we continue to meet and grow our
expectations.
In this last year we have been blessed with the foresight to enrich our worship and liturgy with a
new church organ. The planning for, and raising of funds to procure a brand new instrument, is
yet another example of how our parish rises to the needs identified, especially in regards to
providing beautiful worship and liturgy. My thanks to Mr. Vaughn Scarcliff, our music director,
and the Organ Committee, who assisted the Vestry in identifying this instrument for our church.
In addition to serving in our liturgy and worship, this new organ opens up opportunities for
celebrating music with local community talent, concerts and perhaps teaching new talent in
preparation for learning church music and the mastering of organ performance. Our new organ
will bless us for many years to come.
Over this last year the Vestry and I engaged in a Mutual Ministry Review (MMR) to evaluate
the relationships of the work of the church and its leadership. This review allowed the vestry to
explore and prioritize our goals for service according to our mission which is to be the Body of
Christ in community. Over several months we explored what we considered our strengths and
weaknesses and set specific goals to pursue in the coming years. More about these specifics
will be explained during the meeting by our Senior Warden, John Biggs.
The MMR process correlated nicely with our Strategic Planning Committee that has also been
meeting to plan and strategize our short and more distance future as a parish in the most
eastern portion of the Kansas City region. Items discussed by the committee included
determining possible uses for our vacant land; renovation of the narthex that would include
relocating the dangerous stair case and installing an elevator to allow better access to the main
floor and nave; making plans based on what the demographics of our parish may look like in the
next two to five years and how we may share our ministries with other Episcopal and
Ecumenical churches as those demographics impact our church communities.
My activities as your pastor have led me to care for many in our parish who have needed
pastoral care and visitation. I also enjoy the opportunity to assist the Blue Springs Police
Department and Central Jackson County Fire-EMS as an emergency chaplain. We continue to