We have a lot going on at the church next week as we finish preparing for and enter into a holy Lent. This Sunday night (2/19 at 5:30 pm), the Saint Paul’s Choir will lead our worship in Evensong. Then on Tuesday night, we’ll have our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, where we’ll also bless the new Tyler Hall kitchen and burn our leftover palms to make ashes for Wednesday. The next day, we’ll impose those ashes on each other as we mark Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, with liturgies at noon and 7:00 pm. On Saturday (2/25 at 2:00 pm), Saint Paul’s hosts the 200th Anniversary Eucharist and Reception for the Diocese of Georgia, with Bishop Rob Wright of Atlanta preaching and Bishop Frank Logue of Georgia celebrating. Then Sunday (2/26), Bishop Logue will preach, celebrate, and administer Confirmation and Reception. On that Sunday, we will not gather at 8:00, but encourage all parishioners and visitors to attend a conversation with the Bishop at 9:30 and the Eucharist at 11:00. Our Celtic service will meet as usual at 5:30, without a bishop present, on the 26th. All of this will happen while the normal rhythms of the church continue with a funeral, a vestry meeting, Thursday worship and formation, serving at the soup kitchen, the caregivers support group on Thursday afternoon, and a meeting with our friends from Springfield Baptist. 

When we have a week like this, the temptation for the staff and leadership is to focus in on the question of “how are we going to do all this?” That question matters, but it isn’t the most important question. The most important question is “why are going to do all this?” I think there are a few good answers to this vital question. One might be that we are “about” bringing the ancient truth and wisdom of the gospel to bear on the whole range of contemporary life. The gospel is not scattered and disconnected, but contemporary life is. And so as we carry and are carried by the gospel into an encounter with our dispersed lives and world, a slip in focus can make us feel overwhelmed by busy-ness, instead of centered on our message and mission. Another answer might be that we are still (maybe always?) in a transitional stage as a parish, living and serving like a large, thriving parish, with the resources of a smaller parish. We are doing all this because we are living as the church we are becoming. 

I think both those answers are right, but the best answer is that we are doing all this because of love. We have such a busy week because the love of God, for God and for each other and for our neighbors, overflows out of us in sometimes unpredictable and often hard-to-manage directions. I hope we get a lot of folks serving and attending all of these things. Few will come to all of them, and that’s okay. What you do come to, come to out of love. Come because the love with which God fills you must be shared; come because you need a reminder of that love; or because you need to receive some of it in community. Come, Love. 

Eric+

Offerings Received this Week $13,098.90

Operating Expenses to Date $119,354.56

Total Income Received to Date $211,564.28

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