Dear friends,
This is turning into an exciting year at St. Gregory the Great! Maybe it’s the hopefulness of the Easter season, but there are many signs of new life all around us, and not just the calves in the fields and the flowers in the gardens.
First, and most cheering, are the numbers of parishioners listed in the parochial report. We currently have on our rosters 349 active participants in church. Of them, 225 are active baptized members and 199 are communicants in good standing. Many small to mid-size churches have failed to come back after COVID. We have cause to be very thankful about where we are.
And there is so much more to be thankful for! Under the leadership of Ron Balthazor, Wayne Coppins and Ellen Richardson, the Adult Spiritual Formation group that meets each Sunday between the services has grown in attendance to 18 steady members. Meanwhile, the Lectionary Class continues to meet under the leadership of Les House at the same time. That’s a lot of Bible study every week!
The Environmental Sustainability Committee has recently just relaunched itself under Mark Tavernier and Maggie Reinberger. If you didn’t know, this committee is about much more than composting and recycling. How we use land and energy and how we work to acknowledge the heritage of our land intersects with important issues of social justice and social responsibility. If you are concerned about global warming or interested in reaching out to American Indian communities, you might be surprised to find that this is the ministry for you!
Jenifer Marquardt, Lane Norton, Ellen Richardson, and others have done splendid work on culling and refurbishing the parish library, striving to make its resources of materials and space more accessible and more comfortable. Already, many of us have profited in spirit from the availability of free books! Their work is ongoing, but soon, we will be able to rechristen the new library space.
Some of you already know Matt Rogers, whose work with bibliotherapy has enlivened our VBS and Lenten studies. Matt is now a member of our parish and is looking to join Wade McGlamery in his work with the Blindspot group and with at-risk youth in the community.
And speaking of Wade, his Blindspot group has truly taken off—from a humble beginning, they now have close to 20 regular and very lively members. The future of the church is in good hands. Only trouble is, if their visibility continues to climb, they will soon need a different name! (“Blindspot” refers to the idea that people in this age group—20s-30s—are often ignored by church ministries, which tend to focus their efforts on the very young and on the elderly.)
Another initiative you should know about is Mtr. Nikki’s lay preaching program. Her preaching is like manna—so nourishing we could thrive on it alone. But she knows that others in the parish may feel the call to speak what God has put in their hearts—and she is encouraging the parish to bring forth a few members to learn from her. What better teacher could they have?
I’m also happy to report the successful progress of the Security Committee. Under the leadership of John Barrett, that committee has developed a plan to make the campus as safe as we can in these troubled times. Soon, parish leaders will be involved in a training program to learn about the new security protocols. And I bet we’re the only church in Athens whose security plan has input from at least one very intelligent high school student—who, sadly, knows more about security than we ever did. More on the security program as it progresses.
Finally, under the leadership of Les House and Jeff Welch, a combined group of Finance Committee and vestry members is moving towards completing an inventory of the church’s property and equipment for insurance and valuation purposes. This effort is not as glamorous as the others, but it’s necessary—and it sure took a lot of work on the part of Les to set it all up and Jeff to administer the division of labor.
One last observation: our annual budget still needs about $52,000 if we want to hire a Christian Education director and a music director. As Kate Avinger reminded us last Sunday, the budget and the Capital Campaign are different funds. Gifts to the budget help us hire staff. Gifts to the Capital Campaign help us repair and replace the physical church.
As you can see, though we still have much to do, we also have much to be thankful for. As 1Thessalonians has it, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
Mark Richardson, Sr. Warden
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