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Off to a GREAT start!

Palm Sunday was great today! The weather was beautiful as we processed from the parking lot into the building. We had a bit of a traffic jam processing inside (note to self – just one time around next year!).

Church was packed and we were incredibly blessed to have the 5th grade class of Coast Episcopal School perform the Passion Gospel for us. They were AMAZING. So many lines they had memorized and their actings was superb. Many thanks to these kids, their parents, and their Headmaster / Chaplain the Reverend Liz Jones for their offering today. We were really blessed.

I always end Palm Sunday service with a Post Communion hymn “My Song is Love Unknown”. What a beautiful hymn, that tells the whole story of Holy Week. As one parishioner noted today – it is really art as the lyrics and music weave together a moving story. I am always brought to tears as we sing it, and I do insist we sing all seven verses, it’s well worth it.

Now the crazy-busy days of Holy Week will unfold and I truly look forward to each part of this journey.

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Getting Excited

It’s the week before Holy Week – the most wonderful time of the year! From Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday it’s crazy busy and great! I’ve said it before, although I had been confirmed several years before, I really BECAME an Episcopalian when I finally “danced every dance” for Holy Week. Maundy Thursday with the incredible example of servant ministry in the washing of feet, followed by solemn stripping of the altar and leaving in silence, the all night altar of repose before the Reserved Sacrament, to Good Friday with the church stripped bare and the saying of the Solemn Collects and veneration of the cross, to the glorious Easter Vigil, salvation history told by candlelight and the first Alleluias of Easter, and the glory of Easter Sunday – our liturgies allow us to experience the passion and resurrection of Christ in such amazing ways.

I know it’s really difficult for folks to attend every service of Holy Week, I really do. But I wish, for at least Thursday through Sunday, people would make it a priority, carve out that time, and let the liturgies of our church transport us, change us, and remind us of what it’s all about to follow Jesus.

I am also getting excited about my Sabbatical! Plans are coming together, plane tickets bought, reservations made – it’s almost here! I am equally excited for my parish – the sabbatical time will allow them to not just catch their collective breath, but to participate in some very exciting workshops while also remembering their own ministry as leaders and disciples, without me getting in the way of that.

I have more to say soon about the Sabbatical and some things that are already bubbling up about that time. Meanwhile – make plans to dance every dance of Holy Week yourself, wherever you may be.

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Annual Meeting!

Due to my absence from when I was in the hospital and subsequent recovery time, we postponed our Annual Meeting to March 13 – the 1st Sunday of Lent. And in our never ending effort to confuse people, we changed the worship service time to 10:00 am (from 9:30), AND re-instituted Sunday School at 9:00. Did I mention we made all these changes the weekend of the switch to Daylight Savings Time?

Nonetheless, it was a very good day. Despite a lot of our families out of town for spring break (I really wish schools would not take the WHOLE last week of Mardi Gras off – it kills participating in Ash Wednesday services, and hurts 1st Sunday of Lent as well…..price we pay for being in the middle of Carnival happiness I suppose), we had a good turnout for both Sunday School and church / meeting.

We elected two new vestry members and discussed the budget. I gave a charge to the Parish, reminding them of our “grasshopper” theme and also talked a little about my upcoming Sabbatical.

During lunch we made the “big announcement”. We have struggled mightily with our 2011 budget, and after much hard work and another terrific donation from the Diocese of Florida, as well as pay cuts for me and staff, we got it down to a $28,000 deficit. Then, in answer to prayer, an anonymous donor offered a $15,000 matching fund gift. So we launched the “Grasshopper Fund”, hoping to raise the full $15,000 (and more we hope) by Easter Sunday, so we can proceed on into 2011 without the anchor of a big deficit around our necks.

Our folks were really excited to hear of this and pledges to the Grasshopper Fund are already coming in. It was also the 7th anniversary of my arrival as Rector, making me the longest serving Priest of this place by almost a year. Year 8 will be great!

A good day!

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Getting there….

with the kids and their "significant others"

First I must thank those who supported me to return as a Deputy to General Convention 2012. I am delighted to be there and to represent our wonderful Diocese.

Along with Fr. Scott Lenoir and Fr. Jeff Reich, I helped lead a workshop on Communications at our Diocesan Council. It was a blast! We had a standing room only crowd, and the three of us worked well in discussing and showing both print and electronic communications tools. I think it was well received – will see once the evaluations are in!

Council was fun as usual, and the focus on Mission, coupled with the Mission Marketplace and the excellent workshop offerings enhanced what is always a joyful event. And with my election as Deputy, and Danny Meadors as 1st alternate in the Lay order, St. Patrick’s is once again the most represented of Parishes per capita at General Convention!

This weekend the Diocese is sponsoring a conference on the Anglican Covenant. I will not be able to attend due to the ongoing medical issues I am dealing with. 6 hours a day of IV antibiotics do not lend themselves to travel (I skipped a dose to make it to Council last weekend and got in big trouble!). I will be with them in spirit and continue to study the Covenant and to read all I can the various opinions on it. It will be a very important part of our work at GC2012 I am sure.

Health wise things are improving. The cast was removed Monday and the wound looks really, really good. My LW was a bit concerned at first, but so far the healing appears to be on track. I am supposed to miss 2 more weeks of work, and I am mostly non-weight bearing for a week, although I have started rehab and am walking a little around the house. How GREAT it feels to be without crutches! This nightmare began October 6th and I am really excited to make positive progress after a difficult time. What a blessing in my life to have a wife not only skilled and knowledgable in all things medical, but who takes such good and loving care of me. Believe me, this is not a blessing I take for granted.

I miss St Patrick’s folks very much and hope I can see them all this Sunday in some capacity. Praying today for all those facing difficulties from this wintry weather, especially the homeless, first responders, and those who travel. Stay safe folks!

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Thinking about General Convention

First of all, thanks for following me to my new home in the blog world – Word Press. Should be fun!

Woke up way too early today with General Convention 2012 on my mind. Probably because this weekend at the Diocese of Mississippi’s Annual Council I am again running for GC Deputy. I’d like to return, and mostly because I think we need to drastically change how GC operates. We start by refocusing what GC should be about. I truly believe that participants at GC have become entrenched and buried so deeply into the legislative mire that it has become, that they can’t see we’ve moved away from the mission and ministry of the church and allowed our time and energy to be diverted. The Presiding Bishop warns us of “suicide by governance”, and that comes from worshipping process and canons more than we worship Jesus. GC is full of people authoring resolutions that really have no bearing at all on the mission of the church, especially our church, with often a false sense of power and importance that our gravely worded resolutions have to speak to the world.

As example I give you the “Committee of the Whole” fail from GC 2009. Our President of the House of Deputies (PHOD), honorary doctor Bonnie Anderson, decides to use a rare parliamentary procedure called the Committee of the Whole, so the entire House of Deputies can act as one committee to discuss, of course, issues around sexuality, while we spent the entire time at GC completely ignoring the report from the State of the Church committee which lays out in alarming, truth speaking words how as a denomination we are shrinking and how if we do not address this we will soon disappear, how we must get excited and put time, resources, energy, and education into mission and evangelism, how our national church offices distract from mission, etc., etc. The report was eye opening and vital, yet NEVER discussed on the floor of the House of  Deputies. THAT’S what we need a Committee of the Whole to talk about.

At our Annual Council we have a resolution to support our Bishop in his efforts to reform GC. I am totally on board with that, and would love to see some meat added to it, with specific proposals, suggestions, and ideas. We need new thinking, new passion for mission, and a new awareness that making ourselves seem important by authoring and debating resolutions that mean nothing to most of the people in the pews and do nothing to promote the Good News of Jesus is a dead end.

It’s time to turn this battleship. I hope I get a chance to be a part of that.