I write this from a hotel room in Jacksonville, FL. Came here yesterday to do a talk at a Lenten gathering at a fabulous church here. This Diocese is raising 250K to be matched from a fund with another 250K, all for the rebuilding of our church! I have been now on 4 trips here and preached or talked at 5 or 6 churches. I have really enjoyed their support and prayers and of course this wonderful gift they are raising for us.
I leave tomorrow for Arlington, Virginia to visit two more adopting churches, preaching on Sunday morning, etc. These are two great supporters as well.
The truth is I have been on the road an AWFUL lot since Katrina. Raising money and awareness of our ongoing situation has been very important. But it is so tiresome. I am tired of being gone, sick of airports and air travel, miss my family and have too much work to do back home. But it is necessary. There is no way to ask our folks for any kind of capital campaign to build our church. Insurance from the destroyed property will not even pay half of the 1st building to be constructed (our plan is to build a multi-purpose building that will be worship and fellowship space for us, along with education and nursery) until we can figure out how to build the church proper. We need a lot more money to get this done. Construction costs on the Coast have risen around 80% post storm.
So I hit the road, often. This is it until Easter, then a couple of more trips planned before mid-summer. Everywhere I go I am received so warmly and people are shocked to learn how much more must be done, many assume we are “all back to normal” at the 18 month mark. No, not even close. And the mental health issues, for adults and children, are actually increasing.
Please keep praying for us and please don’t forget us.

Prayer answered on SO many fronts. Thanks be to God!
We have tentative approval of our property purchase and an agreement on price with the property owner! We DID IT! Although the final contract is still in the lawyer’s hands, we are there, just need signatures!
I am blown away! This is GOOD NEWS!
Our location is prime for Long Beach.
Last Saturday we had a full day meeting with the architects, and they are now working on the master plan for the site!
We have to raise a bunch more money, but we are on the way!
AND
We have returned to Sunday morning worship. Saturday nights have died off, and we are now doing 2 services on Sunday mornings. Our attendance the last two weeks has been the best since Katrina. Thanks be to God! Again, prayers answered.
Next week is the Bishop’s annual visit, and we are again borrowing the Methodist church. We have been wandering all over town, but at least we now know where we are going.
Thanks for all your prayers!!!!!

Does anything on this confounded Coast happen in a timely manner any more?
I haven’t posted in ages cuz I just knew that ANY DAY NOW I would be able to either celebrate the miracle I asked y’all to pray for, or talk about plan B.
And we are not there yet…..
However…..
We are REAL CLOSE and it is GOING TO HAPPEN!
WOOOOHOOOOO
Very, very soon I will publish where we are going, and I hope and pray that with that decision behind us we will gain some much needed momentum as we begin planning our buildings.

Meanwhile I continue to spend too much time on the road, still looking for help to build those buildings. Two more trips lined up the next 7 weeks. It is great to share our story and to meet some really wonderful people, wonderful and helpful and hopeful and generous people. It’s just that the road gets old, folks, it just does. There is so much to do here, that I regret any time away, but it’s what we gotta do for now.

Today was an interesting day. After a 2 am phone call, I had to rearrange the entire weekend. We WERE going to return to the gym this Sunday for services (YAY) preceded by Christian Ed (double YAY). But had to punt on that for a couple of weeks. Spent the day today trying to let everyone in the church know, hope we reached all that were coming. Then learned that the Lutheran church we use on Saturday nights has a funeral at 7 on Sat (we start at 6), so have to make some adjustments to get out by 645.
Can you tell I covet my own space? But all in all, we are blessed to have a place to use and everyone has been great.

Stay tuned. I promise to post more often…and hopefully very soon it will be AMAZING news!

As I waste time this morning on here, instead of finishing sermons for Advent 4 (tonight) and Christmas Eve (tomorrow) and Christmas Day (Monday – but it will definitely be a wing-it-as-you-go sermon), I am struck, once again, by the faith of Mary and of how she was “already blessed” by her belief, before Jesus even made the grand entrance in a stable.
Which brings me to prayer request, part two!
Thanks for all of you who have been praying for St. Patrick’s and our continued recovery. Those prayers have been answered in an amazing way! I cannot really yet give out too many details, but this week our vestry accepted the recommendation of our site committee to pursue one particular piece of property that we all feel is a FANTASTIC location for the new St. Pats. It is in the heart of town, near schools, residential neighborhoods, highly visible, high traffice, pretty land, land that is above Katrina flood levels, the list goes on. The process of arriving at this decision was hard yet wonderful, prayerful, and faith filled. I cannot applaud loudly enough the work of our site committee, our planning committee, our consultant, and our vestry. I am PUMPED UP about this decision.
Which brings me to your prayers…..please don’t stop.
The only hurdle yet to cross to obtain this property is the price. We have begun negotiations, and the starting point of the land owner is too high. Our task is to convince him how we will care for this land, how we will offer so much to the community from there, how we had previously given over to the city a large part of our property for a city park, how we are committted to that same kind of presence at our new location. It is our hope and prayer that appealing to his sense of civic duty and our intentions will help us in the negotiations.
Can we claim this in God’s name? Can we dare to rejoice in God’s providence, even before it happens? Sounds kinda like Mary to me. Will you join me and our people in praying for this kind of miracle for our church?
Why not here? Why not claim God’s blessing on the process we have followed and the prayers we have said? Why not look for the unexpected and use it to give God glory?
Will you join me?

Hello, my legions of blogger fans!
I know it’s been a while since I have posted. Things are really hopping here and I have been up to my neck. A lot of it is good, though, and we are making great progress.
Our rebuilding committees have been working fast and furious. We have hired an architect (YEA), and our mission and ministry committee has completed surveying over half of our congregation and they have developed a draft mission statement. This will be presented to the Parish at a dinner on Sunday night, Dec. 3rd. I think it is EXCELLENT and really reflects what we learned from the surveys about who we are and who we want to serve. The process of formulating the statement was really cool. I am excited about it. Once approved, I will share it on here, I know you all are anxious to read it!
Our site selection committee is reaching the finish line. Some of you know we thought we had a property location last March, and after having to wait a couple of months, the owner then decided not to sell (no fault there, the owner’s circumstances changed dramatically). This put us back at square one, but it is really ok as all the above work needed to happen before we even thought about designing a building. This committee has narrowed lcoations down to 3 or 4, and the architects have walked each of these properties and gave us some feedback about them.
This brings me to the prayer request. I believe the location decision for the new St. Patrick’s to be the most important and most difficult thing we have to do. Where we will be will impact this church for generations. Where we will be is more important, in my view, than what the building looks like. So this decision is HUGE. Next Tuesday this committee and our overall planning committee will meet with our consultant. Each property will be evaluated against criteria we have established. The criteria will be weighted as to importance and then tallied up for each location. From this meeting I hope the site committee will be able to present their recommendation to the vestry within one week.
The vestry is tasked with the final decision (with Diocesan approval of course). So these meetings from now until Dec 7 or so will be so very important. I would appreciate your prayers for all the committee members, for our consultant, for me as the Rector trying to lead this process in a Godly way, and to our Vestry as they struggle with such a monumental decision. I think we are going about things the right way, I am impatient but I understand it’s not my time frame we are working under. I am very excited that we are reaching this point.
Putting up a sign on property in the next few weeks promoting “Future Site of St. Patrick’s” will be an incredible morale boost to our folks.
I appreciate your prayers. I will keep you posted. Happy Thanksgiving to all!