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I stand before you for the tenth time to offer my report and vision to the vestry of St. John’s. I have to tell you that I feel that I am in a particularly good space right now; life is good and I feel tremendous gratitude and excitement.
Last year at Vestry I came with a serious doubt about how long I would be remaining here. What a difference a year makes! We struggled through those times of hardship and, together, we have come out the other side having grown from the experience. As a result, I come to this Vestry with a great deal more hope and excitement. I want to share that with you today.
As I am now in my tenth year, this means that I am in a long-term ministry. It is not the norm in this diocese for a clergy person to stay ten years. Too often parishes and clergy in a long-term relationship become complacent, ministry stagnates and, thus, diminishes in quality. On the other hand, if clergy and people make the effort to stay fresh and pay attention, long-term ministries can be very good and healthy. I do not know what God has in the future for me. I just know that I need to pay prayerful attention to what God is calling me to do now. So far, it feels that God is leading me to stay and be Priest and Pastor here. As things are feeling good and healthy, this prospect pleases me a great deal and pleases Georgina even more.
The one concern I have around long term ministry is, as I said, keeping things fresh. As I look back on my 24 years in ministry I can see tremendous personal and professional growth. Growth is an important value to me. I want to be able to look back on all the years of my ministry and career and be able to say that I grew at every point in my life. I hope that you have the same goal for yourselves. The danger in long-term ministry is saying that where we are is "good enough". It is not! God is calling us to grow and change into something still more precious in his sight. I want to be part of that!
Over the years we have asked ourselves "why don’t we have more people in church?" We have wracked our brains trying to find an answer to this question and a solution to the problem . We have tried many things, we have worked very hard, but often with precious little response. During 2006, a workshop on Natural Church Development was offered in our deanery. I felt that this might just be the key to jump-starting growth in our parish. As I was quite sick on that weekend, I could not go, but five others from our parish did and became tremendously excited by the possibilities that N.C.D. offered to our future together. Since that workshop we have been meeting regularly, often, weekly, to plan how this tool might benefit our congregation.
Natural Church Development began as a research project into the subject of church growth. The researchers looked at why some churches grew and others did not. Their research led them to offer to parishes a tool to help them honestly evaluate various aspects of their ministry and life together. They began with a premise that "God wants churches to grow". The goal for churches is to shape themselves in such a way that they allow God’s growth to happen all by itself. The "tool" focuses on eight key areas of church life: Empowering leadership, Gift-oriented Ministry, Passionate Spirituality, Functional Structures, Inspiring Worship, Holistic Small Groups, Need-oriented Evangelism, Loving Relationships. You will hear more about these eight characteristics over the weeks ahead.
When I first heard about the tool I was both intrigued and fearful. I really wanted to see growth of many kinds happen in this place. Yet I feared that the major conclusion would be that I wasn’t good enough. However, as we read and talked about the N.C.D. literature, I realized that many of these key areas are fairly strong here, that I was doing many of the right things, and, thus, I had nothing to fear. Indeed, none of us has anything to fear from new directions and change. The problem, according to N.C.D. is that, while some areas may be very strong, if there is a weakness, growth would only takes place if we use our strengths to improve upon our weaknesses. The tool, therefore, will point out to us our greatest weakness so that together we may work at improving that area of our life and, thus, release the Divine potential, so that God can grow His Church here in this place. I should add here that "growth" is and will not measured by numbers or "butts in the pews". Growth refers to quality of life, ministry and programme. If our ministry improves in all eight areas, qualitative growth will happen and quantitative growth will follow.
I am asking this parish to commit itself in 2007 to the N.C.D. tool and to the work it will take to "grow" into our future together. This does not mean that we will face a year of overwhelming work, instead, this tool will help us to focus our efforts towards "growth", thus we will work smarter and not harder. Yes, this will necessitate involvement and participation from you. We all will need to commit ourselves to live out our faith with action. We all cannot say, "oh, someone else will do it"! We all need to join together and participate in such a way that we allow the creative power of God to produce the fruit. We cannot do this without God. Our N.C.D. committee will be making a presentation which will illustrate this principle using the wagon with the square wheels that has been placed at the entrance to the church.
This is the hope and the vision that I have for 2007. Scripture says that without a vision the people perish. I stand before you today with a vision; I have the vision of us growing into a more vibrant, welcoming, faithful community of God’s children. I also want to be a part of that growth.
Before I conclude, I want to point out some of the successes which we have shared together or the things which have pleased me during 2006.
The Leamington Area Ecumenical Refugee Committee, which I chair, has been extremely active and effective. This committee is a wonderful model of how faithful people can work together and do God’s work. During 2006 we brought a refugee family from Colombia to Leamington and settled them here. Just the other night we met and voted unanimously to submit an application to sponsor a family of nine now living in a refugee camp in Thailand. This will be a huge task; there are many obstacles facing us. However, we believe that God is calling us to be his hands of love here in this world. We will need more people to be involved. I hope that many of you will choose to join our committee so that you can experience the joy of making a difference in some desperate lives.
Another relief to me was the fact that this year we met our budget. We always seem to struggle and scrape. This year, though, through your generosity, we met and exceeded our goals. I thank you for this gift and your support.
This year we had the joy of welcoming a number of new people into our midst. To our newcomers, I am grateful for your presence here among us. I pray that God would richly bless you as we are blessed by your presence.
As usual, there are a number of "thank you’s" which I would like to offer. I would like to thank the Wardens, David Seaton, Richard Crosby and Bob Botham. They have worked faithfully with me and for us this year, and I would like everyone to be aware of their faithfulness. I thank Liz Chaplin, my faithful sidekick, with whom I can share everything and, in turn, receive wisdom and encouragement. I want to thank Kim Metelka; I love having the opportunity to be involved in her formation and ministry, and I appreciate the great deal that she gives back. I want to thank Linda Healey for being the wonderful, joyful person that she is in the office. I want to thank our new Honourary Assistant, Georgina, my better half. As I stated in my worship committee report, people have commented on how much they enjoy her presence in worship; She offers another voice and a female perspective to our life and worship. I too appreciate her presence and her support is so many ways. Speaking of side-kicks, I would like to thank Karen, our Youth Minister and her faithful side-kick Marty. You are a good team. Other thanks will be offered at our vestry meeting later.
Finally, I would like to thank Debbie Wilson-Safa. Debbie has become one my "go to people". When we have a need, no one is more willing to step up and offer their time and talents than Debbie. Deb has a heart for God and for "servant ministry", which is the definition of Diaconal Ministry. She is also a detail person; if she says she is going to do something, it will be done thoroughly. Certainly there are visible tasks she performs like providing leadership for our Christmas dinner, but she offers herself in many "behind the scenes" ways too. For this reason and for the ways in which she provided excellent ministry to this parish, I would ask that this vestry pass a motion to forward her name to the bishop for consideration for the Bishop’s Award for Excellence in Ministry. Thank you so much Deb, and congratulations in advance.