Monthly

This has been a very hot summer. We’re in the process of beautifying the front of our St. Matthias property, I’m getting estimates to remove several trees that are either dead or blocking the street view of our beautiful church. We’ll include photos once the work is finished.

We are seeking committee volunteers for our St. Matthias 50th anniversary, May 7, 2023 (only 9 months away). We had a full house at our 40th in 2013. We have all the checklists, timelines, invites, etc. we created for our last anniversary celebration that just need updating. I’ll see if we can get Bishop High or our new Bishop for our annual visit during our celebration.

I pray everyone is having a blessed summer. We had a busy June and I appreciate everyone’s support with our activities and the time spent making sure everything ran smoothly.

We had a very successful yard sale to help our outreach ministries. Special thanks to Erika, Rob, Allison, Harry, Rick, Dora and Carlos for all of their help.

We’re excited St. Matthias is one of 8 churches selected in the U.S. to be Beta testers for the Episcopal Church Foundation PIVOT Pilot Program. PIVOT: Addresses the needs of the underserved Episcopal faith communities in the digital world. Karen, Pat, Erika, Rob, Meg and I will be involved in online modules and zoom meetings June – August, before the full year program is tweaked and rolled out for other churches. We’ll be concentrating on congregation, neighborhood, and our niche.

What a glorious Easter celebration we had at St. Matthias. Special thanks for folks who provided eggs for the children’s egg hunt after the service. I thought everyone would enjoy seeing last month’s St. Matthias activities through our photos. Enjoy!

We have an action-packed April planned. Holy Week begins with: Palm Sunday, April 10th, 10:30am, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and Jesus’ Passion on the cross. Palm branches will be distributed and waved during the procession. The liturgy of the palms will start outside the church then we’ll process into the church. For the Passion gospel, some folks in the congregation will have specific roles to read with the congregation taking the part of the crowd.

I pray everyone will have a reflective Lenten Season. The highlight of February was the annual Diocesan visit, this year by Bishop Reed. He confirmed Brooke Walters and Allison Soret. Bishop Reed saw the many improvements we’ve made to our buildings and grounds. He was very happy with our church family atmosphere with children running and having fun. Bishop Reed was able to hear our Psalmist, Pat Leece from New York, who is one of our online church family. Erika did a fantastic job serving as the Bishop’s Chaplain.

I pray everyone is having a wonderful Epiphany season. We had a great Annual Meeting. We reviewed all our many accomplishments for the past year (We were very active and busy), passed this year’s budget and discussed upcoming month by month services, outreach and opportunities to gather with many fun activities planned. We also enjoyed a delicious potluck of a wide variety of delights.

I pray everyone is having a joyous and Merry Christmas. We continue to attract new parishioners and have seen some long-term folks return. I want to thank everyone who submitted pledge cards for 2022. The pledges will help the Bishop’s Committee plan our 2022 budget that we will present for your approval at our Annual Meeting and dinner January 16th. We will share our accomplishments for 2021 & plans for 2022. There’s still time if you haven’t submitted your 2022 pledge. We hope you can join us on this special day.

I pray everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are excited as we enter this Advent season. The season of preparation and expectation for the coming celebration of our Lord's nativity, and for the final coming of Christ “in power and glory.” We have a wonderful Christmas Eve Family service planned December 24th, 4pm. We will have Lessons and Carols with a Eucharist service. An important day is coming up soon. Please ensure we receive your estimate of giving pledges for 2022, for our Consecration Sunday on Dec 12th.

We had a busy October. I attended our Diocesan Clergy Conference at Camp Capers. It was great to get updates on ministries and see fellow clergy. Bishop Reed will visit St. Matthias June 19th, which is Father’s Day. I also met with the Diocesan Archdeacon, the Venerable Mike Besson to begin a 5-yr plan for St. Matthias to become a Parish instead of a Mission as we are now. As the number of parishioners continues to grow, I want to be ready. I was honored to be the Chaplain for the Wounded Warriors and Veteran’s Family retreat at our Diocesan Mustang Island Conference Center and thank Meg for leading our Morning Prayer Service while I was away.

I attended a World Missions Symposium and received lots of wonderful information on how we can help. I also attended a presentation by Navaho speaker Walter Shorty. He shared how we can help which I’ll be sharing with the congregation soon. Rob and I made another trip to the Diocese to drop off large bags of donated clothing and two baby strollers.

It’s wonderful to see all the new folks at St. Matthias. We had our largest turnout this year on August 22nd, surpassing our Easter service. A special thank you to Rene and Erika for filling in as Chalice bearers. With all the new folks attending St. Matthias, please consider being part of our lay leadership. We can use more Altar Guild members, Lectors, Lay Eucharist Ministers, acolytes, buildings & grounds. If interested in helping, please let me know.

Water, water everywhere! Oh No! When I arrived at the church on the 19 of July, I saw a broken water pipe under the Parish Hall. The lawn behind the Parish Hall was flooded. I was able to get a plumber to fix an elbow joint that came apart. I’m not sure how many gallons leaked or what our water bill will be like but praise the Lord, at least the inside of the building was spared.

Winter Freeze repairs continue. We had plumbers working very hard to repair the broken waterlines from last winter. They spent several days but now we have water in the Parish Hall. We were able to remove the very old organ and the piano from the Sanctuary and Sacristy. They both served the congregation well in years past (before my time). St. Matthias will be getting an electronic keyboard system in the near future with the hopes we will have someone who’s musically inclined to play (it is being donated by a sister church). With our newly created space, Meg moved all the sound and music equipment to the wall behind the last pew. This will allow Meg and Rob a direct view of the service to be able to see anyone needing help and an easier time giving me hand signals as needed. We also rearranged the Sacristy to be more functional.

I pray everyone had a joyous Easter season. As you all know, we received exciting news about the relaxed Diocesan Covid guidelines. Masks are no longer required for fully vaccinated but may still be worn if desired. We will begin using a chalice with wine for intinction (dipping) for anyone who wants to.

Receiving just the host is considered one in kind and full communion. We will also begin using the Parish Hall for our Social hour and POSM family events. We will resume Godly Play with the start of the new school year (August 2021). Looking for ideas for the Annual Church Picnic! Let us know what you would like to do. Hope to see you in church soon.

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! He is risen i.ndeed! I pray everyone is well. I think we’ve all been waiting for this Easter system to arrive. I want to give a big thank you to Erika and Rob who handled all of the audio/video for our services while Meg was out of the state. I’m personally grateful I could concentrate on the liturgy without worry about all the technical things they did. I also want to thank Rene who filled in as Lector and has agreed to be one of our regular Lectors along with Phyllis and Kenneth

Lent - Lent is normally our wilderness time but I’d say the last 12 months of Corona-tide has been our wilderness time. Last month, we had extended bitter single digit cold, 2 snowstorms, extended loss of electricity, no running water, burst water pipes, no way to get gas, food, cell service, etc., we have given more and have done without to last a long time. We had several parishioners with flooded homes from burst water pipes, even our own Parish Hall had a water pipe burst, people toasted a slices of bread with a stick over the fireplace, scooping snow to melt to flush toilets.

As your Vicar, I would like for St. Matthias to get more parishioners involved in the spiritual life of the church as well as personally. We will have 2 new Lenten bible studies this year, “The Wisdom Years” Feb 4th - March 25th and The Society of St. John the Evangelist Feb 17th - Apr 1st. Please let me know if you’d like to be part of one of these studies. Meg and I will be part of both studies.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve Service as well as a Lessons and Carols service.

We are happy to be able to use our Parish Hall again. We hope to have all kinds of events scheduled for next year when it’s safe to do so.

Our Annual Meeting will be after the service on January 10th. A zoom option will be available for folks who can’t attend.

It’s wonderful to see our congregation grow. We have a new Acolyte, Tristan Puente. We’ve been looking for Acolytes for several years and have our first one. Thank you, Tristan for stepping forward in a leadership role. We have several new folks attending who bring a new energy and vitality to our congregation. It’s wonderful to see so many children at church.