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Easter Family Eucharist!

Saturday, April 20th, 4:30-6pm

Next Saturday (April 20th) is our Easter Family Eucharist service, starting at 4:30 and going until 6pm. We’ll have some Easter crafts and if the weather is nice, we’ll have some balls and games to play outside. There may even be a late season Easter Egg Hunt. Please phone or email the office to let us know that you are planning to come! Everyone is invited: children & grandchildren, parents & grandparents!

This will be our final Family Eucharist of the season. Look forward to a Sunday barbecue in June (to be scheduled), and then starting up with the services again in September. Special thanks to Stuart & Cathy for all their efforts through the year!

Stewardship

Currently, our church is welcoming a lot of new people over the threshold. This is good because want to be able to share our particular way of demonstrating the love of God with as many people as possible, but it is challenging because it means that our staff and church leaders are working very, very hard to try to keep up. We’re at that place in the process of growth where we’ve got lots of extra work to do, but haven’t quite figured out how to integrate all the new people and manage all the new resources. Remember, that all our staff are part-time! And so we turn our minds to Stewardship.

Stewardship is the name we give to all of the opportunities we have to share our gifts and ourselves with the church and with God. There are two areas here where I want you to consider what more you can do:

First, is financial stewardship. We currently bring in approximately $13,500 per month in revenue. We need to increase this amount by at least $2,000 per month. We have about 65 people attending regularly on a Sunday, which means that if each person gave $30 more per month, we would increase our revenue by this new amount. I know that not everyone is able to increase their giving by $30 per month, but some of us are able to increase our giving by more than $30 per month. Many of you have already increased your giving recently, and for that I am very grateful. For those who haven’t yet increased their giving, please prayerfully consider if you are able to do so. We need all the help we can get!

The second area where we need to pay attention to stewardship is in terms of evangelism. It would be wonderful to invite even more people to participate in the life of our community. This means you have some work to do in terms of inviting people. Just imagine if all 65 of us invited someone new to church once per month! That would be 65 new people per month, or 780 new people per year. If even just 1% of those people decide to stay and join the conversation, that would be 7 or 8 new people, a growth rate of over 10%! In terms of who to invite, the possibilities are endless! You can choose from family, including children or grandchildren, and friends, including friends you’ve had for a long time and friends who you’ve just met recently. The more people we have participating, the more secure our ministry platform becomes. So get out there and tell people how much you want them to come to our church!

Capital Giving

As you know, we are facing some significant capital challenges including and new roof for the sanctuary and a new piano. We have secured the funding for the new roof, but part of that funding is a loan from the diocese which will need to be paid back over the next 10 years. This will likely be a monthly payment somewhere in the realm of $700 per month.

In terms of the piano, you will see that we are using the old piano bench in the narthex to collect money. The most cost effective new pianos available cost somewhere in the realm of $55,000 - $60,000. We have already received one very generous donation of $5000 towards to new piano and are hoping for a few more just like that! We’ll also accept donations of $1000, $500, and amounts both smaller and larger!

Remember to identify you offering envelopes!

Due to the number of new people both attending the church and working at the church, please ensure that your name and/or offering number are clearly marked on any and all offering envelopes! We want to make sure that we can credit you for the monetary gifts you give to the church.

Please make sure that your name and/or offering number are clearly marked on your envelopes!

Starting on Saturday, March 23rd at 9am, I’ll be here at the church getting started on the yard work. You are invited to come as you are able! And if you don’t feel able, feel free to bring water and snacks for the hungry workers! We meet every Saturday at this time through March and April.

Some of the jobs that need doing:

raking up leaves, branches and pine cones from the grass and parking lot.
cleaning up the garden beds
scraping moss off the curbs
pulling grass from the rock strip around the church
pulling buttercups from the memorial garden under the cross window
cutting low-hanging branches from the trees
raking out all the little mole holes
removing the dead tree from the sacristy courtyard
washing the outside of the windows around the church
raking out the daycare yard

If you are interested in doing ongoing lawn maintenance through the summer, please speak to Cathy who will set up a lawn-care schedule in the coming weeks. Ideally, we would like four lawn-care teams.

Special thanks to Jim G for sharpening the blades on the lawn mowers!

The Diocesan Mission Conference is on May 11th at St Mark’s, Ocean Park. The theme of this conference is ‘Toward a Theology of Land’ and includes a number of speakers talking about land from various perspectives including: the Hebrew Bible, Indigenous perspectives, and land use/property development opportunities particularly to address housing and homelessness. This is a great chance to get a sense of how our Diocese and all of our parishes can use our land and property to serve the needy of the world. Please speak to me if you are interested in this opportunity. It would be great to have two or three people from our parish in attendance.

Tuesday Bible Study begins again and will meet through April and May. We’ll examine the theme of ‘Spring’ in various books of the bible, everything from Lamentations and Job to the Gospel of Luke! We meet on zoom at 7pm, and the link is the same one as for Sunday mornings.

The Thursday Healing Eucharist is back on this week. Please come if you are in need of healing prayers for yourself or someone you love. And we’ll keep up the Thursday in-person Bible Study at 10am. We would be happy to welcome two or three more people to join us in person to explore the them of ‘Spring’.

Our Saturday afternoon Spiritual Practice Retreat will be on the 27th of this month, beginning at 1:30pm and going until 4:30. Our topic is The Spiritual Practice of Pastoral Visiting. Please sign up for the retreat on the sheet on the office window!

Keep your eyes open for the Knitting Group. They usually meet on Wednesdays.

The next Family Eucharist service will be on April 20th from 4:30-630pm, and the theme will be Easter! This is a fun time for the whole family and includes a Bible story, some crafts and activities, Holy Communion, and pizza supper. Please mark this day in your calendar and plan to bring your whole family. And, if you are interested in helping with some of the activities, Cathy & I are going to have a short meeting to make some plans. Please let me or Cathy know if you would like to help out!