Rector's Report for 2021

 

Rector's report

I hardly know where to begin in writing a report on my place at Saint Paul's during the pandemic. The narrative doesn’t begin in any sense at all with the signing of a letter of agreement to be your interim part-time Rector in July of this year. My history with you as a congregation goes back for years now. I probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my time spent with you during critical times over the last few years.

In my own experience it has been primarily with St Paul’s that I have tried to figure out how to be church in the midst of pandemic. In March 20 20 I returned from Dayton Ohio expecting to continue as the recent past had been. As if overnight my teaching and my supply work at churches changed dramatically.

Your lives all changed just as abruptly. My experience mirrors and is comparable to what all of us have experienced over the last few years.

The highlights of my time since August with you would include the following:

• Making a decision to re-open the office
• We began meeting in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings
• Eventually we made the decision to begin offering the Eucharist twice on a Sunday
• Later we made a decision to begin offering communion from the consecrated wine, following Diocesan protocols. All of us experienced things we never had before as Episcopalians
• With significant help from the vestry and Charlotte in particular, we navigated toward a new organization for the congregation with several revisions of bylaws

During this period of time I have met weekly with diocesan leadership via Zoom. These meetings have impressed me enormously in the way in which the bishop and his parishes are able to stay connected. It’s an example for me of how elements forced on us by Covid19, have at times nudged us to adapt changes that are better for us in the long run. All of us are learning new ways of being Church together.

I have also attended monthly meetings of the other interim clergy throughout the diocese. These gatherings also have been helpful on several fronts. On the one hand we can share experiences and recognize similarities in the challenges that each of us faces. I jokingly said to one of my colleagues that hearing of her circumstances I realize that other people have it worse than I did. There are challenges galore facing the church in these times and certainly that’s true at St. Paul’s.

All of us have faced unprecedented changes because of the pandemic. St. Paul’s has multiplied the changes and challenges because you walked with Fr. Jim through his final years. You were among the angels that ministered to him in his time of greatest need.

I have reported to the vestry each month and have begun sharing those reports with the congregation. I have also been emailing the congregation weekly during December with a series of self-reflective prompts intended for us all to experience more deeply the call to a deeper commitment to our Baptism.

The new vestry will, I believe, be faced with several challenges to both lead St. Paul's as it resumes a more normal posture to the world and facilitate change as St. Paul's becomes a different sort of church from what it was. They will be making decisions about calling a permanent rector in 2022. My guess is that anyone responding to a call here in Monroe will be aware of the massive changes the church is undergoing, while at the same time bringing with him or her an energy and a passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It may not always seem like it, but we are entering an exciting and hopeful time. There are signs that there is emerging here a new energy for prayer and growth in spiritual maturity. I believe that you will build the foundations of the 21st century St. Paul's on those foundations.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Co. 13:12-13)