1/22: 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany & Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting report is included in the weekly email. 
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always be
acceptable in your sight, oh Lord our strength and our redeemer.

The last line of our Gospel lesson tells us that Jesus went throughout Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and
curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

We’ve got some good news to proclaim today:
On our annual meeting Sunday.

We’ve had a great year:
Proclaiming the good news of the kingdom together:
Both in this building,
And in the world beyond.

Like Andrew and Peter:
We’ve been called to be followers of Jesus.
And while we’re certainly not perfect at,
There’s some things that we’ve been doing pretty well.

Our Sunday worship attendance has remained steady in the past year:
Something that many congregations are still struggling with since the beginning of the pandemic.

Our attendance on both Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, Were higher than the previous year.

This year we celebrated a baptism,
A wedding,
And two confirmations!

Our financial pledges for the upcoming year came in over $1500 higher than last
year.

We’ve made some advances in our worship too.

We finally got our big screen TV:
Allowing us to put the service up for everyone to see.

This has reduced our need for a Sunday bulletin:
Which has saved us both time and money!

I want to give a very sincere and special thank you to Mark and Sam Metko.
They have worked terribly hard,
To not only get the screen up and going:
But I’m certain they’ve put in HOURS of work getting everything onto a
powerpoint for all of us to see.

If you’re interested in helping with the compilation of those powerpoints:
Or in being the power point “clicker” on Sunday morning:

Please let us know!

And while We’re on the subject of worship:
We have to give our sincere thanks to our fabulous music team.

Mark, Tim, and Steve.
Our worship would absolutely not be what it is without you,
And your tireless commitment to help us each week to make a joyful noise to the
Lord.

You all know as well as I do:
How important music is to our worshipping community.
And not only that:
But its part of what makes us particularly unique. (especially in the Episcopal
Church)

But there are other things that make us unique!

We continue to be a part of the Order of Saint Luke.
This past year, we hosted our first healing conference since before the pandemic:
And the Holy Spirit was most certainly present!

A big thank you goes to Jan Peskie for all of her hard work in keeping us going in
our healing ministry.
Besides the conference, and the offering of healing prayer after services,

Jan has also lead a small group throughout the year in various book studies,
prayers, and fellowship.

It has been a great joy of mine to attend many of those events,
And those events are expanding!

This winter,
The OSL group is moving further out in the fox valley,
And meeting or a book study in Appleton.

It’s been a wonderful way to connect with other healing prayer ministers in our
area,
And to study and pray for one another.

The Healing prayer ministry was also essential in our Blue Christmas service this
year.
We had a beautiful service,
With a soup meal before hand.
And I’ certain that the whole experience was healing for those who attended.

What else makes us particularly unique?
Our food pantry!
The food pantry continues to be sign of Jesus’ love in our community.
And not only through it’s gift of feeding people in need:

It’s also been a sign of Jesus’ love through the overwhelming amount of gifts and
donations that people in our church—and beyond—have donated to keep the
pantry going.

LuAnne Nelson has a true God-given gift for this ministry:
And I can’t express enough my gratitude to her and her commitment and care.

And of course:
Our Thrift store!
St. John’s Thrift store has been through MANY changes in the past year.

Besides a debacle getting a new furnace put in:
The biggest and most wonderful change has been with our new Manager.

Our own Pam O’Brien stepped up this spring to manage the store,
And she has been doing a wonderful job.

I can tell you that the work at the thrift store is CONSTANT and never-ending.
There’s always donations coming in to sort through, and put out,
And it is HARD work!

Pam has taken this in stride:
And, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention her husband Pat:
Who can often be found helping out at the store as well.

Both Pam and LuAnne will give us a brief update at our meeting following the
service.

And truly: to both LuAnne and Pam:
THANK YOU.
For being not only ambassadors of St. Johns,
But for being ambassadors of Jesus by bringing this ministries out into the world.

Finally,
We couldn’t run this church without our vestry!

I want to thank
Jason Marks,
Jenny Marks,
Mary Kamp,
Cheryl Weyers,
Kathy LeClair,
And Dan LeClair.

Our vestry not only helps with the day-to-day running of the church:
But they are an amazing and essential support to me as your priest.

Thank you: to each of you:
For your ministry this past year.

But there’s an especially big thank you here:
And that’s to Dan LeClair.

As of our annual meeting today:
Dan is retiring from TWENTY years of service on the vestry.

That’s a SUPER long time!

Dan was the Senior Warden when Fr. Paul retired in 2016:
Which was a major transition to oversee.

He also oversaw the paying off of our building mortgage in 2019,
And then of course:
The long and grueling 5 year search process ending in my arrival here.

Dan was the first person I had contact with when I was discerning whether we
would be a good fit.
And I’ll always be grateful that that first contact was with someone as committed
to the church, genuine, thoughtful, and FUN person like Dan.

Just to be clear:
Dan isn’t going anywhere.
He’s just not going to be serving officially on the vestry.

If you would:
Please join me in giving a big round of applause thank you to Dan for his long-time
service to our church.

At the actual meeting:
We’ll vote on our vestry members for the upcoming year.

Finally:
We would not be where we are as a church:
We would not be WHO we are as church:
Without each and every one of you.

Thank you:
For your faithful commitment to St. Johns:
For your unwavering commitment to Jesus:
And for your willingness to show up:
To be with each other,
And see the Living God.

I’m grateful for each and every one of you:
And I know that God rejoices in your presence.

I can’t wait to see what God will lead us to do in 2023!

Amen.

Annual Meeting Discussions

1.) Vestry Slate
a. Kathy LeClair
Cheryl Weyers
Jason Marks
Jenny Marks
Sam Metko

2.) Convention Delegates and Alternates
a. Significant because we’ll be voting on the trialogue.
b. Saturday October 21 st
i. Either in Fond du Lac or Menasha

3.) Discussion on Common Cup
4.) Discussion on Ecumenical Ash Wednesday Service
5.) Discussion on Earlier Service Time