Parish Annual Meeting

2011 Annual Report

Rector’s Address – Parish Annual Meeting – February 12, 2012

Thank you for caring enough about the life of this Parish to be here today!  I hope you have read or will read all the written reports in the Annual Report Booklet.  I tried in my written report to give an overview of year just past here at Grace.  Today I want to highlight just a few of the aspects of life in this faith community from my perspective as your rector.

Over the last year, my learning curve has been steep, as I seemed to dwell far too often in the worlds of property insurance, lawyers and courts, personnel changes, and doctors and hospitals.  While I can’t say the learning process has been fun, it certainly has been interesting!  Let me share with you where things currently stand in these areas.

Our involvement in the Boy Scout lawsuit has not yet been resolved and will continue to take time and energy.  Hopefully I will spend far less time in 2012 on property insurance matters now that the lightning strike claim has been settled, and we agreed on a new 3-year property insurance package.  With the Personnel Committee’s help, we navigated the change from Matt Jaeger to Kimberly Stevens as parish administrator as smoothly as possible.  We also brought an Assistant Rector, Meghan Holland, onto the staff as part of the diocesan process for newly ordained clergy.  You were amazingly kind and helpful to Jim and me through his medical trials and tribulations last year, which included four week-long hospital stays.  We both thank you and ask that you continue to hold us in prayer as we sort out some ongoing health issues for both of us.

Our new bishop, Terry White, recognized the vitality of this parish on his first visit to us in December 2010.  He also recognized by the end of March 2011 that I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  Wanting to help Grace church keep our momentum going, he and I worked toward bringing Meghan Ryan Holland on our staff three-quarter-time with strong financial support from the Diocese.  The Vestry agreed. Meghan was ordained here in June and joined our staff shortly thereafter.  Her gifts and interests are an excellent fit for this particular time at Grace, and I am very glad to have her as colleague.  This congregation raised Meghan up as a teen and young adult and helped her claim a vocation as priest.  You can take great  pride in that.  The Diocese provides significant financial support for newly ordained priests.  That support will continue through the first six months of 2013.  I challenge you to keep our finances at a level that could support her continued presence on our staff beyond that time.

Later this year, I will take a nine or ten week sabbatical leave.  My letter of agreement with this congregation provided for a sabbatical of up to twelve weeks after six years of service, and in March 2012 I will celebrate my seventh anniversary as your rector.  The sabbatical will be a time of rest and renewal, working on improved health practices, reconnecting with family, and engaging in a study/learning component that hopefully will bear fruit in a program or series of programs for Grace Church.  My focus will be on reconciliation.  I will examine that theme through the lens of racism and the Civil Rights Movement, bearing down most strongly on the story of Jonathan Daniels (an Episcopal seminary student working for civil rights, who was murdered in my hometown when I was 17) and how his witness affected my life and shaped my ministry.   The 2012 budget makes provision to help pay for this sabbatical.  You will be well cared for during my time away by Meghan Holland and Richard Paxton with a bit of help from others.  As plans take more concrete shape, the Sabbatical Committee and I will keep the vestry and parish informed.

Last year, I challenged you to break two long-standing patterns in relation to our parish finances.  Although we continued to live with the tension of a large deficit until the last two weeks of December, you did meet the second challenge.  Juliette Grumley and the Stewardship Committee she recruited began early in the fall with our 2012 Pledge Process, which produced results that you can see on our bell tower.  289 days of our operating expenses are funded this year through pledges.  That represents an outstanding 11% increase in the amount pledged!  Thank you for your commitment to the work of this parish.  The rest of the budget will be funded from other sources, which you can see on the 2012 Budget sheet in your Annual Report Booklet. The end result of our Stewardship Process was excellent, but equally helpful was that almost all  the pledge cards were in by mid-December.   For the first time in a long time, your vestry and I were relieved of the anxiety of not knowing if we would be able to make a reasonable budget for the coming year.  Thank you, Juliette, and thank you, people of Grace!

I want to focus now on another very positive shift in the life of this parish.  If you are here only on Sundays, you may not be aware of what happens here on Wednesday nights.  The Parking Lot is filled, and people are in the Parish Hall, upstairs classrooms, and choir room.  Of course the Choir has laid claim to Wednesday nights as their rehearsal time for many years.  They are a dedicated group, and rehearsal time is an important part of their learning and community-building.  Families with young children gather for supper at 5:15.  After supper, the parents continue to enjoy informal conversation in the Parish Hall while their children go either to the Godly Play Room or another classroom upstairs.  (During Lent, two classes for adults will also be offered.)  The group has been steadily growing. Two weeks ago, our sexton, Blaine Hebert, looked at me during the Wednesday supper and said, “Guess I need to set up more tables, don’t I!”   An awesome community is forming among the children and adults who share meals, conversation, and education on Wednesdays.  That sense of excitement and community spills over into Sunday morning and outside of church, as well.

This growth did not happen by accident.  It was dreamed about and planned for intentionally, but the results we are seeing now have exceeded our hopes and dreams!  Will Black and I began talking and planning for a new approach to Christian Formation for young children at least four, maybe even five years ago.  Grandmothers Nancy Black and Shirley Menendez and young mother, Julie Hideg, began to dream with us as we formed a Godly Play leadership team.  We sought training and tested the program with small groups of young children.  In the fall of 2010, this group personally invited other parents to bring their children, and that group of parents selected Wednesday nights as best.  Twelve children signed up for that series and most nights we had at least ten children and their parents.  Grandparents provided meals (an important piece of the community-building process).  Meanwhile, Meghan Holland was learning about Godly Play in seminary and her field education parish.  When Bishop White assigned Meghan to Grace last summer, she became our Godly Play Coordinator.  The Wednesday night group outgrew its space, so this month we added another activity group on Wednesdays for elementary-age children and a Sunday morning Godly Play Group for elementary-age children, so that we could get double usage from the specially prepared classroom and reach even more children.  This is exciting work, and it is vital work that flows out of our baptismal covenant.  Some of the increase in our 2012 budget reflects the growth we are seeing in this area.  If you don’t know what Godly Play is about, I urge you to read the description in your Annual Report Booklet or talk to Will or Meghan or one of the children who participate.

Finally, I want to recognize another person who has given her time and talent over many years to engage the children of this parish in Christian Formation.  April Cochran, will you please come forward?  April was once on staff as youth minister and special events coordinator.  As a volunteer, she has taught Sunday School and directed the Nativity Pageant.  Until very recently, she has been our Good News Time leader on Sunday mornings during the school year. I’m guessing she probably started when Jade was a preschooler and now Jade is a teenager! April has now “retired” fully from the Good News Time role, and Good News Time is in limbo a bit as we search for new leaders.  April, with this certificate and our applause, we say “Thank You” for all your many gifts shared with the children of this parish over the years.

This concludes my oral report and I call on our Senior Warden to make his report.

The Rev. Libby Wade, Rector

Grace Episcopal Church

Paducah, KY