From the Rector

My dear family in Christ,
 
Greetings, salutations, peace, and blessings!  I’m recently back from my vacation month, and I’m excited about everything that’s coming up for the Fall Program Year for 2024 here at All Saints!  But before we get to that, I must repeat in print the thanks that I’ve previously expressed verbally to all of you who stepped up and stepped in and gave your support to the lay-led services that offered such beautiful and meaningful worship at All Saints whilst I was away.  Y’all are awesome!
 
Indeed, just this past Sunday, we had a young person visit and worship with us.  She’s about to go off to college in New York and wanted to check out a number of different churches before she goes.  She filled out one of our visitor info cards, so I emailed her on Monday to thank her for visiting us.  She replied:  “Thank you so much for having me, it was a truly beautiful service and it opened my heart so much. I really do hope to come back at some point and join you all again, your community is so wonderful, the people that make it up are so kind.”
 
I’ve spoken repeatedly this year about what I have felt to be the Holy Spirit’s urging our church family towards a spiritual revival; from everything I’ve heard since returning (and from what I’ve seen of the livestream videos), and from what I’m seeing first-hand now that I’m back, I strongly suspect that such a revival is already well underway in this congregation!  I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the Spirit leads us this fall and beyond…
 
So, looking ahead:  Sunday, September 22, will be our official “kickoff” day for our Fall Program Year.  We will return to our two-service format for Sunday mornings:  8:30 a.m. Rite I spoken service and 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music & choir.  
 
We’ve got a number of new program ideas in the works to launch this fall, including the first installment of Anglicanism 101, a small series that will run twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring.   It will be a combination of an inquirers’ class, an introduction for newcomers to The Episcopal Church, and a wonderful “refresher” for lifelong Episcopalians who’d like to explore just why we do what we do the way that we do it.  Look for more details about that series in the very near future.
 
I’m also kicking around a few ideas for expanding our Wednesday evening Eucharist service.  For instance, we’ve got a number of musicians in our parish who’ve expressed some interest in helping to add music to our midweek worship ~ if you play and/or sing and would like to be part of a music team for Wednesday nights, please let me know.  Let’s be creative here.  Instruments and styles that you might not think of when you think of “church music” could just be perfect for this service.  Let’s talk about it!
 
But what I’d really like is for us to be able to offer a meal each Wednesday before worship.  For one thing, we’ve seen that whenever we’ve done so in the past, attendance at worship has doubled (or more).  For another thing, I believe this would be an excellent way to offer a church experience that would be meaningful and valuable to the communities around us, particularly the students at Lawrence.  What college student couldn’t use a free home-cooked meal once a week, guaranteed?
 
The catch, of course, is that I, myself, can barely “cook” a bowl of cold cereal, much less an actual meal.  So to make this idea happen, I’m going to need help from some folks who do actually know what they’re doing in the kitchen.  Ideally, we’d want to have a rota of cooks so that no one person would have to be “on” for more than one Wednesday every 4-6 weeks.  I know it’s a big ask, but it would be a ministry that could really help grow our parish community.  Please contact me with any questions, and let’s see if we can get this going!
 
Other surprises are also in the planning stages for this Fall Program Year, so stay tuned for more information to come.  And if you have ideas for what you’d like to see at All Saints, either this fall or in the coming year, please reach out and let’s talk.  As I said, I’m excited about where the Spirit is moving us ~ let’s go!
 
Peace & blessings,
Fr. C

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