Rector's Report for St. Peter's by-the-Sea Annual Parish meeting

Rector’s report 2010
2009 was the year that you chose me, and I chose you. Last summer, the Diocesan Canon to the Ordinary, David Johnson, told me he was sending me the search packet from St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and he asked me to give St. Peter’s some serious consideration. “It’s a great church”, he told me, “and I think y’all would be a good match.” And he was right.
But even beyond that, it’s nice to be chosen. It makes one feel loved and appreciated. And these last few months, I believe that we have all basked in that glow of being chosen by the other. The bishop has made it official: we belong to one another. You all have offered such a warm welcome and full inclusion to me and my whole family, and for that I offer you my deepest gratitude.
I’m excited about all that is already going on at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and I have some dreams and some goals for our work together in 2010.
1. Increased involvement in outreach. With our new deacon’s appointment official, I hope that he will begin to challenge us to become more aware and responsive to the needs in our community. Starting today, we begin a commitment to help make and give out sandwiches to homeless and hungry people through Feed My Sheep. A few months ago, the Rev. Kurt Burge, who is currently serving as the interim at the First Christian Church down the road from us, approached us with a need. He said that Feed My Sheep does not currently feed people on the weekend. One church has started making lunches for people on Saturdays, but there is no food available on Sundays. So Kurt asked if we’d be willing to partner with the other downtown churches which include his church, First United Methodist church, and Grace Memorial Baptist church and each take one Sunday a month to make 30 bag lunches which are comprised of 2 sandwiches, chips, fruit, and a drink, and to take them down to Feed My Sheep to hand out to people who show up on Sundays looking for food. We will be responsible for every second Sunday of the month, beginning today. Gini Fellows and the outreach committee are providing the sandwiches today, and in February, the young people in confirmation class will be doing it. After that, we are asking that the different groups of the parish be responsible for one month each, and Scott will be putting that schedule together soon.
2. I hope that we will be able to buy a new playground for the church during this next year. After our last playground equipment was damaged and partially removed, I asked the Sunday school committee to make a recommendation to the Vestry for a new play system, and I hope that will come to fruition in the coming months.
3. I have already begun work to appoint a stewardship committee that will meet and function year-round. Stewardship is not something that we need to be focused on once a year as we plan our budget for the next year. Instead, how we use the gifts that God has given us is of vital importance in our discipleship, and I hope that this committee will help us learn more about that and incorporate it more into the common life of our church.
4. We have one of the best-kept secrets in Gulfport in the Aidan Sullivan community children’s choir. Through the gifts of JT and Debbie Anglin and Donna Hutchins, the few children we have participating are learning so much and have an enormous amount of fun while doing it. I cannot begin to tell you the enormous potential that I believe lies in this group! But one thing that I can say is that it needs full support from the people in the church, especially the people with children in those age groups (K-6). It needs for parents to see it for the amazing gift that it is, and it needs for the parents and children to make it a priority and a commitment—to put it on the calendar as you would a sports practice or a scouts meeting and then to show up for it, every week, like you would do with other organizations that you value. Everyone says that formation and offerings for children in the church is important, and here is our chance. But we have to make it a priority among competing claims.
5. Increased visibility in the community through special programs. We’ve already got one concert scheduled for March that will be a presentation by the Spirit of Southern choir from USM. I hope that we will have other offerings for the community such as more concerts, lectures, even an idea that is surfaced called Red Bean Mondays which would be lunch for members and down-town business professionals coupled with a brief presentation. I want us to be visible, and even more importantly, I want our doors to be open so that people who aren’t normally in St. Peter’s will have the opportunity and the invitation to discover what a wonderful, vibrant community of faith we have.
6. In 2010, I want us to pray more, both corporately and individually. As people of faith, prayer is possibly the most important activity that we engage in. I hope to have some different types of services available for us to pray together in worship, such as the festive choral evensong with which we will mark the feast day of our patron saint, Peter, next Sunday at 7pm. If you’ve never been to an Evensong, then you must make plans to attend. It is one of the rarest gifts of our Anglican heritage. Also, I hope to explore Taize style worship during Wednesday nights in Lent, and we will have a full component of Holy Week services including the return of the biggest and best service our prayer book has to offer: The Great Vigil of Easter. Also during Lent, we will be having a Centering Prayer group on Monday mornings before work followed by a light breakfast.
7. Last, but certainly not least, I hope and plan that 2010 will be the year that we as a parish articulate a vision for who St. Peter’s will be in the future. We’ve already begun discussing this at our small group gatherings this fall. Our Vestry will consider if further at our annual retreat in February, and we will implement a plan to pray and vision about who we are being called to be in this next year, in the next five years, even into the next fifty years.
It’s exciting stuff, and our work together has only just begun. We have each chosen the other for our gifts and talents. May God be with us and we seek to live more fully into who God is calling us to be.