Epiphany
Notes from the Rector’s Desk
Epiphany
Dear Friends and Members of St. Mark’s,
Robert Schnase, the author of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, our Adult Forum study for Epiphany, makes an interesting point. He notes that when elementary age Little League baseball players are first learning the sport, they practice batting, catching pop-ups, scooping up ground balls and base running. When professional Major League players practice, what do they do? They practice batting, catching pop-ups, scooping up ground balls and base running. Players of all ages continually repeat and deepen and try to improve upon the same basic practices. Hopefully for most people a degree of improvement can usually be measured between those early beginnings, and the latter maturity. Unfortunately this is not true for my golf game, which is continually going down hill. But for most people, any sport you enjoy is worth the practice and the hours that go into it.
Think about what goes into our worship. Every week we involve several dozen people in preparing the pieces of liturgy that come together on a Sunday morning. Francisco helps keep the building attractive and inviting; Emily works on the bulletin, calendar, and telephone; Tatiana is at the organ and piano; Meredith; Cherian; and Jimmy Abbott; the choir; lay readers; Lay Eucharistic Ministers; intercessors; acolytes; greeters; ushers; Sunday School teachers; Altar Guild; Flower Guild; Pacita, our nursery aide, and the nursery volunteers; coffee hour hosts; and the Vestry Person of the Day. Whether paid or volunteer, we gather together in order to prepare a place where we may all enter in and encounter God.
St. Mark’s is not the building or the grounds, but the people of God. You’d think that after 125 years as a congregation, or 2000 years as a Church, we might get it right. But we haven’t, and maybe that’s all right. In the practice and the celebration is the opportunity of being the People of God. Together we are learning how to minister to one another, and how to live with one another as Christians, People of the Way. Together we work through our own needs in the company of others who are also as engaged in their own needs. How would we learn about grace, if not in the power of being forgiven? How would we learn about the sacred, without seeing it revealed in the gift of God’s presence in sacrament, prayer and life?
On January 31st, immediately following the 10:00 service, we will hold our Annual Meeting. During that time we will review the work of the parish, and hopefully catch a glimpse of the future. New members of the Vestry will be elected, and a budget presented that represents our intention for ministry in the coming year. I hope you will make a point of being there, but if you cannot, please keep the people and ministry of St. Mark’s in yours prayers, as we will keep you in ours.
Faithfully yours,
The Very Rev. John A. Weatherly, Rector
