Rector’s Charge

            “Praise the Lord everywhere, in every way.”  We have so much for which to be thankful.  Praise the Lord!

            I want to begin this my ninth Rector’s Charge to the vestry of The Church of the Holy Saviour with some words of thanksgiving.  Jane and I continue to be thankful that the Holy Spirit led us to accept God’s call to us to come to Waterloo and become a part of this wonderful parish family.  I also want to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone for the many cards, gifts and best wishes which Jane, our family, and I received from you during the recent Christmas Season.  Your kindness and generosity is greatly appreciated.

            It is important to give thanks for the many people who contribute much time, energy and talent to provide leadership to enhance our Lord’s ministry in this church and community.  The wardens have expressed much thanksgiving in their report to vestry and many others will be thanked in the course of our meeting.  I would like to thank everyone by name, but obviously time does not permit me to do so.  However, there are some people to whom I wish to express my personal thanksgiving.  Our wardens, Jeff Ford, Brian Knight, Glenn Brogden and Jennifer Ross are a great team and I am very thankful for the support they offer to me and the leadership that they provide for all of us, and for the Parish Council.  The person who keeps me organized and so much of our parish life, coordinated and efficient is our office administrator Jeanette Bell.  She is a gift to all of us, and I certainly appreciate her very positive impact upon our parish community.  I am very thankful for our honourary assistants, Cy Ladds, Neil Carver, Harry Janke and Eileen Scully.  They are not involved in liturgical or pastoral ministry every week but they are always very willing to assist me, whenever they are asked and able to do so.   Every clergy person is aware of the benefit of knowing that they are not alone in our Lord’s ministry. 

            We are blessed with wonderfully vibrant liturgy which is well planned and presented.  That could not happen without the support of our two talented choir directors, Ed Phillips and Lois Horst and the commitment which they make on behalf of their choirs and the people of Holy Saviour. 

              The children of our parish family are a special blessing and I am very thankful for the care and nurture which they receive from Heather Massel and her talented staff of Sunday School teachers, as well as Louise Findlay and Elaine Gosnell and all who have helped in the nursery.  I also appreciate those who give leadership for our youth group, especially Jeremy Mervyn for several years of ministry with our youth, and for Derek Madge who has picked up the role from Jeremy in September.  Derek has a lot of experience in this ministry and I am thankful for his willingness to help out.  Peter Capindale quietly cares for our church facilities.  He spends more hours here than most of us would be aware of, but every week we all benefit from his labour.  As well as his scheduled responsibilities I know that he often gives extra time and effort to special projects and events. I am very thankful for his commitment to Holy Saviour.  I must, unfortunately stop referring to individual ministries or we will be here all day.  A brief review of the Streams of Ministry chart would help us all to appreciate the many individuals who contribute to ministry in this parish.  The chart of course is just the tip of the ice-berg, because each ministry may represent several or more individuals.  We all have so much for which to be thankful! 

              2011 was a good year at Holy Saviour but there is much room for further growth in ministry.  Last year at this meeting there was a strong focus on financial concerns and the need for increased financial stewardship by all of us, to meet the needs of ministry.  I shared with you what I thought was a good story of generosity and the benefits for ministry. I presented some statistics of what could be achieved by relatively modest increases by everyone.  Our Treasurer spoke of the need for intentional giving and spoke of the concept of the modern tithe.  The good news is that our financial offerings increased by about fifteen thousand dollars, the bad news is that it was still short of our target by about ten thousand dollars.  Thankfully due to wise management of our expenses we finished the year with a small surplus rather than a small deficit as in 2010, so we are moving in the right direction.  Last year I referred to the fact that in 2008 the Finance Committee had asked all of us to consider a ten percent increase in our regular contributions to do the work of the church and that Jane and I had accepted that challenge in 2008 and in each year since including 2011.  We again commit ourselves to a ten percent increase for 2012 and hope that if you can, you will join us in that challenge.  The intent is to be generous out of thanksgiving, not just giving to pay the bills.

              Worship at Holy Saviour is a great blessing and a great challenge.  There isn’t another Anglican Church any where near us, perhaps even in the Diocese, which attempts to offer a regularly scheduled spectrum of liturgical services as we offer here at Holy Saviour.  Our 10:00 am service is always positive and enthusiastic.  You can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as we gather as a parish family in worship.  The church is filled with people of all ages, from all walks of life.  With two choirs it is common for us to have a procession of more than forty choristers.  Unfortunately we are down slightly, about nine people, in total weekly attendance for all services.  This may be partly due to the fact that we have settled into our second year of our present liturgical pattern, or to an aging population or to, two less evensongs this past year, or possibly even erratic counting of attendance.  I believe that it is partly that generally we are less consistent in our individual Sunday attendance, and our highs and lows of the church year appear to be accentuated.  Last January and February we had very low attendance and while we made a little gain in the summer, it still has along way to improve.  Thankfully our Church School remains strong, our total members of the congregation have increased, as well as our identifiable givers.

              Our Parish Council continues to follow up on our V.I.V.A. visioning process and to implement our “Streams of Ministry” Church ministry model.  It is a difficult task to create a transition from former long established patterns of behaviour in ministry to new models of ministry for the present and future.  This was certainly the case when last year the A. C W. made the decision to disband, but thankfully most of their  good work in ministry and fundraising has continued under the auspices of the Caring Community Ministry Stream.  Thankfully all ministries of Holy Saviour are now connected with the Parish Council for purposes of communication, encouragement and support.  Certainly we still have quite a way to go to reach our potential in this model of ministry but I encourage the new Parish Council to persevere in this transition to new model of ministry.

              I have requested that our four wardens remain in their current offices in order to provide stability in this time of transition and I am pleased that if it is your wish, they are prepared to do so.

              Following up on the Magnetic Church workshop of 2010, our Parish Council supported and participated in the Deanery “Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation” workshop this past Fall as well as some of the initiatives of our Diocesan Strategic Plan such as the Back to Church Sunday and the Prodigal God study.  We are generally in agreement with Diocesan and National Church initiatives which challenge us to accept that to be faithful in both proclaiming the Gospel and in responding to the Gospel a healthy church needs to have a focus on mission to and for God’s people.  I am pleased that the prepared budget for 2012 has reversed the trend towards cost cutting by making a few small increases for mission purposes.  There is much more that we could be doing, but it is a move in the right direction.

              It is my hope that the new parish council will consider a new initiative to further develop our relationship with our own neighbourhood and the uptown Waterloo community.  Hopefully we can establish a better awareness of the needs of our community and therefore also opportunities for ministry.  Our Diocese, through the work of the Strategic Planning Committee has done much visioning about the needs of ministering now and into the future.  At Synod in May of this year we will hear plans for a five year financial program which will have a strong focus on the needs of parishes.  It will become essential that to effectively participate in this program the new Parish Council will need to do significant work in assessing our own facility and personnel needs to be effective in ministry in future years.  It is important to plan ahead and not just respond to immediate needs.

              Each year as I prepare my charge to the vestry I have always accepted the challenge of looking to the readings of the day to see if I can discern a word from the Lord, to be shared with the vestry.  I must admit that I wasn’t too excited when I read the readings for today.  Eating food that had been sacrificed to idols might have been a big issue for the people of Corinth in Paul’s day but it isn’t high on my list of things to worry about today. Neither is the Gospel story about Jesus casting out the demon something which I can relate to on a daily basis.  As I looked a little deeper I discovered that there is a word of the Lord for us today in both of these reading.

              Did you notice that in the Gospel reading the demon knew Jesus?  We are told, “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?    I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”  The demon knew who Jesus was, and even more amazing is the fact that at Jesus’ command, the demon obeyed him.  The unfortunate thing is that you and I know who Jesus is, we even claim to be his followers, but far too often when we hear his command, we fail to obey.  The demon obeyed, but we don’t.  Why is that?  How can that be?  Perhaps, we are too busy worshipping idols, and don’t want anything to change.  The idols of today are wealth, position or status in society, material possessions, our home, car or boat could each be an idol.  Our concern for our leisure time might be an idol.  I hate to say it but even golf could become an idol.  If anything becomes obsessive and if it prevents us from following Jesus then it is becoming an idol which we worship at our own peril.  Paul tells us, just as he said to the Corinthians, “no idol in the world really exists, there is no God but one.  Indeed, even though there may be so –called gods in heaven and in earth – as in fact there are many gods and many lords – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist.”

              You and I are so greatly blessed because God has created us to be his children.  He asks us to love him and to love all of his children.  Do we hear his call?  Do we hear the words of Jesus, to love one another as I have loved you?

              We have had a good year at Holy Saviour in 2011 but if we hear God call to us and then with a little extra effort and commitment follow and obey Jesus then we can have a great year in 2012, and God can bless many people through us.

              We have been greatly blessed, so “praise the Lord everywhere in every way.”

              Thanks be to God!

Yours in Christ, Peter