All this will lead to designing a job description with the personnel committee, and doing a search, and we hope soon after, bringing our new music director on with love and welcome.  But that is not the end of the process.  We’ll have an eighteen month period of trial use for this vision of music in worship, during which we concentrate on what is life-giving in each service, and at the end of which we critique and make adjustments.

            I know some of you wonder why we’ve taken so long to do this, and why we don’t just hire someone.  After twenty-seven years of a beloved music director, the congregation needs to take stock, and think and pray about what God is up to among us.  We’ve worked hard on a Strategic Plan, and it is being used now to re-think every job description.  I’m working with the committee right now on my own goals for the year to tailor them to that plan.  If we are all to pull together as we believe God has called us, this kind of work needs to be done.  So we are doing it, deliberately, patiently for the music director too.  Whether the plan is familiar or has some really different elements, it must all be the result of prayer and vision.  This is only faithful.

            And now, speaking of faithful, it is my delight to say a bit more than I did when I announced in church on Easter, that St. John’s ‘honored woman’ for 2012 is Nancy Young.

            Each year the Episcopal Church Women’s organization of the diocese asks the clergy to choose someone whose service is exemplary, and to say why.  We have an embarrassment of riches, obviously, at St. John’s, . . . → Read More: Rector’s Reflections May 2012]]>             In the next couple of months we’ll work through a process that, God willing, will bring us to a new music director.  (Please be praying.) We are starting with the guidance of our Strategic Directions document and the vision for 2011-2013 and our diocesan core values, and an eye to the budget, of course.  I’m working with the worship committee on vision questions and on our experience of a music director’s contribution, and going to them and the vestry and to a general meeting of all who’d like to hear and be heard in May or early June.

            All this will lead to designing a job description with the personnel committee, and doing a search, and we hope soon after, bringing our new music director on with love and welcome.  But that is not the end of the process.  We’ll have an eighteen month period of trial use for this vision of music in worship, during which we concentrate on what is life-giving in each service, and at the end of which we critique and make adjustments.

            I know some of you wonder why we’ve taken so long to do this, and why we don’t just hire someone.  After twenty-seven years of a beloved music director, the congregation needs to take stock, and think and pray about what God is up to among us.  We’ve worked hard on a Strategic Plan, and it is being used now to re-think every job description.  I’m working with the committee right now on my own goals for the year to tailor them to that plan.  If we are all to pull together as we believe God has called us, this kind of work needs to be done.  So we are doing it, deliberately, patiently for the music director too.  Whether the plan is familiar or has some really different elements, it must all be the result of prayer and vision.  This is only faithful.

            And now, speaking of faithful, it is my delight to say a bit more than I did when I announced in church on Easter, that St. John’s ‘honored woman’ for 2012 is Nancy Young.

            Each year the Episcopal Church Women’s organization of the diocese asks the clergy to choose someone whose service is exemplary, and to say why.  We have an embarrassment of riches, obviously, at St. John’s, because we don’t have just one or two people who are active in parish life, but most members of either sex serve both in the life of the church and beyond its walls in service to Christ.  I am delighted to have Nancy honored among our sisters all over the diocese.

            Nancy was Junior Warden when I came to St. John’s sixteen years ago, so I was aware of her self-effacing faithfulness from the beginning. Always interested in finding a solution or

preventing a problem, she has a wonderful ear for people and for community, and she provided wise advice.

     I continued to see this wisdom and practicality in her work on the finance committee over the years, and in the way that she and Walt work quietly in people’s lives. When they see something has to be done, they just show up and do it with no fuss and amazing steadiness.

     For the past decade Nancy has led St. John’s extraordinary Altar Guild, and she is, in my

opinion, the ideal leader. The work is well-organized and always done beautifully, thoughtfully,

with care and love.  It is a very good guild!  It is also done with attention to the thoughts and suggestions of all its members, who work in excellent teams that attend to one another’s varied schedules and needs.

     And there is another dimension. It is Nancy’s prayers and way of interacting, her thoughtfulness and care, that has set the tone for the Altar Guild to be the caring, pastoral ministry group that it is.

     I’m deeply grateful for her leadership in all these ways, and delighted to nominate her as St. John’s Honored Woman of the Year.

     With love, Steve+

I listen to the news and hear struggles for power.  I listen, just as you do, to people talk about their struggles to be taken seriously.  I watch TV and see the plot move toward the ‘gotcha’ moment when each character seeks to get even with the nemesis, or humiliate the bully, or be one up on the one who used to lord it over them.

Now, I think power is a very good thing.  Without it nothing good can be accomplished, and there is an awful lot that needs to be accomplished in this world, for Jesus’ sake, and for the common good.  Power is a good thing, but the images of power in our culture are not, for the most part, healthy power.

I don’t mean there aren’t people who use their agency or their authority in healthy ways.  If there weren’t nothing would work at all, we’d live in anarchy and corruption.  We are very blessed at the level of cooperation and trust and trustworthiness that does exist in our nation and our community.  But the images that confront us are all too often sad and misleading and destructive.  Maybe we gravitate toward these because of our fears, and the desire to be vigilant, I don’t know, but it doesn’t do us good.

Being vigilant in a healthy way, being steady in standing up for the good, is the work of character in everyday life. Reminding our children how to behave honorably.  Supporting one another in making honest choices when it would be easier to cut corners, to make courageous choices when it would be easier to throw in the towel.  One fine example of this is the COPA Stand Up and Take Charge campaign, encouraging us, ordinary citizens, to bring issues that affect the well-being of  our institutions and all the families of which they are composed to the attention of voters, gather signatures, and give candidates for office in the region the challence and opportunity to work with us on those issues as soon as they are elected.

This next week is the extraordinary chance, year after year, to center on a better vision of what healthy power is.  Jesus is our Lord, our King, our example, our model of what it is to be human.  Our King has a different view of power, and different goals, than the TV shows and politicians we . . . → Read More: Rector’s Reflections April 2012]]> Power. 

I listen to the news and hear struggles for power.  I listen, just as you do, to people talk about their struggles to be taken seriously.  I watch TV and see the plot move toward the ‘gotcha’ moment when each character seeks to get even with the nemesis, or humiliate the bully, or be one up on the one who used to lord it over them.

Now, I think power is a very good thing.  Without it nothing good can be accomplished, and there is an awful lot that needs to be accomplished in this world, for Jesus’ sake, and for the common good.  Power is a good thing, but the images of power in our culture are not, for the most part, healthy power.

I don’t mean there aren’t people who use their agency or their authority in healthy ways.  If there weren’t nothing would work at all, we’d live in anarchy and corruption.  We are very blessed at the level of cooperation and trust and trustworthiness that does exist in our nation and our community.  But the images that confront us are all too often sad and misleading and destructive.  Maybe we gravitate toward these because of our fears, and the desire to be vigilant, I don’t know, but it doesn’t do us good.

Being vigilant in a healthy way, being steady in standing up for the good, is the work of character in everyday life. Reminding our children how to behave honorably.  Supporting one another in making honest choices when it would be easier to cut corners, to make courageous choices when it would be easier to throw in the towel.  One fine example of this is the COPA Stand Up and Take Charge campaign, encouraging us, ordinary citizens, to bring issues that affect the well-being of  our institutions and all the families of which they are composed to the attention of voters, gather signatures, and give candidates for office in the region the challence and opportunity to work with us on those issues as soon as they are elected.

This next week is the extraordinary chance, year after year, to center on a better vision of what healthy power is.  Jesus is our Lord, our King, our example, our model of what it is to be human.  Our King has a different view of power, and different goals, than the TV shows and politicians we watch.  Our King’s agenda is that all people experience God’s love and involvement in their lives, and become involved in that overflowing love.  It is a power for, not a power over. It strives to make people more themselves, to invite them to step up, in the midst of the life God gives them, to be and to do what they can and inhabit their moment with love and courage and grace.

Holy Week is the opportunity to watch the Master at work, changing the world, establishing a kingdom, showing us how life really works.  People can smash and destroy and hurt, but it will only be tantrums, never power.  The Master has told us, the Master has shown us in his own body and spirit that the music of the stars is about love.  We watch in awe, hoping that we can learn to return love patiently for hate, be ‘relentlessly constructive’ when the given wisdom is to  get even, absorb some of the fear and pain that paralyzes others and overcome it with the love of God and make present in this world the peace that passes understanding.

On Palm Sunday we “enter upon the contemplation of those mighty acts by which Christ has won for us life and immortality” – a way of living that begins right now and changes this world wherever one or more of us let’s God work in us.  Each service of Holy Week looks at an aspect of this deep wonder, and I hope you will participate with the intention of catching the vision and becoming Jesus’ partner in a deeper way that you have done before.

With love,

Steve

Palm Sunday 7:30am 9:00am 11:00am

Maundy Thursday 7:00pm (followed by “The Watch” – sign up for an hour sometime during the night or morning)

Good Friday (Proper Liturgy and Witnesses) Noon to 3:00pm

Good Friday (Taize) 7:00pm

Easter Festival Worship 6:00am 9:00am 11:00am Easter Day

Easter Brunch following the Vigil and the 9:00am service

            Adding alms-giving is excellent.  A decision to act on something that you’ve long promised God you would do could be the little change that breaks you out of complacency and leads to some new life in you.  If you are already busy and stretched, perhaps adding a bit of prayer is the nourishment you need to sustain your efforts and remind you why you do them all and Who is with you.

            Prayer is really a key to Christian living.  It is easy to think of it as one more thing for which we don’t have time.  It is easy to say that it isn’t useful.  Maybe taking that time to be alone with God makes you nervous.  What if God doesn’t speak to me?  What if I do come to see things differently and it leads to change?

            The Christian life without prayer is dull and undernourished.  When you put your life in front of God each day, and ask for guidance, and ask for strength, and ask for companionship and ask for inspiration, you just might get them.

            A steady diet of prayer should include some elements – I know the food pyramid of my childhood is discredited, but

just like we need a variety of fruits and vegetables and protein and such, the Christian life needs praise, adoration, confession, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and self-offering.  And in these wildly busy times, many are finding a much needed correction in contemplation – the deliberate quieting of the mind to simply be in God’s presence, to let one’s self be loved by God.

            What I want to suggest this Lent, and have . . . → Read More: Rector’s Reflections March 2012]]>             If you are looking for a Lenten discipline, I do heartily recommend adding something to your rule of life.  Dropping butter or sweets and such for the season can be a good thing, if it helps you bring a new sense of discipline to life.  Skipping a meal and turning its price into a donation to the Homeless Shelter or a hunger program turns your heart and your prayers in a godly direction.  Giving up chocolate – I’m not ready to go there this year, all the protein bars that fit my eating plan seem to be chocolate – but maybe it works for you.  Still I recommend adding something to your rule of life as well.

            Adding alms-giving is excellent.  A decision to act on something that you’ve long promised God you would do could be the little change that breaks you out of complacency and leads to some new life in you.  If you are already busy and stretched, perhaps adding a bit of prayer is the nourishment you need to sustain your efforts and remind you why you do them all and Who is with you.

            Prayer is really a key to Christian living.  It is easy to think of it as one more thing for which we don’t have time.  It is easy to say that it isn’t useful.  Maybe taking that time to be alone with God makes you nervous.  What if God doesn’t speak to me?  What if I do come to see things differently and it leads to change?

            The Christian life without prayer is dull and undernourished.  When you put your life in front of God each day, and ask for guidance, and ask for strength, and ask for companionship and ask for inspiration, you just might get them.

            A steady diet of prayer should include some elements – I know the food pyramid of my childhood is discredited, but

just like we need a variety of fruits and vegetables and protein and such, the Christian life needs praise, adoration, confession, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and self-offering.  And in these wildly busy times, many are finding a much needed correction in contemplation – the deliberate quieting of the mind to simply be in God’s presence, to let one’s self be loved by God.

            What I want to suggest this Lent, and have already said in worship on the Last Sunday of Epiphany, is that all of these except contemplation are given to us in healthy balance if we simply take the time for Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer right out of the Book of Common Prayer.  Just make a place in your life (a physical place and time) with the prayer book and a Bible, and follow the form, and God will meet you there.

            If you like help learning a new form, St. John’s offers daily Evening Prayer at church at 5:30pm each weekday of the year.  We also offer a booklet to teach daily Morning Prayer.  And there is an easier way than either of these if your spot is near a computer or a smart phone.  Morning and Evening Prayer, with the lessons from the Bible already in place and the people from the calendar of Saints as well are ready for you each day at dailyoffice.org.  I’ve been using this for a year or so, and I like it even better than the previous site.

            Whenever and wherever you do the daily office, there are many others praying it, because its solid, Benedictine form is a steady, healthy diet for the soul.  Bishop Mary has asked the clergy and all our seminarians to join her in this specific form of prayer this year, and I’m inviting you, members and friends of St. John’s, to give yourselves this gift for Lent.  Let’s do it together.

Looking over our long-term goals, I want to start with thanks to the Capital Campaign Steering Committee led by Fiona Campbell, Bill Kell and Pat and Rowland Rebele, and thanks to Karen Greenleaf for her years of leadership there as well.  And to the guarantors, who have made possible the excellent loans from which we benefit: Cottles, Fernalds, Greenleafs, Hansens, Kells, Rebeles, Rowens and Wolfes.  We must keep faith with them!

I and we are blessed (literally and figuratively), by John Duncan, Eliza Linley, Stu Schlegel, and recently retired and moved back into the area, Catherine “Cat” Keyser-Mary, the generous clergy who share their vision and leadership through preaching and in so many other ways.

Our vestry has been led with great competence and care these past two years by the Wardens, Bob White and Claudia Brown.  I am personally grateful to them.  They have helped us set policy and use it, and with the help of the Strategic Planning Team, to complete the process of setting three to five year goals and then implement these in goal setting.  The 2011 Vestry has done this in every ministry area and each is working on those goals as we strive to “live into” our context and community and the needs of our members and our future members.

Helpful Shop – As you’ll see in their report, they are prospering under the leadership of Andy Pudan!   I don’t want to repeat his report here, but what a marvelous ministry the shop is in the community and in generosity, and how blessed we are by Steve Speciale and his family, carrying on his father Joe’s legacy of partnership with us and making it their own.

Our music director of several decades, Bill Visscher, changed benches to be organist nearer his home and work in the Bay Area, and God bless him in his new congregation where he will be the blessing he has been among us.  Bill has been so much a part of the parish and its leadership that he can’t be “replaced.” So we are working on a job description that reflects our Strategic Plan (as we are doing with all job descriptions this year), and then we’ll get to recruiting.

The dedication and skill of Leslie Baker and the choir is such enrichment to our worship.  We are blessed this year to have added (because of . . . → Read More: Rector’s Reflections February 2012]]> Rector’s Report - Annual Report

Looking over our long-term goals, I want to start with thanks to the Capital Campaign Steering Committee led by Fiona Campbell, Bill Kell and Pat and Rowland Rebele, and thanks to Karen Greenleaf for her years of leadership there as well.  And to the guarantors, who have made possible the excellent loans from which we benefit: Cottles, Fernalds, Greenleafs, Hansens, Kells, Rebeles, Rowens and Wolfes.  We must keep faith with them!

I and we are blessed (literally and figuratively), by John Duncan, Eliza Linley, Stu Schlegel, and recently retired and moved back into the area, Catherine “Cat” Keyser-Mary, the generous clergy who share their vision and leadership through preaching and in so many other ways.

Our vestry has been led with great competence and care these past two years by the Wardens, Bob White and Claudia Brown.  I am personally grateful to them.  They have helped us set policy and use it, and with the help of the Strategic Planning Team, to complete the process of setting three to five year goals and then implement these in goal setting.  The 2011 Vestry has done this in every ministry area and each is working on those goals as we strive to “live into” our context and community and the needs of our members and our future members.

Helpful Shop – As you’ll see in their report, they are prospering under the leadership of Andy Pudan!   I don’t want to repeat his report here, but what a marvelous ministry the shop is in the community and in generosity, and how blessed we are by Steve Speciale and his family, carrying on his father Joe’s legacy of partnership with us and making it their own.

Our music director of several decades, Bill Visscher, changed benches to be organist nearer his home and work in the Bay Area, and God bless him in his new congregation where he will be the blessing he has been among us.  Bill has been so much a part of the parish and its leadership that he can’t be “replaced.” So we are working on a job description that reflects our Strategic Plan (as we are doing with all job descriptions this year), and then we’ll get to recruiting.

The dedication and skill of Leslie Baker and the choir is such enrichment to our worship.  We are blessed this year to have added (because of our Strategic Plan goals and a grant from the Helpful Shop) a teen choir led by Shelley Phillips and a children’s choir led by Lorna Kohler, and we look forward to the growth of these programs and, we hope, a summer program developing from this beginning.

Valerie Lyttle has served ably and energetically as Coordinator of Volunteers for Children and Youth since May.  She has also been the editor of our Forerunner for the past two years, and now has handed the reigns over to Adriana Kell and Joanne Peterson.

Our altar guild is the best, its members so skilled and reliable and creative, and its leader, Nancy Young, so pastoral as well.

The office is less cheerful without Madonna Reilly as Administrative Assistant.  We will be advertising soon to fill the position.  The parish simply wouldn’t run without our office volunteers: Joanne Peterson, Suzanne Kesterson, Mary Jane Chambers, Suzanne Krakover-Nickel, Judy Verbeck, Wilma Staver and others.  I won’t even attempt to list all the hats they wear, but their cheerfulness and generosity is a marvel.  And Lou Wolfe was a wonder among them, doing our E-Memo and parish directory and so much more not just in the office, but in all her other ministries.  She has left a hole in our hearts.

Our finances are overseen by our vestry and our marvelous treasurer, now finished with her years in that job, Mary-Nona Hudson.   She leaves us with so many accomplishments: a good balance in the checking account, a working finance department, the wonderful building loans that are a labor of love accomplished by the negotiating to which she and Rowland Rebele gave so much of themselves.  And we are all delighted with Annita Seibert, our bookkeeper.  Among the debts of gratitude we owe to Sherrie DeWitt and Mary-Nona is the finding of and good start for Annita!

Jon Showalter and Charles Greenleaf simply show up and do building maintenance, quietly, steadily and with good cheer.  Karen Hellgren schedules all our Sunday Servers.  Robert Nelson serves as clerk to the vestry. Lois Calkins serves as altar guild for our services at Dominican Oaks.  Chris Cottle, leading the Endowment Board, held the first annual meeting of St. John’s Legacy Society in May.  Dave Evans led our excellent Lenten Study on Atonement.  Claudia Brown leads the very popular Wed. Night Bible Study.  Charmion Burns and Bill Kell lead new studies in Contemplative living (for which Ray Wolfe had the vision).  Evening Prayer is led every weekday (this several decades) by Cindy Phillips, Karen and Charles Greenleaf, Sherrie DeWitt and Joanne Peterson, Charmion Burns and Suzanne Krakover-Nickel, and Wednesday nights Mother Cat Keyser-Mary is celebrating Holy Communion for the healing service as well.   Vestry goals and leadership have touched every area of parish life – read the reports – beginning new things like our First Sunday Family Service at 9:00A.M.  We all owe all of these a great debt of thanks for their service.

In September and October of this year I was able to take a long-delayed eight-week sabbatical to slow down and think about just one thing.  I spent two weeks at Gladstone Library in Wales and the rest at home reading about the dialog between theology and science.  It was fascinating and renewing to study and discuss these two passions over that time and my interest has deepened as a result.  I see this as having implications for our life as a parish, especially in sharing our faith.

I have served this year, beyond the boundaries of the parish, as Chair of the Diocesan Commission on Ministry, and as a member of the Regional Strategy Team of Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA).

I am honored to be your rector and see God at work in you, day by day.

Faithfully,

Steve Ellis

Rector