Blog « St. Michael's Church, Charleston, SC

Vestry Nominees for 2012

May 16th, 2012

The Festival of Faith, which includes the annual business meeting and leadership elections for St. Michael’s Church, will be held on May 27, 2012. The selection of our leaders is a very important part of our journey as a church and electing those people whom God has called to serve at this time in the life of our parish is critical to our fulfillment of our mission to transform hearts through Jesus Christ. We urge every member in good standing to make attendance at the Festival of Faith a priority. It is a time to look forward to the future through the election of our leadership and a time to look back and praise God for the blessings that He has poured out upon us in the past year.

Nominated Candidate for Senior Warden

Bill Lyles

Activities: Present: Junior Warden; Foundation Fund Trustee; Prayer Minister; Order of St. Luke; Member, Diocesan Standing Committee; Kanuga Board of Visitors. Past: Senior Warden 2006-08; Junior Warden 2004-06; Vestry Member 1998-2001 (Vestry Secretary 1999-01); Diocesan Standing Committee 2006-09; Diocesan Convention Delegate; Bishop’s Election Convention Delegate; Diocesan Marriage Conference Small Group Leader; Burundi Mission Trip; Cursillo 154 Rector; Alpha 4 Coordinator; Alpha in Workplace 1 Coordinator; Marriage Course; Kanuga Parish Weekend Coordinator 2000-01; Generation-to-Generation Campaign Committee; Renovation Committee; Evangelism Commission; Finance Commission; Usher. Personal: Partner at Lyles & Lyles, LLC. Has practiced law for 18 years concentrating in construction litigation and mediation. Married to Jeanne for 13 years; two sons, William (12) and Mason (10).

Nominated Candidate for Junior Warden

Frank Grimball

I am blessed, after having been baptized at St. Michael’s, to have grown up in this Church. I have been active in the Church in numerous ways throughout my life: Vestry (Secretary); Acolyte and Crucifer; Choir (Junior and Youth Choirs – as an adult I make a joyful noise to the Lord!); Children’s Chapel Co-director with my wife Capers; Usher; Lay Eucharistic Minister; Christmas Pageant (participant as a child and teenager; in the Church director for several years; and a participant (Wise Man) as an adult); and Alpha.

I am married to Capers A. Grimball (29 years on May 7, 2012). We have three children, Heyward, Harrison, and Frances. I graduated from the University of the South (Sewanee) in 1980 and the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1983. I obtained my license to practice law that same year. After two years of judicial clerkships, I returned to Charleston and the family firm, Grimball and Cabaniss.

Throughout my career I have handled litigation, representing clients in state and federal courts in South Carolina. In 2002 I joined Mullen Wylie, LLC focusing my practice on prosecuting construction defect cases on behalf of owners of defectively designed and constructed buildings.

I have been active in several local organizations and am looking forward to continuing to serve God and St. Michael’s.

Nominated Candidates for Vestry

Capers Barr

I have practiced law in downtown Charleston for over twenty years and live in Mount Pleasant. My wife, Jodi, and I have been married for twenty two years. We have two sons – Capers, who is 18 and a freshman at the Citadel, and Cannon, who is 15 and a freshman at Porter-Gaud.

Several years ago, while taking the Alpha course, my life was transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Since that time, my top priority has been to develop a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and to help others do the same. Taking advantage of opportunities to spend time with the clergy team and participating in the various programs offered at St. Michaels has been an inspiration and has greatly strengthened my faith.

Since joining St. Michael’s I have taken the Alpha Course and Beta level courses, the Marriage Course, the Parenting Teenagers Course, the I Like Mike course, Order of St. Luke, and the Life Group Leaders’ Training Class. In February 2011 I attended a Leadership Course at Holy Trinity Brompton in London. I have served on an Alpha team, acted as one of the MCs for the Festival of Faith event in 2011; and prepared the meal for the 2012 Maundy Thursday Family Dinner along with my Life Group members. I was a participant in Cursillo in October 2011. I currently serve as an usher, a member of the Greeter’s Committee, and as a Life Group leader. I also regularly attend the Monday Men’s Bible Study.

Bryan Hunter

I was born in Central Alabama and raised there by a family of devout Christians. My nonsectarian Christian school, with compulsory chapel, ensured that daily worship became ingrained into the regular rhythm of my life. Since I was baptized at six months, I am eternally grateful that my parents and godparents took seriously the vows they took at my baptism, so that like Timothy I can scarcely recall a time in Tmy life when I was not immersed in the faith, although by God’s grace I have “grown from strength to strength” as I have made that faith increasingly my own.

I have been active in parish life and ministry at St. Michael’s since becoming a parishioner soon after moving to Charleston six and a half years ago. I have served on the Newcomers’ Committee, as chair of the Lay Ministry Commission, as a member of the Greeter Committee, on the planning committee for Festival of Faith and Michaelmas, and as co-leader of Financial Peace University. I served on an “on-loan” team from St Michael’s that helped lead the inaugural Alpha Course at The Cathedral. Since joining St. Michael’s I have been actively involved in a men’s Life Group, to which I am grateful for being an inestimable impetus for spiritual growth and accountability. I am licensed by the diocese as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, in which capacity I am honored and privileged to assist in our common worship at St. Michael’s. I have penned a series of articles for The Messenger on the history of evangelicalism in the Anglican Communion, and I taught St. Matthew’s Gospel for Tool Time last summer. I am currently prayerfully engaged in study to lead Tool Time again this summer as we examine together the intensely personal interactions our Lord had with those he encountered during the course of his earthly ministry. I was educated at Samford University (BA) and at The University of Virginia (MA). As a freelance journalist, I write on a variety of topics for numerous local, regional, and national publications and work as a contractor for the Department of the Navy as a Senior Technical Writer. My wife, Elisabeth, and I and have two children, Henry (3 years) and George (5 months).

Paul A. Lankau, Jr.

I was raised in a small town about 25 miles north of New York City and for the first 45 years of my life I thought that I was a Christian. In 1981 I left New York to attend the United States Naval Academy and, after graduating in 1985, moved to Charleston and spent the next six years as an active duty Naval Officer. For the last 22 years I have been a Certified Financial Planner. In 2008 I retired from the Navy at the rank of Commander with over 23 years of combined service.

My wife, Kaki, and daughter, Lindsay, and I joined St. Michael’s in 2008. I took the Alpha course and that was where the reality of what it was to be a Christian hit me squarely in the heart. I realized at that point that I needed to take a much more active role in developing my relationship with Jesus Christ, and have been striving to do that every day since. Over that last four years I have served seven sessions on the Alpha team and attended the Alpha USA conference in Orlando. My wife and I were participants in the Marriage Course before then joining the team that hosts the course. Kaki and I also completed Cursillo in October 2011. Our family has enjoyed each Kanuga Parish Weekend, and look forward to this years as well. I am active in a couple’s life group, a weekly morning men’s group, and have just launched a new men’s group that I will be leading on Fridays at lunchtime.

Wood Marchant

I grew up attending Christ Episcopal Church in Charlotte, NC where my mother worked. After graduating from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA, I came to the College of Charleston where I graduated in 1989 with a BA in English. After spending my 20s struggling with substance abuse and addiction, I got sober at 31 while living in Atlanta. I moved back to Charleston in 1999 and began working at Charleston Day School. I was introduced to St. Michael’s at the funeral of Dr. Bob Nelson whose 6 children all attended CDS. I was moved at his funeral to find the peace he apparently knew during his final years while living with cancer and I felt that I could get to know God more personally at St. Michael’s. Al Zadig was welcoming and steered me towards Alpha where I began my walk with the Lord. I met my future wife, Laura Lee Kinney, through mutual friends in her Beta group and joined their small group soon after we began dating. We were married in 2003 at St. Michael’s and continue to make the church a part of our family which now includes twins Will and Anna Liles who were born in 2007.

I work at Charleston Center as an alcohol and drug counselor in their 28-day inpatient program. I also have a private therapy practice in Mt. Pleasant where I work with those who struggle with depression, anxiety and addiction.

While a member of St. Michael’s, I have taught Sunday school, attended Alpha, been a part of a few Beta small groups, been a small group facilitator for Alpha at the College of Charleston and at St. Michael’s, attended the Marriage Course, taken the School of Healing Prayer class, become a Prayer Minister, taken the Order of St. Luke class, been on a Mission Trip to the Ukraine in 2009 and attended the Men’s Wednesday Morning Bible Study.

Beau Mueller

Youth Ministry volunteer; 6:00 service team leader; Noonday prayer leader; Evangelism Committee; Family Service volunteer; Alpha – participant, small group leader, captain for multiple Alpha’s

As the grandson of an Episcopal minister, the church was a big part of my life growing up. And then in boarding school, I attending Chapel daily and so the church continued to be a part of my life. Once I moved back to Charleston and joined St. Michaels back in the mid 1990’s, I felt the need to do something more with my faith and started volunteering in various ministries in the church, until I settled in youth ministry assisting Peter Rothermel. It was in helping in this ministry that I developed a real relationship with Jesus, which is the foundation of my faith. There were no fireworks or lightning bolts, but a realization that I needed to let Jesus into my life rather than simply accept him as savior. And so, my faith is centered in Jesus Christ and I believe that only through him can we be saved and redeemed.

Jay Seibels

I was born in Columbia and baptized at Trinity Cathedral. Hallie Potter Seibels and I have been married for 21 years and members of St. Michaels for 18 years. I participated in high school Youth Group activities at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia and was not confirmed until I completed Adult Confirmation at St. Michaels in 1994. I have been active in the St. Michael’s Lay Eucharistic Ministry and Usher Ministry for over 15 years and am a graduate of Alpha, Beta, the Marriage Course and Growing Kids God’s Way. Over the years I have served on a discernment committee and accepted other short term committee assignments as requested, and I have helped teach a few Sunday Morning Series including most recently a class on Tim Keller’s book The Prodigal God. Hallie and I participated in St. Michael’s initial young married couples bible study, and I was an initial participant in the Men’s mid-day Monday bible study which began around 2002. Our sons John (16) and Potter (14) each were baptized at St. Michaels and serve as acolytes.

Nominated Candidates for the Diocesan Convention

Capers Barr – see profile above

Burwell Boykin

Activites: Present: Vestry member; Active member of 2 Life Groups; Noonday Reader; Lay Reader and Eucharistic Minister; Prayers and Presence volunteer; Festival of Faith (2011) committee. Past: Cursillo; Alpha Coordinator; Alpha volunteer; Lent and Advent breakfast teams; Festival of Faith volunteer; Evangelism Commission. Personal: Commercial Real Estate Sales Associate, CB Richard Ellis Carmody, LLC. Single.

Frank Grimball – see profile above

Bill Lyles – see profile above

Nicole Nicholson

Activities: Present: Vestry; pioneer member of the Christ the King mission team; Prayer minister (7 years); prayer ministry leadership team; Festival of Faith team 2011; Meals On Wheels substitute. Past: Sunday School teacher; Vacation Bible School leader; Cursillo; Cursillo team (2); Alpha course. Personal: Registered Nurse. Married to Joe for 20 years; daughter (Charlotte, 12); son (Joseph, 7).

David Richardson

Activities: Present: Vestry member; Lay Reader and Lay Eucharist Minister; Prayer Minister. Past: Evangelism Commission Chair (3 years); Ukraine Mission Team (4 years); Board member, Healing Farms Ministry; Board member, Coastal Crises Chaplaincy (3 years); Alpha course. Personal: Has owned and managed Memorable Meetings, a meeting management firm, for 26 years. Married to Marty for 33 years; 5 grown children; 10 grandchildren.

Ann Hester Willis

Activities. Present: Senior Warden; Foundation Fund Trustee; Lay Reader and Eucharist Minister; Greeter Committee; Diocesan Standing Committee (Secretary); Diocesan Stewardship Committee; South Carolina Alpha USA Board; Drawing Near to God Board [Chair, Sub-Committee for Annual Giving]. Past: Junior Warden (2008-2010); Vestry member (2005-2008); Generation to Generation Campaign Manager (2003-2006); Diocesan Convention Delegate; Building and Grounds Commission (2005-2008); Cursillo; Cursillo team member; Life Group Leader; Weds. Morning Women’s Bible Study Organizer and Discussion Leader; Disciple I course; Disciple II course; Alpha course; all Beta Level Courses; Leadership Training Course. Personal: Director of Development for the Diocese of SC. Married to Fred for 17 years; 2 adult stepchildren; 3 granddaughters (Madison, 5 ½, Katelyn, 3 and Eliza, 2).

Posted in Vestry | No Comments »

A Letter to Saints Alive

May 16th, 2012

Dear St. Michael’s,

Last month, my wife, Karin, and I had the privilege of attending A Day of Healing with Nigel Mumford. We live in Aiken, but we had learned of the event from Christine Meredith, Manager of Saints Alive, a few weeks earlier when we stopped in to discuss a recently published book that I authored.
It was unheard of for Karin and I to travel two hours to spend a day at a church sponsored healing session, especially since neither of us felt we needed healing. But a few Saturdays later, for reasons that weren’t clear to either of us, we found ourselves at St. Michael’s. Nigel Mumford’s testimony was fascinating and moving. After lunch, again totally uncharacteristically, my wife and I found ourselves in one of the prayer sessions seeking help for our younger daughter and her husband. They desperately want another child, but a second pregnancy isn’t happening. The line to pray with Nigel was very long, and since we had met Christine, we felt comfortable praying with her for our daughter’s family.

Then suddenly, another reason for God having led us to St. Michael’s on that Saturday became evident. With no warning, tears began rolling down my cheeks. Anyone who knows me personally will attest to the fact that I am not one to publicly display that kind of emotion. In fact, nothing of the kind has ever occurred in my adult life. Yet the evidence was irrefutable and unstoppable. Reluctantly, and with great embarrassment, I related a story of my battle with spiritual warfare. In the three months since the publication of my book, I had been racked with self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness, and damaging, destructive self-talk. Christine and her prayer partner prayed, and then anointed my wife and myself. I was still too embarrassed to return to our pew, so we left St. Michael’s. We spent the rest of the day trying to “get back to normal;” doing what most folks from Aiken do when they spend the day in Charleston – taking in the sights.
My reason for writing, though, is to tell you what’s changed since that Saturday. First, our daughter has noticeably changed. Without our ever mentioning it, she has told my wife that she has become much more relaxed. She realizes that God has given her and her husband a perfect little boy who is almost four now, and they have decided as a family to take each day as it is, a gift from God. Though they still want another child, she no longer obsesses about becoming pregnant.
And as for me, Christine and her prayer partner had commanded, in Jesus name, that Satan leave me alone. Not long ago, as I went about my daily routines, I suddenly realized that the sinister voice that had so often whispered to me about my incompetence and unworthiness had been silent for quite a while – in fact, since the prayers and anointment of Karin and me at St. Michael’s.
I’m sure there are many who would attribute these small miracles to coincidence or the power of suggestion. But I know better. It is the power of Jesus Christ, unleashed through prayer and faith. So thank you, St, Michael’s, and know that your ministry has powerfully touched the lives of people miles away. God bless you all.
In His Grip,

Michael Tarrant
Aiken, SC

Posted in Saints Alive | No Comments »

Evangelism Doesn’t Justify Everything: Beware the Christian Mafia

May 16th, 2012

She waltzed down the aisle in the Crystal Cathedral, pinkish blond locks flowing, arms waving to well-wishers, flowers everywhere, celebrities ready to take part in the wedding ritual. It was Janice Crouch — hardly a symbol of the demur mother-of-the groom – making a grand entrance at her son’s wedding. But Janice Crouch I was later to learn was no ordinary mom. She and her husband Paul Crouch were then new Christian megastars with their Trinity Broadcasting Network in the process of really taking off. In the years to come TBN was to emerge as the largest Christian television network in the world reaching millions and spanning the globe.

That day, and that wedding, were an indication of what was to come. The whole event reminded me of the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer – however with a big dose of Hollywood kitch and ersatz glamour thrown in.

But what was I doing there? A friend and I, both pursuing Doctoral degrees at Pasadena’s Fuller Theological Seminary, had decided to blitz some of Los Angeles’ famed megachurches. It happened that the Crystal Cathedral was the last on our list to visit, and to our surprise that Sunday afternoon we caught the wedding of the Crouch heir-apparent and his equally well-connected bride.

We walked through the parish hall leaving behind a lavish reception that awaited hundreds of guests. Fountains of bubbly punch, plates of delicious-looking cakes and dainties were all laid out as we slipped into the back of the Cathedral and caught the beginning of what felt like the wedding of the century.

That was more than twenty years ago, and since then TBN has grown into a $150 million-a-year enterprise with TV and radio stations, a film company, and properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars including a Holy Land theme park in Orlando, Florida.

The elder Crouches now essentially live apart, but nothing has dimmed the luxurious lifestyles that characterized these energetic televangelists even back then. Chauffeured Bentleys, two private jets, mansions with indoor basketball courts, lavish dinners, pampered pets, and – yes – still those pink-tinged wigs have all been justified by a “prosperity gospel” that links God’s financial blessings to our willingness to give to God’s work, including (you guessed it), TBN.

Meanwhile thanks to investigative reporting, and some whistle-blowing by the Crouches granddaughter, Brittany Koper, who worked for them as financial comptroller, the whole enterprise may come tumbling down like a house of cards. The financial improprieties have hit the headlines of the New York Times (May 5, 2012), and voices are being raised questioning the vast expenses that have been written off as tax-deductable. One can only ache for the millions of disillusioned old dears who have faithfully mailed in their $20 donations only to discover that they have funded a lifestyle that exceeds their wildest dreams.

Albert Mohler, Jr. President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY has called the Crouch’s “prosperity theology” a “huge embarrassment to evangelical Christianity for decades.” He will not be the only responsible Christian leader to weigh in. More will doubtless speak out as the gilded knot is gradually untied.

No doubt many souls have been helped by the Crouch’s vast outreach, and I suspect that much of what has been said is theologically sound. But error is always linked with truth so that the unsuspecting think that by supporting it they are doing god-service. It is only when you look beneath the surface that the ugliness appears, especially when the surface is sugar-coated with cotton candy.

Behind the so-called prosperity Gospel that the Crouches have preached is also a miracle-oriented, sensationalist view of the Christian life that lures believers into thinking that God’s primary way of working in the world is through dramatic, extraordinary interventions rather than through the gradual, often slogging disciplines of godliness that are woven into our lives as we daily die to self and rise with Jesus Christ. Some otherwise thoughtful believers can become as addicted to the image of a “successful and dynamic” Christian life as many can to alcohol, drugs, nicotine and work.

So, before you write that check to your favorite Christian charity (and do by all means support healthy ministries that uplift Christ and meet real need), be sure to know where the money is actually going, and whether those using it are reflecting the Lord not just in what they say but in how they live.

~ The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore, D.D.

Posted in From the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore | No Comments »

Are you hooked?

May 16th, 2012

Of course not, you say to yourself. But you may be fooling yourself. As someone said “Denial is not a river in Egypt.” Our ability to think we are freer, less dependent, more self-directed, and incapable of being in some kind of “bondage” is like the man who was so annoyed at all the news articles linking cigarette smoking to cancer that he decided – to give up reading the newspaper.

A new book by Gregory Jantz, a noted Christian therapist and author who specializes in issues surrounding various kinds of chemical dependencies, has taken the cover off the Pandora’s box of technology’s grip on Americans through the power of the web.

The fact is that we have fallen in love with our gadgets, and we are spending too much time on our computers. Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter, Tagged, Meetup, Google Plus, Orkut, MyLife, Hi5, MyYearbook together have billions of viewers, and that’s just a partial list. Facebook alone has 800 million active users, and they spend on average a full twenty-four hour day logged on each month – more or less one hour a day.

Friend has become a verb. You don’t “have” friends, you “friend” people, and they in return “friend” you. You live in an illusion that all these people are real friends, when in fact they are nothing of the sort. Walter Winchell said that a real friend is someone who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. But in an impersonal, urbanized, fast-paced world you don’t know who your friends really are.

Greg Jantz says that “online activities provide a powerful mix of immediacy, anonymity, and intimacy and…this combination has the potential to catch a person unprepared for its potency.” He is speaking, of course, about all online activities, but especially pornography that has a grip on perhaps as many as 75-80% of all American men. Somewhere I read that there is one page of porn on the Internet for every man, woman and child alive on the planet. The porn film industry is bigger than the legitimate film industry.

Online relationships threaten healthy ones, especially marital ones. How much emotional connection does this daily schedule provide: “Got up…Went to Starbucks…Had a couple of meetings at work…Pasta for lunch…Drove home in traffic…Fed the cat…Watched American Idol”?

Every winter I take a group of men, now mostly from Charleston, to Colorado for 5 days of skiing. We go to get away from the rat race, to experience fellowship, and test our mettle on Black Diamonds high above Vail and Beaver Creek. Last February, during lunch in a large mountain top cafeteria, I glanced around our table. There were all our guys totally absorbed in conversation – on their cell phones!

Jantz describes a worldwide study that got 1000 students from 10 countries around the world to abstain from using media (TV radio, the Internet, and cell phones) for twenty-four hours. They described their tether to technology as an addiction, including feelings of withdrawal. Some simply flunked the test. Others concluded that their dominant relationship was with media itself. Nor is it kids who are leading their parents into this trap as you might suppose, it’s parents who are modeling this huge consumption of media to their kids, according to the Barna Research Group.

Jantz doesn’t preach in his book #hooked, The Pitfalls of Media, Technology, and Social Networking (Siloam, $14.99), but he does offer some good advice especially to parents. First of all, slow down. Don’t let technology be like the dog on a leash. You think you are in control; but in reality it’s dragging you down a path you don’t want to go. Find the off switch. Take a digital break. You don’t need to check your e-mail every 15 minutes. Create a no-tech zone at dinner. Count the cost where technology is concerned – how we use it ourselves, what we bring into our home, and how we allow our children to interact with it.

We need to learn the difference between loneliness and solitude, and embrace quiet and rest as positive alternatives to the rush to false intimacy. And when it comes to pornography, use a filter, become accountable to a trusted Christian brother, go cold turkey. “Do you know how Tiger Woods’ fall from grace started” asked a friend. The answer was: “Tiger said yes one time.” That’s all it takes.

Instead, we need to take the long-term view of our lives. Impulsivity demands relief in the short term, regardless of the consequences. But mindfulness creates a sense of peace, calm, and quiet in the midst of a battlefield of distractions. This book helps us find those places where we need to say “stop the train, I want to get off.” It helps us ask ourselves troublesome questions like: do I really need to answer the cell phone every time it rings?

Jantz has a young son and he frequently finds himself in the typical parent-child struggles over technology. When he feels like tearing his hair out he turns to Psalm 23 and reads it calmly and slowly, and he’s centered again.

~ The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore, D.D.

Posted in From the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore | No Comments »

Global Impact Celebration (GIC) 2013 – The Rev. Tony Campolo

May 16th, 2012

Plans for the GIC are already underway under the leadership of Joe and Nicole Nicholson. We had invited The Rev. Tony Campolo to preach as part of the GIC, and he initially said yes, but then had to decline. His letter was so gracious I wanted to share it with all of you!

Dear Mr. Nicholson,

Undoubtedly, you have heard by now, that from the frequent phone calls between Swain Marion and my personal assistant, James Warren, that I very much wanted to be at St. Michaels Church again. I love your ministry. I appreciate what you are doing for your city and for the world in the name of the Lord.

Sadly, I just cannot shift things around so as to be there for you and for this important dinner. Perhaps you will remember to invite me another year. I would be thrilled at the opportunity. I am so sorry it doesn’t work out this time.

Sincerely,

Tony Campolo

Posted in From the Rector | No Comments »

Bishop Lawrence Giving His Testimony at the 6pm Service June 3rd

May 16th, 2012

Have you ever heard the story of the life of Bishop Mark Lawrence? If not, this is a critical night for you! You will hear how he came to Christ in the Pentecostal church, and how he migrated into the Anglican world, it’s a fascinating story, join us June 3rd at 6pm!

Posted in From the Rector | No Comments »

Confirmation Coming

May 16th, 2012

Bishop Lawrence is set to make his visitation for confirmation on June 3rd. This is a gorgeous service that will bless you as attend and pray for each of the confirmands, child and adult alike. Like last year, a harpist is scheduled to play during the laying on of hands which gives you the opportunity to see the Holy Spirit at work!

Posted in From the Rector | No Comments »

Festival of Faith

May 16th, 2012

It’s hard to put into words how important the festival of faith is to the entire body of St. Michael’s Church. Have you ever been on a trip and then tried to come home and explain what you saw? I remember coming home from attending a year as a student at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. I so looked forward to telling everyone what I had seen, but because the folks I talked to had never been there, there was a frustrating disconnect. So it is with the Festival of Faith. It’s impossible to communicate this incredible day without having experienced it!

At the Festival of Faith, we focus on 4 things:

1. Prayer

2. Celebrate the year we’ve had!

3. Accomplish the business we need to do in the present

4. Present our vision for the fall

We begin at 9:30 with a service that focuses on prayer and worship. As the old saying goes, “the best way to be in good standing with Jesus is to be on our knees.” So, that’s the way we will begin, on our knees with over a dozen prayer stations around the church, and entire families coming up for prayer.

Then, after the service, we will celebrate the year in review! We will go to the 100,000 foot level and look back. It’s amazing to see that has happened in this place over 12 months! We must first return to give God thanks for all he has done in the transformation of hearts! Yes, we will bring back the slide show to see this most beautiful visual of God’s handiwork.

Secondly, we will elect leadership for the 2012-2013 season, and hand out our annual report which contains all the behind the scenes work in ministry. Every ministry presents its annual report in review. We also have our financial charts and accounting for all to see.

Finally, where are we going next fall? What can you expect? My hope is that when you leave this festival of Faith, you like me would tingle with excitement as we continue to peel back the onion on our vision:

Transforming Hearts Through Jesus Christ!

Festival of Faith/Hazel Parker Park

It was a record crowd at the spring “I Like Mike” course! Fifty newcomers took this course, and you will meet them at Hazel Parker Park. Here is what they experienced on “I Like Mike”:

Week One: Hearing highlights of our 261 years of ministry at St. Michael’s Church. They then also shared their stories

Week Two: Continuing what they heard on the Alpha course, we went into detail about what Anglicans believe. They also received a tour of the Book of Common Prayer.

Week Three: What we expect from every St. Michaelite:

Weekly Worship

Daily Bible devotion/prayer

Life group participation

Tithing

Week Four: The vision of St. Michael’s, our structure and our staff. They met key staff and clergy members and ended with our grand steeple tour.

In addition to meeting these tremendous folks, it’s also a time to simply relax with your spiritual brothers and sisters in a beautiful environment!

~The Rector

Posted in From the Rector | No Comments »