Rector's Report for 2018, Parish of the Resurrection
Dear friends in Christ, friends who are sharing in the Great Love together, 2018 has been a great year for our spiritual community in many different ways. God continues to bless us, and God continues to bless others in and through and as us. Thanks be to God.
For the Parish of the Resurrection, 2018 has been a healthy year for us. As individuals and as a community, we continue to deepen in faith and love, in diversity and inclusion, in care of each other, and in reaching out to the larger community and those on the margins.
2018 has brought new participants into our community of faith. This includes new pilgrims to our Sunday liturgical community, but also new pilgrims to the other spiritual communities within the circle of the Parish of the Resurrection. The Parish of the Resurrection is much more than the total of those who participate in the Sunday liturgy. The Parish of the Resurrection has become a collection of communities within a community. We have spiritual seekers who are seeking their Higher Power, who are seeking to connect in meaningful ways with others in ways other than the liturgy or religion per se.
In addition to our ongoing communities that gather at the Resurrection for Yoga, Saturday Brunch, Seniors Cafe, Bereavement Support, Knit Wits, Scones and Tea, three new and very exciting communities have emerged at the Resurrection over the last year.
So many of us and our families are effected by drug addiction and the mental illnesses that are part of addiction. With no resources in our immediate region, we discerned and formed a Narcotics Anonymous Group in the parish that I, as the pastor, am directly involved with. This community has taken root and is growing with the need for addiction recovery support in our region. Our Tuesday night meeting is called the Baccalieu Trail Recovery Group. As this community has taken root, and as relationships of trust have been built, we have also discerned and formed a Recovery Peer Support environment on Wednesdays. The Parish of the Resurrection is being established in our region where those struggling with drug addiction can come for compassion, inclusion, and support. Thanks be to God.
Another exciting community that has emerged in 2018 at the Resurrection is what we call an Alternative Spiritual Community. With so many people today indicating no interest in religion, but having an interest in spirituality, we have discerned and formed an alternative community at the Resurrection where people can come to explore spirituality and spiritual practices, without the obstacles of doctrines, creeds and religion. This community continues to meet and continues to slowly grow, meeting a spiritual need for a segment of our population. Thanks be to God.
The beautiful truth is that God is in God’s world doing what God is doing, with or without the church. The church has no monopoly on God (though the church tried teaching that for 1700 years). The new and emerging church has to learn to listen with its spiritual heart for how God’s Life is emerging in our communities and the people around us, and we have to simply join in, in new and creative ways. The future church will always have the Eucharist and the Sunday liturgy. But the future church will have to be much, much more than that. We have to have the courage, trust and love to know that God is life, and to invite and welcome that Life in its ever new and emerging forms.
The Diocesan Synod in the fall of 2018 has given direction to the people and parishes of this diocese to find new ways of being church into the future, and to give more attention and energy to being mission focused. The parish of the Resurrection is well away along this path, and we will be looking at new ways to partner with neighbouring parishes in mission objectives into the future.
2018 has been a reasonably good financial year for our parish. Although we have met our budget projections, it has been done with fairly heavy reliance on fundraising. With more people less regular at the Sunday liturgy, our free will offering continues to be in a slow decline. If you are someone who is not at the liturgy every Sunday, and if you are someone who loves your spiritual community, in whatever form that is for you at the Resurrection, please consider automatic deposit. Regular monthly offering to your parish would greatly help our mission objectives and making positive contributions to our common life together and to the life of our region.
The Parish of the Resurrection received a number of fairly large donations in 2018. A $5000 donation was gratefully received from the Brigus Blueberry Committee (who disbursed funds to large number of charitable organizations in Conception Bay North). This very generous donation was used to install a much needed wind break at the entrance to our House for the Church.
The other area of donation was for the paving of our parking lot. We received very generous donations from Floy Doull and the family of Fred Andews. It was their desire that these donations be used to provide paving for the parish parking lot.
These donations are wonderful examples of how people can support this parish through financial bequest.
Remembering the Parish in your Wills: Floy Doull has included the Parish of the Resurrection in her will, and she has done it in such a way that she can see its benefits to the parish while still living.
Remembering the Parish with Funeral Memorials: With the passing of Fred Andrews, the family’s wish was that all funeral memorial donations to be made out to the Parish of the Resurrection.
Remembering the Parish with Family Memorials: One of the wishes of Fred Andrews, a supporter of the parish and a believer in our evolving mission, was to see the parking lot paved. With Floy Doull’s willed donation toward paving the parking lot, coupled with the funeral memorial donation, the Andrew’s family, in memory of Fred, have made a memorial donation to help complete the paving project.
We, as a parish family, are thankful for the generous donations from these two families, to pave the parking lot, and to support the rebuilding of the church both materially and spiritually.
On a final note, and with reference to the wider church, noting that your rector continues in the role of the Diocesan Canon for Spirituality, encouraging the deepening of spiritual practice in our diocese; that I continue my role as Adjunct Faculty at Queens College teaching Pastoral Studies; and that I’ve been working with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in the discerning, designing and leading of a contemplative pilgrimage to our Southern Shore in 2019.
For all of you who love your church, and contribute to our shared life together in so many and varied ways, thank you. It is because of your ever depending hearts in God that we are IN Love with each other, and delighting together in the Lord’s School of Love.
In the Great Love,
Father Gerald+
