October 2013 – Pr. Anthony’s Letter

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I first want to thank all of you who attend/hosted the cottage meetings. The attendance and participation at each meeting was wonderful! I heard many things that we are doing well at and once all of the information is organized we can certainly give praise and thanksgiving for the areas we are excelling in. I also have a long list of dreams for the parish and things that we need to be improving on. These will also soon be discussed and action will be taken. At these meetings I did quite a bit of listening. From time to time, I will be sharing with you ideas that I have. The ministry that we do is a partnership; Pastor Eric and I want to work with you.

Working through our theme verse for this year, Pastor Eric’s letter this month expands on two words from that verse, “Royal Priesthood.” As you will read, we are all in this together; we are all priests. And as priests, we have a respon-sibility to care for those around us. And like he says, we are already doing this, but there is always room for improve-ment. This is an area where we can improve on. Plus from a very practical standpoint, your pastors need your help. Currently we have 27 people on our home communion list. People who are on this list are on it because they cannot regularly come to worship to receive communion. So the church needs to go to them. With this in mind, I have 2 requests:

Those of you who cannot come to worship regularly due to some health related issue:

Your pastors and your congregation would really like to bring communion to you on a regular basis. Our goal is to eventually have communion brought to you each month. Please know that Pastor Eric or myself will be coming on a more regular basis to visit with you and bring you communion. We hope that soon there will also be members of the congregations that will bring communion to you as well.

Those of you who can come to worship regularly:

We are all priests and are all responsible or caring for those who are in need. Currently we have 27 peo-ple in our parish that are unable to come to one of our three congregations to worship and receive Holy Communion. Since their health has created a barrier between them and coming to church, we need to go to them. Pastor Eric and I are asking for your help. If you would be interested in visiting with and bringing communion to a few of our members each month, please talk to myself or Pastor Eric. We don’t want someone’s health to be a barrier and the reason why they are not receiving Holy Communion.

As we enter into this joyous season of harvest and plenty, let’s not forget about our neighbors.

In Christ,

Pastor Anthony