FROM  THE  FIELD
News & Events of the Church in Georgia

January 10, 2012

 

From the Field

is a weekly eNewsletter of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia sent out each Tuesday.

 

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In This Issue
Interfaith Service
Diocesan Staff Events
Headline
Honey Creek Update
Clergy Updates
The Loose Canon
Forgiveness Retreat
Epiphany
DOK in Darien
Music in Augusta
Happening
Vocare
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Convention 2012

 Few Celebration Augusta

The 191st Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia will meet February 2-4, 2012 on the Riverwalk in Augusta as we are hosted by St. Paul's Church.

 

All of the information delegates need to register for the convention and to reserve hotel rooms is online together with information on the diocesan offices up for election and how to nominate someone for those offices. It's all at the:

 

Convention 2012 Website

Join Us for MLK Day in Savannah

Few Celebration AugustaThe Rev. Cheryl Parris, Rector of St. Matthew's, Savannah, has arranged for the Episcopal Church to have the lead float in this year's MLK parade on January 16th.  As there are approximately 250 floats in the parade, to be first is indeed an honor.  A committee of about 20 members of the Savannah Convocation has been making preparations for the event. The diocesan delegation will meet at St. Matthew's at 1401 MLK, Jr. Blvd., Savannah, at 9:30 am with the parade beginning at 10 am.  Participants are asked to wear sweat shirts or jackets in red, white or Few Celebration Augustablue to match the colors on the Episcopal shield.  Special parade t-shirts will be given to the first 75 parade participants. Gabriel Lawrence, choir director at St. Paul's, Savannah, is coordinating choir participation, and there will be 27 seats on the float for choir members. Roger Moss, founder and director of the Savannah Children's Choir, will serve as soloist for some of the songs. As is the custom, there will be a youth lock-in on Sunday, January 15th at St. Matthew's. The focus of the lock-in will be MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. If you have any questions please contact your parish representative on the committee. We hope you will plan to join the Bishop, the Savannah Convocation, and the diocese at large for this important event.

Celebrating The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

St. Matthew's Hosts Interfaith Service 

The Rev. Cheryl Parris warmly welcomes representatives from over 15 Savannah-area faith communities to St. Matthew's. 

On Sunday, January 8th, St. Matthew's, Savannah, hosted an interfaith service as part of Savannah's 33rd annual

celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The

The Very Rev. William Willoughby, III, Dean of the Savannah Convocation, shares a laugh with The Rev. Cheryl Parris and members of St. Matthew's before the service.

service featured local students reading speeches and letters of Dr. King as well as a variety of musical selections from Savannah church musicians. The diocese had clerical and/or musical representation from many Savannah churches, including St. Paul's, St. John's, All Saints', St. Peter's, and Christ Church Episcopal. On Sunday, January 15th, St. Matthew's will host a youth lock-in in conjunction with the celebration and will be the site of departure for the annual MLK parade, which will take place the following morning, January 16th. 

Whitney Robinson, 12th grade parishioner at St. Matthew's and Interfaith Service participant, with Savannah's new mayor, Ms. Edna B. Jackson.

 

Diocesan Office Update

Bishop Benhase's eCrozier from last Friday on "Is it sufficient enough just to have convictions, but not act on them?" is online here: eCrozier #118  

 

Bishop Benhase and Canon Logue will be at St. Paul's, Savannah, this Friday and Saturday for a meeting of the Commission on Ministry and the Standing Committee.  

 

This Sunday, Bishop Benhase will make his visitation to St. Peter's, Savannah.

 

Canon Logue is working on Convention 2012, including audio/visual elements.

 

Canon Hall is working with representatives of St. Paul's, Augusta, to plan and implement the Convention Youth Lock-in. She is also working on several other convention-related projects. 

Youth & Young Adults 

Convention Lock-in  

Convention Lock-in will be held at St. Paul's, Augusta on Friday, February 3rd, beginning at 8p and ending Saturday, February 4th at 12p. This event is open to 6th - 12th graders and costs just $15. Follow this link to register online. For more questions, please email Canon Hall. Registration deadline is Wednesday, February 1, 2012.  

 

Coming next week: Online team application and participant registration form for New Beginnings #40, to be held at Honey Creek March 9 - 11, 2012. New Beginnings is open to students in 7th - 9th grades. 

Coming Up at Honey Creek

Daughter's of the King | January 13-16

 

St. Anne's, Tifton, vestry retreat | January 20-22

 

Church Development Institute (CDI) | January 20-21
 

Happening #88 | January 27-29
 

King of Peace, Kingsland, vestry retreat | January 27-28
 

St. Paul's, Albany, vestry retreat | February 10-11
 

Deacon School for Ministry | February 24-25
 

St. Peter's, Savannah, vestry retreat | February 24-25
 

St. Phillip's, Hinesville, vestry retreat | February 24-26

 

Forgiveness Retreat | March 30-31

 

Save the Dates for Summer Camp 2012

 

High School Camp: June 17 - June 23

St. Joseph & Mary Camp 1: June 24 - June 30

St. Peter's Camp: July 8 - July 14

St. Joseph & Mary Camp 2: July 15 - July 21

Kamp Phun: July 22 - July 27

Clergy Updates

The Rev. Jim Silcox has accepted a call to serve as the Rector of Wicomico Parish Church in Virginia. His final Sunday as the Assistant Rector of St. Paul's, Augusta, is January 29.

 

The Rev. Frank Sawyer has accepted an appointment as the Head of Schol for St. Martin's-in-the-Field Day School, a preschool through 8th grade school in Severna Park, Maryland. He will work out the school year as the Chaplain of Episcopal Day School in Augusta before moving to the Head of School position.

dashboard

The Loose Canon

Your Congregation's Dashboard

If you were a Methodist Church in North Alabama, those words would have already brought a strong reaction, pro or con. For it is there in the North Alabama Conference that Methodist Bishop and noted preacher Will Willimon Pictured below) has created an accountability experiment of unprecedented scope. Every church in his conference reports on key statistics every week. Then those statistics are reported every week for the whole world to see and ponder.


The dashboard is online here North Alabama UMC Dashboard with its count of membership, attendance, baptisms, professions of faith, people serving, people served, apportionments paid, and a ratio of attendance to membership. Then you see charts of churches with the biggest membership gain, the most baptisms, professions of faith and so on.


dashboardThis experiment started in 2009. Since then, every congregaton in the conference logs on every Monday to fill in a report which goes live with the latest data. Within the Methodist Church their  General Council on Finance and Administration has created a program VitalSigns which generates dashboards and they are working to get every conference to take that approach.


At the Church Leadership Conference I helped lead this past weekend at Kanuga, keynote speaker Reggie McNeal emphasized that what we count and celebrate matters. In The Episcopal Church it is Parochial Report time and we make the most out of numbers in worship (Average Sunday Attendance), numbers of baptisms, and the income and expenses of the budget. But we never ask how many people served others and how many the congregation served. While we ask about baptisms and adult baptisms, we do not refer to professions of faith. But if we are all about changing lives for the better and going out to love and serve the Lord, then perhaps we should find better metrics than mere the number of noses in the nave or dollars in the plate.


The dashboard model put forward in North Alabama is controversial. Many say that the focus on numbers takes the focus off people and ministry. This article at the UM Portal helps capture sentiment in that denomination: http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=7913


I do see problems with this approach, but benefits as well if there are some tweaks made to it. First, I am not advocating this as a diocesan wide program, but do think vestries need to watch the numbers. Over the next two weeks, I will share what I think are the flaws in this system and how a congregation can benefit from the pros of watching numbers while avoiding most or all of the pitfalls.


The Rev. Canon Frank Logue
Canon to the Ordinary

 

The Loose Canon is a regular column in From the Field whose content is gathered together with other items of interest to those concerned with congregational development at loosecanon.georgiaepiscopal.org

Forgiving Life

Would you like to lose 2,000 pounds overnight? The Rev. Liam Collins and Canon Frank and Victoria Logue will lead an overnight retreat at Honey Creek the Friday before Holy Week with the goal of helping participants to let go of baggage weighing them down. Retreatants will learn about forgiveness and reconciliation, including some myths of forgiveness. There will be teaching, time for reflection, healing, all in the context of worship and prayer. If you need to forgive yourself and others, come to Honey Creek and leave with significantly less bagage than you bring.

 

The retreat will begin with dinner on Friday evening, March 30,  and will continue through lunch Saturday ending by 2 p.m. on March 31.

 

The cost is $96.99 per person (based on double room occupancy) and $68.99 for commuters. Single rooms are available for $136.99. Call Honey Creek at 912-265-9218 to register or send an email to flogue@gaepiscopal.org to be added to the email list for more complete information. 

Epiphany in Words and Photos

Epiphany marks the 12th day of Christmas and is one of the major feasts of the church. Below are photos of the feast being celebrated in the churches of the Diocese of Georgia. We also have online the sermon Bishop Shipps gave at Christ Church, Savannah, on the First Sunday After the Epiphany: Bishop Shipp's Sermon

 

At St. Patrick's Pooler, the occasion of the feast of Jesus' baptism was marked by Irene being baptized and marked as Christ's own forever. The Rev. Konrad White is the officiant.

King of Peace, Kingsland, held its annual Low Country Boil and Oyster Roast with the Burning of the Greens, pictured above and below.

 

A Service of Light marked the Feast of the Epiphany at St. Anne's, Tifton with a reading of the date of Easter and moveable Feasts as well as blessing chalk and sending families out to mark their houses with the blessed chalk. Below is the congregation in St. Anne's historic chapel. An album of photos is online here: St. Anne's Epiphany

St. Andrew's and St. Cyprian's Darien   

New Daughters of the King Chapters 

Forgiving LifeOn Sunday, January 8, St. Andrew's Church, Darien, was the site of a joyous celebration as the new Two Saints Chapter of the Order of the Daughters of the King was instituted. The new chapter includes members from both St. Andrew's and St. Cyprian's churches (which is where the Chapter name comes from - Two Saints). Diocesan President Mary Dawson was joined by former Diocesan President Cindy Coward and 13 other Daughters from across the Savannah and Southeast Convocations to admit Carlotta Tolleson (holding the Charter), Allison Clarkson, Anella Rowland, Barbara Bodamer, Cayolyn Baker, Connie Frazier, Dorothy Cunningham, Kate Pontello, Latrelle Peterson and Ruby White as members of the Order. The Two Saints Chapter also includes Daughters Phyllis Sartin and Karulynn Koelliker, who were instrumental in forming and training the new Chapter. As their first service project, four of the new Daughters are leaving on a Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic in late January to help build a school about 40 miles outside of Santo Domingo. Way to go, ladies!

St. Paul's Augusta

Upcoming Music Events

Forgiving LifeTuesday's Music Live, Inc. presents Augusta bass, Isaac Holmes, in a free concert at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, 24 January 2012. Tuesday's Music Live concerts are held in the nave of Saint Paul's Church, 6th & Reynolds at the Riverwalk in downtown Augusta. Lunch following the concert is catered by Crum's on Central and are $10 per person. Advance reservations can be made online at www.TuesdaysMusicLive.com or by calling the Box Office, 706-722-3463.

Youth and Young Adults  

Register Now for Happening #88    

Happening88Graphic

Online registration for Happening #88, to take place on January 27 - 29, 2012 at Honey Creek, is open! Click this link to register. Happening is open to high school students in grades 10 - 12 and costs $110. Financial assistance is available. For more information, contact Mr. Jody Grant, Diocesan Happening Coordinator. 

Youth and Young Adults

Vocare Registration Deadline Jan. 15

Diocese of Georgia Vocati at Vocare #20, February 2011
Diocese of Georgia Young Adults at Vocare #20, February 2011

Vocare in Georgia is an Episcopal young adult ministry serving both the Diocese of Georgia and Diocese of Atlanta. Through weekend retreats and community building, Vocare in Georgia provides opportunities for self discovery and the beginnings of spiritual discernment. God is calling each one of us into deepened faithfulness and more clearly defined ministries. Vocare helps "Pilgrims" (those who are attending the weekend for the first time) hear God's call through fun and games, serious reflection and discussion, and familiar, relaxed worship.

The next Vocare will be held January 27 - 29, 2012 at Camp Mikell, the Diocese of Atlanta's Camp and Conference Center.

The deadline for pilgrim registrations is January 15, 2012. Click these links to download the pilgrim application (either as a PDF or Word document):

Vocare 21 Pilgrim Registration PDF; Vocare 21 Pilgrim Registration WORD

 

Financial assistance is available. Diocese of Georgia Vocari candidates should complete the Scholarship Application no later than January 20, 2012 to apply.

 

Please email Canon Leigh Hall for more information.

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Sincerely,
 

Diocesan Staff
The Episcopal Diocese of Georgia