May 17, 2022

Eastertide

Dear Parish Family,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to keep you updated about the parish’s status and work in light of the State Supreme Court ruling of April 20, 2022.

First is a reminder that on May 5 we filed a Petition for Rehearing. To date, the court has neither dismissed nor ruled on this petition. Until the court does one or the other, the case is still ongoing. In light of this, there are some conversations, decisions, and actions which at this point would still have to be termed premature. Thus, I continue to invite your patience. More than that, I invite your prayers - earnest, daily, faithful. Pray for Christ Church.

Prayer is a good segue into what I would like to share with you about our ongoing contingency work, for it is at the head of that work. While as a public matter there are things that are premature, nevertheless, through our vestry and contingency committee we are trying to be prepared for various scenarios and needs.

The vestry has formally taken on the responsibility of this contingency work, and with most of those who had served on the contingency committee in the past, have re-formed to prepare for whatever the next season in our church’s life may be.

The wardens, Jeff Gum and Mark Congdon, are the co-chairs of all of this planning. They have a wonderfully complimentary set of skills, and have done a great job to organize and move the work forward. They and I see eye to eye about both the spiritual and practical nature of this effort and I feel blessed to have them in this role. Additionally, five sub-groups have been formed, each composed of some members of the vestry and some members of the contingency committee, to address the different initial major aspects of any transition we’ll face.

The subgroups each have a “lead” and they are: Prayer, Jacqui Tabor; Facilities, Howard

Harder; Staff/Programming, Vicki Johnson and Judy Hood (co-leads); Communications, Mark Congdon; Finance/Legal, Kenny Wilson.

May I say that you all are honorary members of the Prayer group? ...Earnestly, daily, faithfully.

In a similar vein, you’re all also a part of the Communications group, because in addition to assisting me and Katy Hunter, our staff Communications Director, to convey information to you, they will periodically ask information of you: for example, please be on the lookout for a simple, anonymous survey in the next few days - your participation will help us plan and so I ask that you answer the survey questions promptly after receiving it. Likewise, just as the vestry recently made phone calls to all our households, we hope to be about that again in the coming days/weeks, primarily to hear what your thoughts, questions, concerns and suggestions are about our status and work as a parish.

As to timelines, I’m sorry to say that I still can’t tell you anything with much accuracy, because I and those I ask just don’t know. Very quickly now; or, a number of months, are both good guesses.

And that means uncertainty. The Psalmist asks “For the foundations will be cast down, and what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3, BCP p. 280) An answer from Jesus is “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Lk. 22:19) In times of uncertainty, my goodness in all times (!), what better thing can the righteous do than to gather around the holy table of the Lord’s Supper, and kneel beneath the cross and before the altar of God to seek and receive communion with God and one another?

So, my friends, as always I urge you to keep the faith - and share it, too!

I will write again soon.

Faithfully,

Fr. Ted