Honey Creek Update

This weekend

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

Church Development Institute (CDI) | January 20-21   

Upcoming

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

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.  

Registration for Happening #88, to take place on January 27 - 29, 2012 at Honey Creek, is now closed. The next Happening will take place in late July/early August 2012. Financial assistance is available until Friday, January 20, 2012. For more information, contact Mr. Jody Grant, Diocesan Happening Coordinator. 

Jason Peaslee Named as Diocesan New Beginnings Coordinator

Jason A. Peaslee of Valdosta has been named Diocesan New Beginnings Coordinator as of January 1, 2012. Jason has, for many years, been an active member of diocesan youth programs and young adult ministries. He is currently on Youth Commission and staffs numerous events as a music/entertainment leader and adult chaperone. In addition, Jason has served as youth minister at St. Paul's, Savannah. Jason is currently studying opticianry and is a member of St. Anne's, Tifton.

• Apply online to be on team for New Beginnings #40 (open to those who have attended a New Beginnings before). Online application is preferred.  
• Download a hard copy of the team application in PDF format.  
• The New Beginnings Steering Committee will meet at Diocesan Convention (February 2-4, 2012) to select the team for New Beginnings #40.
• The mandatory one-day team training will be on Saturday, February 25, 2012, at a location to be announced.    
• The team fee is $135. 

Information for Participants
The deadline to register as a participant is March 2, 2012.

• Register online as a participant for New Beginnings #40 (open to 7th - 9th graders and adults). Online registration is preferred.
• Download a hard copy of the participant registration form in PDF format.
• The participant fee is $110. 

Scholarship Information for Everyone
The deadline to apply for financial assistance is March 2, 2012.

• Download a hard copy of the scholarship form in PDF format (always available at www.edogyayas.org in the "Documents" portion of the website).  

All this and more at www.edogyayas.org!

St. Alban's, Augusta received a grant from Miles of Pennies in New York, New York. St. Alban's purchased materials for their Church School. St. Alban's intends to use the remainder of the grant for Vacation Bible School in the Spring.

Miles of Pennies Representative, Patricia Hicks Solomon and the Very Rev. Billy Alford with the children of  St. Alban's

The children of St. Alban's

 Materials purchase on the Children's Alter

The Loose Canon

A problem with Church Dashboards

No congregation is fully itself on any given Sunday. In some ways each week is exceptional. We see this most fully (and somewhat painfully) when visitors come and the organist is out sick and half the choir must have stayed up late watching a football game or when visitors decide to come on Trinity Sunday, when the seminarian the Rector arranged to preach decides to actually explain the divine nature of the Godhead clearly and distinctly, and so, somewhat hertically.

Last week, I shared the experiment in accountability taking place in the United Methodist Church's North Alabama Conference (Last week's colum is online here). There, Bishop Will Willimon has each congregation reported key statistics every week and sharing them on the conference website.

Most clergy already have enough trouble with judging too much of their effectiveness in ministry by how the previous Snday went. The priest is full of self-confidence after a particularly good attendance Sunday where the sermon seemed to reasonate with the gathered flock only to drop the next week after a low attendance on  a week when everything seemed to come together, but fewer than usual were there to join in worship. This focus on the church's numbers on a week by week basis is something to discourage in clergy and we certainly wouldn't want that particular virus to spread to laity. After all, we are about the work of being the Body of Christ and that is something that slips through the cracks of a system that focuses on numbers as if these are the only measure of faithfulness to the Gospel.

That said, it is not that numbers of any kind are of no help. After all, Jesus taught that we are to bear fruit and we do know that there are indicators of this to which we should be attentive. So we need to find a middle path between the fallen example of the priest who views her or his effectiveness in ministry by last Sunday's attendance and offerings and the opposite extreme of paying no attention to numbers as if there is no possible way of measuring the fruit of ministry.

This middle path is to track trends over time and to do so using both the metrics of The Episcopal Church's Parochial Report and some indicators that never appear on any denomination's annual accounting. I will take this up in next week's Loose Canon.

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

Full Information on Forgiveness Retreat

Last week, we annonced that 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. Full information on the retreat is now online in a brochure here: Forgiveness Retreat Brochure

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.