Dear Ones,

 

As announced, our Director of Children’s Ministry, Pattie Ames, has accepted a call to serve as the Christian Formation Missioner for the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. Her last day in the office will be June 5. We will be celebrating Pattie’s ministry with a special “Pattie Palooza!” on Sunday, June 16; please join us on that day to send her forth with our prayers, thanks, and blessings. If you would like to make a gift to Pattie, click here and select the fund named “Purse for Pattie,” or to sign up to teach Sunday School next year, click here .

 

Pattie has led our children’s ministry for twenty-one years. To help us take stock before we begin looking for our next Director of Children’s Ministry, I have contracted with a consulting group called Ministry Architects. They will do a thorough assessment of our current program and support us in the search process. We are using Ministry Architects in our current search for a Youth Director and are very pleased with their work.

To do this properly and because we want to find the very best candidate, I do not anticipate we will fill the position by this September. I am very glad and grateful that parishioner Katie McGervey has accepted my invitation to serve as Interim Director of Children’s Ministry. This is a part-time paid position; Katie and I will first coordinate with Pattie, and then recruit additional parishioners as needed to help in leading our Sunday School and other children’s programs for the fall.

 

Please hold Pattie, Katie, and all the children of St. Columba’s in your prayers. This is an extraordinary ministry; as Pattie built upon the foundation she received, so will we build on the foundation that Pattie has laid and, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, there is one true foundation, who is Christ Jesus our Lord.