TRANSITION - THE END IS IN SIGHT

I am truly blessed and honored to be your Senior Warden and lead a vestry that is completely focused on making St Martin's the best it can be. 

Song of Songs 2:11-13:

See! The winter has past;

The rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

The season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

We are now entering the final season of our transition period before our new rector, Rev. Lauren Holder, begins her ministry with us. What a wonderful time this has been for both our church and our school. Our "winter" has been mild as we have accomplished many good things since our transition started:

• The Spirit brought us the Rev. Josh Rodriquez-Hobbs as our interim rector and we celebrated his last Sunday with us last week;
• The school achieved completed the audits and reviews and was awarded its recertification by the Association of Independent Maryland and DC Schools (AIMS); 
• Rev. Nathan has taken a well deserved sabbatical and is refreshed both physically and spiritually as we prepare a new program year for both the church and the school;
• Christian education for both children and adults thrived under the leadership of Rev. Josh and Rev. Nathan;
• Our profile committee portrayed St. Martin's as a place where very good rector candidates wanted to be and then the search committee handed the vestry a wonderful slate of candidates for our next rector;
• The vestry took on the difficult task of selecting our next rector and after thoughtful prayer and discussions called Rev. Lauren Holder to be our new rector. She graciously accepted our call and is now preparing to move, with her family, to Severna Park in the coming months;
• Our congregation has grown and our Christian education programs are overflowing;
• And so much more. 

We accomplished so much over the past year. We did not skip a beat while moving through this transition. In fact, I feel we are stronger now than we were when we started.

Now it is time to prepare for the next chapter in our storied history. There are a couple of months left in our transition and we all need to continue working hard as we prepare for our new program year and begin to focus on a new ministry under the leadership and guidance of Rev. Lauren Holder. 

The Spirit is moving within us and there are good things on our horizon. We are on the cusp of doing great things here at St. Martin's and I hope that everyone will join me in doing the best we can to become the disciples for Christ that we are all called to be. 

With humility and in God's peace,

The following programs will resume in the fall: Sunday School, Youth Classes, EYC, Shepherd Group, Bible Workbench and Parents’ Group.