What's Happening at St. Francis

Resources for Growth!

These materials have been found for your work towards growing our Episcopal presence in Mill Creek.  When you read one of books listed below, post a comment and we'll all get the info!  If you go to one of the churches, post a comment and tell us all what you think.  And if you take a class, let us know!

 

Reading:

• Congregational Development topics on the national church site: http://ecusa.anglican.org/congdev.htm
• Book: Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What by Peter Steinke. http://www.amazon.com/Congregational-Leadership-Anxious-Times-Courageous/dp/1566993288/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211912165&sr=1-1

Churches in our diocese that are succeeding and growing:

• Church of the Apostles (Fremont): http://www.apostleschurch.org/home.php
• St. Paul’s (Lower Queen Anne): http://www.stpaulseattle.org/
• St. John’s (Kirkland): http://www.stjohnskirkland.org/

Classes:

• Diocesan School of Ministry and Theology: http://www.dsomat.org/ (there may be classes that that come to us)

Bishop's Committee Update

This information was also emailed to the members of the congregation.

------------------------------------------------

Hello Fellow St. Franciscans:

The Bishop’s Committee has appointed three Junior Wardens—Wink Cushman, Russell Dills and Marti Riley. Why so many? We have much to accomplish and many hands make light work. We also believe that it’s important to have a Jr. Warden who regularly attends each of our Sunday services, to answer your questions and take your feedback to the Committee.

Andrea Riseden-Perry has also been appointed as clerk of the Bishop’s Committee.

Please note, anyone can send an email to all members of the Bishop’s Committee at the same time by addressing it to bishopscommittee@stfrancismillcreek.org.

The Steering Committee meets tomorrow, Monday, June 9, at the Church. The Steering Committee will be re-chartered by the Bishop’s Committee as our Transition Team, to report directly to the Bishop’s Committee and to aid with the task of arranging a transitional home for our congregation. Others interested in serving on the Transition Team can contact Shelby at sbrambach@stfrancismillcreek.org.

The next Bishop's Committee meeting is schedule for this Wednesday, June 11. If you would like to address the Committee, or have an item for the agenda, please contact Shelby no later than Tuesday, June 10 at noon.

***********State of the Mission Update***********

At both the 8AM and 10AM services today, Russell Dills shared a PowerPoint presentation regarding the financial situation of the mission and outlining what our immediate next steps are.

In summary:

Our Bishop’s Committee’s goals are:

1. Keep this congregation together
2. Preserve pastoral care
3. Work toward our redevelopment

Based on our financial reality, there is really only one feasible option at this time:

• If we are to continue as a congregation, we must vacate our current property. This will allow the Diocese to temporarily relieve our financial obligations (mortgage and assessment).
• The resulting reduction in overhead will allow us to maximize our remaining financial resources, potentially into 2011, as long as we receive pledges at the same rate.
• Your pledges will still be needed during the interim time, in order to allow us to rent a space for services, pay for pastoral care (supply priest) and store our inventory until we have a new facility.

We must move quickly to divert our outlay from maintaining our current property to reaching our future redevelopment goal.

While Bishop Rickel and the various Diocesan bodies to whom he is accountable have the final say, our Bishop’s Committee are confident that we are moving in a shared vision with the Diocese and look forward to working together to rebuild the wonderful, loving community that is St. Francis.

Our Bishop’s Committee will be asking everyone for help in this process—there will be opportunities for everyone to serve, and we hope you will.

You will have a voice! Please plan to be at services next Sunday, June 15, to complete a survey regarding our interim meeting options. The survey will also be available online.

If you have questions, please let us know. Email addresses for all BC members are in the sidebar to the right.

In Christ,

Andrea Riseden-Perry
Bishop's Committee Clerk

This week, from the office!

Church email addresses: For church administrative business, please contact Loretta at lmatson@stfrancismillcreek.org. The "Info" and "Admin" addresses the previously forwarded to Shelby now forward to Loretta as well. Shelby can be reached either at brambachs@msn.com or sbrambach@stfrancismillcreek.org.

Bishop's Committee: Shelby Brambach has been appointed Sr. Warden by the Bishop. Our other B.C. members--Wink Cushman, Jeanette Monahan, Andrea Riseden-Perry, Debbie Kilpatrick, Russell Dills, Marti Riley--were commissioned last week at the Bishop's visit as well. The Jr. Warden position is still to be determined by the new B.C.

Women's Night: Monday, June 2 the women of the parish will gather at Emory’s restaurant for dinner. Please sign up on the sheet in the Narthex so Mildred will know how many of us there will be when she makes the reservation.

First Saturday Dinner for June: at McGrath’s Fish House in Lynnwood, is limited to the first 12 people. Please sign up on the bulletin board in the Narthex. Contact Marti Riley with any questions.

Spring Fair A-Board Signs: Seven of our nine A-board signs disappeared off the street during the Fair. We have already checked with the city and they did not remove them. If you have any idea where they went, please let Loretta know.

Parish Notes: If you have an announcement for the printed Parish Notes, please get it to Loretta by the Wednesday before. If you are late, you might consider sending it to Andrea or Adrienne so they can post it on the blog.

Church email addresses: For church administrative business, please contact Loretta at lmatson@stfrancismillcreek.org. The "Info" and "Admin" addresses the previously forwarded to Shelby now forward to Loretta as well. Shelby can be reached either at brambachs@msn.com or sbrambach@stfrancismillcreek.org.

Bishop's Committee: Shelby Brambach has been appointed Sr. Warden by the Bishop. Our other B.C. members--Wink Cushman, Jeanette Monahan, Andrea Riseden-Perry, Debbie Kilpatrick, Russell Dills, Marti Riley--were commissioned last week at the Bishop's visit as well. The Jr. Warden position is still to be determined by the new B.C.

Women's Night: Monday, June 2 the women of the parish will gather at Emory’s restaurant for dinner. Please sign up on the sheet in the Narthex so Mildred will know how many of us there will be when she makes the reservation.

First Saturday Dinner for June: at McGrath’s Fish House in Lynnwood, is limited to the first 12 people. Please sign up on the bulletin board in the Narthex. Contact Marti Riley with any questions.

Spring Fair A-Board Signs: Seven of our nine A-board signs disappeared off the street during the Fair. We have already checked with the city and they did not remove them. If you have any idea where they went, please let Loretta know.

Parish Notes: If you have an announcement for the printed Parish Notes, please get it to Loretta by the Wednesday before. If you are late, you might consider sending it to Andrea or Adrienne so they can post it on the blog.

good things are happening ...

what else, Wink? Gather interested people, host a reading group -- either at church or at your home, and start discussing the activity! I think it's a great idea. Invite folks from outside St Francis, neighbors who seek spirituality, friends who are connected but not so much, and associates without a home.

you can do it! we all can ...

Adrienne

more bloggers wanted ...

Hey, how about someone from the Bishop's Committee as a regular contributer here? I hereby request one be added to the authorized bloggers.  What do you think?

Fr Dave's First Sermon back at St Francis

Sacred cows and elephants in the living room; it seems Fr Dave Price was lining us up for the blessing of the animals.  But one point he did bring up -- when the conversation becomes on "us" and "them"; when the complaints interfere with function, when pursuing complaints is more frequent than pursuing ministry, we are in trouble.  Dissention, and all that jazz ... it can't work.

Our sacred cow: This is the way we've always done it ...

Our elephant in the sanctuary: "those folks" vs "us folks"

Your turn!

A Tour of the Blog

Hello and welcome to the Blog!

Obviously, if you've made it here, you figured out the instructions in the email...great!

Now I'm going to review some of the Blog's features, to get you oriented.

Posts

The majority of the space on the page is devoted to the posts, or entries...of which this is one (obviously).

The posts are displayed in reverse chronological order, most recent at the top, with the date of the post appearing above its title.

Underneath the post, after the dashed line, are a few additional features.

1. The time of the post
2. The post's category link: Click the term to view all of the posts that use the same category tag.
3. Permalink: Click to see only the related post, and its comments. This is typically used if you wish to find the exact URL (online address) of a particular post to refer on another Website, or in an email. Most of you will not be using this feature.
4. The Comments (#) link: Click to respond to a given post, or to view the comments related to the post. The numeral displayed in the "()" indicates the number of comments that have been added. Please, click on the Comments link! That's how a Blog becomes a discussion. Any of you can comment, and anyone with access to this Blog can read all of the comments, so keep that in mind as you compose your remarks.

Side Bar

To the right is an area with some additional features to enhance the Blog.

1. Steering Committee: Click on any of the names to send an email to that person. NOTE: You must have an email client (such as Outlook) active on your computer for the click-to-mail feature to work.
2. Archives: The Archives list by date all of the posts in the Blog. To search for a given post, click on the dates you are interested in.
3. Categories: I introduced this idea above. The Categories uses specific terms to group posts together. If you click on the "Tutorial" link, for example, you will see all of the posts that have tutorial as there category listing. As of this posting, that would be only this particular post.
4. St. Francis Calendar: This is the same Google calendar that you see on our main Website, placed here for your convenience.

I think that's it for now. Have a good time, and explore the features of the Blog...you cannot break it, I promise!

And feel free to contact me (Andrea; webmaster@stfrancismillcreek.org) or Adrienne (areynolds@stfrancismillcreek.org) with your questions, concerns or ideas for this Blog.

Peace,
Andrea
Your friendly SFMC Webmaster

Welcome!

Hello All!

My first blog ever. And just yesterday I had to teach my spell-checker what this thing was. The purpose of this blog is to get your input on the changes going on at St Francis. What are we doing now? Where are we going?

It is an open discussion with members of our community to invite open input from you, with timely answers from me, representing and typing for the Steering Committee.

Remember, your Bishop's Committee is running the church, the Steering Committee is exploring options and giving input to the BC and to the Diocese.

So write me!

Peace,
Adrienne

P.S. Click on the Comments link below to respond to any Blog entry. Comments will be displayed here on the blog for all our members to view, so please keep that in mind.