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The Epistle of Saint
John’s Church Park Slope – Brooklyn, New York
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Click here if
you cannot view the images below Dear «First_Name», I
hope you will join us for this annual opportunity to discuss the business of
the parish! Active Communicants (according
to our Canons and NY State Law: those over 18 who have received Communion at
least 3 times in the past year and who have contributed to the financial
needs of the parish in a verifiable fashion in the past 12 months) have voice
and vote at the meeting. Yours in Christ, Father Clark Powers, Rector Rector’s
Report to the Annual The Project When I think of the past year I think of
braces; like I had on my teeth when I was a child. I found them uncomfortable and ugly. They made me so self-conscious that I was
careful not to smile too much and became rather shy in public. It was a great relief to finally have them
removed and to feel that I looked more normal again! For the better part of 2011 our beautiful
building has been covered with ugly scaffolding, some of our most beautiful
windows have been boarded up to protect them during the repair work, much of
our lovely So much of our time and
attention has been consumed by this project that I will just refer to it as “THE
PROJECT” and you will know what I mean. Larry Bickford and I spent a great deal of
time and effort in the first part of the year meeting with insurance agents
and contractors as we attempted to get “THE PROJECT” started
properly. We have spent a great deal
of time and effort in the last part of the year meeting with them and trying
to get neighbors to give us permission to enter their property so that the
rear wall portion of the “THE PROJECT” can be
completed. That bit has yet to be even
begun and will have to be addressed along with interior plaster and painting
in the current year. Like and octopus that always
seems to have more tentacles each time one is tied up, “THE PROJECT” has grown
from what seemed a relatively simple problem to a much more complex one that
encompasses not just the bellcote but also the roof, back wall, stained glass
windows, and interior plaster and painting!
As the project grew so did the cost from about $150,000 or so to over
half a million! Fortunately the Church
Insurance Company has stepped in to cover almost all of it. But it will continue to dominate a great
deal of the time and effort your leadership expends in the current year as we
will set up a Capital Funds Committee to raise funds to cover areas not paid
for by the insurance. These areas include
replacement of the rotted wood around many of our stained glass windows and
some repairs to some of the stone of our walls. Luke’s Ordination
Luke and Willow Fodor came to
us at St. John’s in 2002 when they moved to New York so that he could pursue
his studies at NYU for a Masters Degree in Philosophy. He had already earned a Master’s Degree in
Theology in England and was interested in pursuing ordination within the
Episcopal Church. He and Willow were
confirmed in May of 2003 and I and your Vestry sponsored him to study for
ordination. He entered the ordination
discernment process in the Diocese the following year. As he awaited approval to attend Seminary
he worked as an assistant to the Director of Youth Ministry for the Episcopal
Church. Later he became the assistant
director of Episcopal Relief and Development.
Luke entered Bexley Hall Seminary in 2007
and was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons here at St. John’s Church on
February 6, 2011. We shared every step
in his journey here at St. John’s and are proud of him and his family! And what a wonderful celebration it was for
Luke and our parish family! After a
beautiful service in the Church a gala reception was offered in the
Undercroft where Luke was presented with many gifts from members of the
parish and a purse of $1500 collected from members of the vestry and the
congregation. Many of us from St.
John’s went to his ordination to the Sacred Order of Priests at St. John’s
Church in Cold Spring Harbor, where he serves as an Assistant, on September
10. Lenten Program 2011Within a few weeks of that
gala event we entered the somber season of Lent and shared with the other churches of St. Mark’s
Deanery to offer a wonderful series of worship services and study programs on
Wednesday evenings here at St. John’s Church.
Mother Angela Askew, who is now retired but served for many years as
our Assistant Priest, led us in a study of St. Mark’s Gospel. Each week our attendance was from 75 to 125
people and everyone agreed that the program was a great success! I had hoped that the Deanery might do
something similar in the current year, but so far no plans have been
made. We may do our own program this
year on Wednesdays in Lent that would include some special sorts of services
and study programs. Some weeks we
might have Stations of the Cross and on others a Mass. Once or twice we might have a sort of
prayerful Service of Light and Scripture.
This sort of thing has been done other places and it consists of
having the church lit for the most part by candle light as volunteers read
something like St. Mark’s Gospel chapter by chapter with periods of silent
contemplation inserted. Our services
would be followed by a simple Lenten Dinner of soup and sandwiches with Bible
Study. If you have any other ideas
please pass them along to me! Anniversary CelebrationsAfter Easter we began our 185th
Anniversary Year of Celebrations with a service of Solemn Evensong on
June 26. Mother Angela Askew, retired Priest in Charge at St. Ann and Holy
Trinity and former Assistant Priest from St. John’s was our guest
Preacher. A wonderful gala Garden
Party followed. The music was
wonderful, Mother Askew’s sermon was inspiring and
the weather was superb. Little did we
know then that it would be the last time we would have access to our full
garden for a year or more to come due to “THE PROJECT.” It was a wonderful start to
what we hoped would be a year of celebration but it sort of petered out in
the midst of the time and energy commitments demanded by “The Project”. Hopefully in the year to come we can do
some of the things we planned to do last year. To this end, the vestry has revived a
committee which was once charged with the task of setting up events for fun
and fund raising in the parish called The Special Events Committee. The work of this committee was subsumed by
the Vestry as a whole in the last few years, but it is apparent that at least
for the immediate future our attention as a Vestry has to be focused on completing
“THE
PROJECT” so we need some people outside of that to plan other
activities. Susan McHenry has agreed
to chair that committee with the help of several people she will select. Before leaving the topic of
our Anniversary Celebrations let me point out that I am finishing up the project
of revising our Parish History Book and hope to have it ready to present in
some sort of venue to be planned by Special Events in the current year. Our Anniversary Fund will also continue to
receive donations as it is being renamed simply Anniversary Fund. Proceeds from this fund will be used to
repair and restore our building and grounds for the future. So we join a long list of people who
donated in the past to provide us with the beautiful buildings and grounds we
enjoy today. Those who contributed to
the Anniversary Fund so far include: OutreachOutreach to those in need around us has always been an important part of what we do here at St. John’s and we reached out hands of love to many in the past year. Our Parish Almoner, Nicole Monroe and I have continued to use funds that you contributed to loan to people around the world through St. John’s Kiva Team. You can join it at (http://www.kiva.org/team/saint_johns_episcopal_church) As you will see from her report we committed our Lenten Offering both from St. John’s and the offerings received each week at our deanery Lenten Programs to the Youth Ministry of the Diocese of Torit in Sudan and to provide Metro Cards to women living in a nearby shelter for the mentally challenged. We conducted our usual drives for Turkey and other foods for CHIPS and adopted two families for Christmas gifts through Episcopal Family Services as well as providing a site for the distribution of food and gifts to people with AIDS in Brooklyn through God’s Love We Deliver. CHIPS, our local soup kitchen, suffered a major fire last year and we collected over $1500 to help restore that facility. But we raised another $1500 at a Sing Along Messiah offered on December 4th with the help of the nearby Brooklyn Conservatory of Music which drew a very nice crowd from the neighborhood. Concerts and Other Cultural EventsA new Executive Director was
brought on board at the nearby Brooklyn Conservatory of Music this past
summer. Karen Greer came over to St.
John’s and proposed a local partnership with us which has been wonderful for
both organizations! In addition to the
wonderful Sing Along Messiah which was such a success that we plan to do it
again this year, we also hosted classes for children directed by members of
the Conservatory and later in the year have been the venue for many of their
board meetings and rehearsals. Each
time they have met here they have provided us with financial donations which
have helped us greatly with our utility and maintenance costs. In February last year we had a
delightful performance of music and dance as the English and Scottish Sword
Dancers came to perform for us at Coffee Hour on February 20 and they will be
back again this year on February 19 -
so be sure to put that on your calendar and invite some friends! In June our Solemn Evensong
was enhanced with wonderful music including a version of the Magnificat composed by our own Beth Anderson Harold. She also composed a wonderful new Advent
Hymn performed here at St. John’s for the very first time ever! A talented member of our Choir, Beth is a
published composer who also brought us the Women’s Work Concert on March 30th
which hosted the works of many women composers from around the world. It was a fantastic event that people are
still talking about! We also have
hosted two concerts for Beth’s piano students during last year which raised funds
for our Boiler Fund. Other events that we hosted
last year include musical concerts presented by Berkley Carroll School and a
fantastic event called A Literary Hang sponsored by the
Guyana Cultural Association on June 5th. Our own Juliet Emanuel George brought this
event to us this year and it was a fantastic success. Held in our front garden it Finally I would be remiss not
to mention how much I have appreciated the musical talents shared with us all
by Cryder Bankes and our Choir – both professional and volunteer. From Luke’s ordination early in the year through
our Anniversary Evensong and on to Christmas these talented people have
worked hard to provide us with fantastic music that has enhanced our worship
of God and provided us all with a great deal of pleasure! Let us hope and pray “THE
PROJECT” be
successfully completed in the early spring and that God will continue, as our
first Rector once wrote in our earliest records, to richly bless our handy
work! |
Upcoming
Events V January
15, Sunday, Annual Parish Meeting V January
18, Wednesday, Low Mass for Confession of St. Peter followed by Bible
Study 7 pm V January
27, Friday, Winter Concert presented by the Brooklyn Conservatory of
Music at St. John’s Church V February
2, Bible
Study at 7 pm V February
15, Thursday, Vestry Meeting V February
19, Sunday, Scottish Sword Dancers at Coffee Hour V February
22, Ash Wednesday Please
note the change above – Bible Study will be after the Mass on Wednesday
rather than Thursday! Click here to make a donation today by Credit or Debit Card
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