St. Theodore's Episcopal Church

State of the Parish Address

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My first vision for St. Theodore's is that we shall always be an Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Arkansas and a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America . No General Convention will ever persuade me to divorce my beloved church.

Having cast that vision, we must turn our minds and our hearts away from contentious issues and return to our core strengths. One of our strengths is our worship. Our Anglican liturgy is a wonderful blend of scripture, tradition, reason, and common prayer.

The core element in our individual and corporate spiritual quest is prayer. As St. Paul wrote, we are chosen by Christ “to pray unceasingly.” Jesus chose us to pray for our church family, for me, the vestry, and for all of those in our community and the world in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity, and all those who will be coming to us seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus. We are to pray for those who do not know Christ but who are seeking a spiritual renewal.

We have at least four groups at St. Theodore's that I know are in a constant state of prayer and can help guide the rest of us. I'm speaking of the Daughters of the King, the Episcopal Church Women's group (St. Anne's Guild,) the Community of Hope, and the lay readers who have for five years offered daily Morning or Evening Prayer. While there are other individuals who pray unceasingly, we must listen and emulate the good work of those four groups.

My second vision is that all the groups of our community will be gatherings first and foremost of prayer and will be directed in all of their activities by careful and faithful discernment of God's will for them.

In particular I want to challenge the men of this congregation during the next year to be committed to bringing a religious order to our church such as The Brotherhood of St. Andrew, or The Order of the Holy Cross, or some other order because, men, we need to be praying more in community and more with one another. We also need men to be a part of the Community of Hope and in our Choir. Men, we need to pray together more as we embrace the change that is upon us in order to do the new work God is calling us to do.

Another characteristic you named in The Priest Profile was “to make the Gospel relevant to parishioners' lives coupled with a need for a variety of programs that nurture our journey and challenge us.” I translated that statement to mean that you wanted good sermons and solid Christian Education programs.

We have an excellent Children's Christian Education Program under the able direction of Joy Rodda. Our children have grown in knowledge and in spirit. Our children are also being nurtured in our new Children's Chapel Program and through our Episcopal Youth Community.

When I arrived, I heard loud and clear that there were certain adult programs that seemed essential to our spiritual growth. I have started offering those classes and will continue to do so. However, we are clearly out of room in our present facilities. We continue to bump, sometimes not so gently, into one another. While our Adult Education Committee is dedicated to excellence in all our offerings, the first question that arises after a new program is decided upon is: “Now where will we offer this class?”

Therefore my third vision is that we must begin this summer the process of adding our long awaited addition, The Education Wing . It will not happen overnight, and we won't see a bulldozer clearing the land this summer, but it is an essential element in our congregation's future.

There is a church here in the village that also looked to the future and decided that they, too, needed a new Christian Education Wing; BUT rather than build the building, they became afraid and decided to eliminate all their Christian Education classes. That is clearly not what God is calling us to do. We must build, and build we will with God's help. But in order to accomplish this vision, we must cast another vision about our financial future.

I do not believe that the majority of the Episcopal Churches in America are prepared or are preparing for what our financial future holds for us. We Episcopalians have fallen into the trap of being minimalist. Our concern has been and continues to be what will it take to survive – meaning to just barely be in the black each year on December 31 st . Jesus chose us to make significant sacrifices, including sacrifices to His church from our financial resources!

We must strongly support the Annual Budget AND we must also reduce our debt. Presently we owe $375,000. David Evans, our beloved Treasurer Emeritus, told me that he had written in his will a sum of money to help us reduce our debt. He did not tell me before he died what that sum might be, but the mere fact that he wanted to remember his church in this way should be an incentive to the rest of us.

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