Services
Renewal of Ministry and Installation of Mother Michelle - May 6, 20201
Welcome to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as we joyously welcome Mother Michelle Walker as our priest, officially, and renew ourselves for ministry. We hope you enjoy the service.
Worship guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10fUL-wh9i0tbhCHisbnAMciuOW-ZAa5c/view?usp=sharing
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, License #A-735470. All rights reserved.
Dear St. Paul's Family,
I can't tell you how excited I am for our May 6th service of Renewal of Ministry and Installation. I am so honored to be your priest and to be serving in the faith community that first introduced me to The Episcopal Church. The Installation service is such a lovely liturgy, full of symbolism of a different kind that our typical Sunday morning. During the course of the service, several different members will either be presenting me to the Bishop for approval, or presenting symbolic items such as:
a Bible,
a Book of Common Prayer,
a Pyx (small carrying device for the Blessed Sacrament),
a vial of oil stock (for anointing of the sick), and
the bread and wine for communion.
All of these items are critical for my ministry as your priest and are offered with prayers full of hope and joy. We will celebrate the Eucharist together and even have Deacon Kathy Townley serving at the altar with us. It is going to be a lovely celebration that I hope each of you are able to attend.
In other news, I'm excited to share progress on my Wabash Pastoral Leadership initiative to spend time with community leaders. Thanks to an introduction by Jean Burns, I met with Maria Fruth of the Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte. What an amazing asset that organization is to our community! She was delightful and shared some excellent ideas regarding how our congregation can give back to and more deeply integrate with the LaPorte Community. I can't wait to share some of the ideas with you, as well as some interesting information I learned about LaPorte overall.
I would be remiss to not express my appreciation at this point for the multitude of ways so many of you already volunteer within the community. Your love for LaPorte, and the wellbeing of those of us that live here, is second only to your love for the Lord. I hope we/I never lose sight of that!
Have a wonderful day and please, please, please do your best to attend the Installation service on Thursday 5/6 @ 6pm.
Blessings,
Mother Michelle
priest@stpaulslaporte.org | 219-575-0226 (c)
Our second and final educational session with Bishop Doug took place on Tuesday, April 27th. We all learned a lot. The vestry will continue conversations at future meetings. Please don't hesitate to reach out to either myself or any vestry member with your thoughts.
On Tuesday 4/20 and 4/27 we are delighted to host Bishop Doug Sparks, who graciously offered to facilitate a conversation about developing an inclusive marriage policy. He has facilitated these conversations in the majority of the Episcopal churches in our diocese and we are happy to participate at this time.
As I explained in our February 26th News from the Red Doors, having a written and agreed-upon marriage policy is important for both the congregation and the priest. With the help of Bishop Doug, we will explore the Resolutions approved by our governing entity, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. We will spend time prayerfully in study of both the Bible and other resources generated within our faith tradition. And we will respectfully learn together, grow together, and establish a policy that reflects who we are as St. Paul's.
Prior to Tuesday night, Bishop Doug has asked each attendee to review the following materials:
Same Gender Marriage General Convention Resolutions (8 pages, focus on the highlighted areas)
A History of Marriage from DEARLY BELOVED (16 pages, please read the entire document).
Note: DEARLY BELOVED: A Tool-Kit for the Study of Marriage was generated by the Task Force on the Study of Marriage for presentation to General Convention 2015. We will study other portions of it in the second session. The entire document is available here if you are interested in reviewing it earlier
Here are some other things you might like to know:
The sessions will be conducted in the church nave/sanctuary in order to accommodate the most people, socially-distanced. We will be seated according to our Sunday morning seating chart and will remain masked the entire time.
Bishop Doug will have a microphone for himself. Mother Michelle will have the mobile handheld microphone in order to circulate among people wishing to speak.
The sessions will also be available via our standard Zoom link, but will NOT be on Facebook Live.
If you'd like to call in to listen/participate BY PHONE, you may do so.
Handouts of the materials will be available for pick-up on Sunday 4/18 and for the meeting itself on Tuesday 4/20.
The meeting is scheduled for 1.5 hours, from 6-7:30 pm.
This is an important conversation for us. I hope and pray you will all make it a priority to participate. It is best to attend BOTH sessions as they do build upon each other. Any questions, concerns, or suggestions can be directed to myself, either of your wardens, or anyone on vestry.
Until Tuesday,
- Mother Michelle
Dear St. Paul's Family,
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
What joyous and amazing Easter celebrations we enjoyed yesterday my friends. It was a joy to chant the liturgy and to hear your (soft) singing voices proclaiming the resurrection. I pray for that joy to continue to feed you spiritually this week and beyond.
In case you missed the excitement first hand, we had a special guest on Sunday - the fire department. The smoke from our incense set off the smoke detectors and brought the fire department (see pictures above). We're please to know the system works so well (even though it needs to be replaced by the end of the year due to new code requirements). And we're happy to report there was only a minor slow down in our liturgy. It will be an Easter never to forget, for sure!
In lieu of our Friday News from the Red Doors I am sending this on Monday to keep you in the loop. As you've likely heard by now, I am on vacation with my family from 4/5-4/12 and will return to the office on Tuesday 4/13. In the event of any pastoral emergencies, please contact our Junior Warden Tom Konieczny. He will coordinate any necessary next steps.
Additionally, Fr. John Houghton will supply for us this coming Sunday, 4/11. I know it will be lovely for all to see him again after this long year. I'm thankful for his willingness to supply again!
After some conversation we have come to the realization that registration is no longer necessary for most Sunday services. While we do still have to take attendance for the near future in order to provide contact tracing should one of us accidentally attend church while COVID positive, we haven't had a seating issue on any occasion other than Christmas Eve and Easter. So beginning this Sunday 4/11 we will NOT be pre-registering for service. There will be a parish roster at the check-in stand near the Harrison Street door and the ushers will keep track of who attended each week. So please come to church without registering ... and enjoy that freedom. (Note: We may still register for special services, or should the pandemic shift our seating capacity again. For now, however, we are registration free!)
Lastly, words alone cannot express my gratitude for your faithfulness in every aspect of being faith community. From your prayers to your willingness to participate in clean-up day; from your financial contributions to the extra effort of helping out in large and small ways for Holy Week and Easter; from your tolerance of the many pandemic guidelines we must observe to your flexibility every time we've shifted those guidelines -
THANK YOU!
You/we are an amazing community of believers, doing more than we imagined we could and poised for our next season of ministry together. Be well loved ones. Know that you are in my prayers. And enjoy the thrill of the resurrection today and always.
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
In love and prayers,
Mother Michelle
priest@stpaulslaporte.org | 219-575-0226 (c)
