Our Anglican Heritage: Can an Ancient Church Be a Church of the Future?

Leadership and Church Size Dynamics 

Why is it that some congregations grow from 10 people on Sunday to 40 to 200 to 500 in a few years while others plateau and hover around 40 for decades? Timothy Keller answers one aspect of that question in an article recently posted on the diocesan website: "Leadership and Size Dynamics." You can also open the document with the link above.  

Keller shows how "size dynamics" affect congregations in different ways at different sizes. He looks at dynamics such as: complexity, lay-staff responsibilities, intentionality, communication, "production" quality, openness to change, and role of clergy. In his typical pithy and insightful way, Keller helps leaders reflect on the dynamics that are most affecting their congregations. I highly recommend that every leader spend an hour or two with this article. 

Youth Worker Training - November 18-20, 2011 - Atlanta, GA. 

The National Youth Workers Convention (NYWC) is a great place to gain some awesome, much-needed training and encouragement from some very gifted youth ministry professionals. Anyone involved in ministry to teenagers should come to this 3-day conference, whether you are the primary leader or a volunteer. Please contact, Shaun Lafferty, Church of the Redeemer's Youth Leader if you would like to go, in order to register as a group and get the group rate of $198. You may also email Shaun at

shaun.lafferty@gmail.com 

or visit

www.nywc.com 

for more info.

Church of the Good Samaritan

The Church of the Good Samaritan has always considered itself a warm parish.  We seek to be warm and caring as a sign of Jesus' love...to be a place where people can come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship He creates.  Just being friendly and welcoming is the first step to drawing people to Christ which is our goal.

Our location is going to give us a golden opportunity to do just that.  Although our old campus was on Blanding Boulevard, one of the most heavily traveled roads in the state, we feel God has led us to a new location about four miles away that will be a great challenge.  Once the economy recovers we will be in the center of several very significant new housing developments.  The most well known is OakLeaf Plantation about five miles away but four are nearer.  It's so well located in that respect that a Super Walmart, a Home Depot and a Lowes all built within two miles of our location, and we're nearer the people!  If St. Vincent's Hospital can overcome all the hurdles, they are going to build a satellite hospital nearer!

The most tangible expression of His love that we seek to offer is on our Food Giveaway Saturday that we have once a month.  This grew out of our people's desire to do something in Clay County to minister to those in need.  For a number of years from our old location in Orange Park we had taken prepared food downtown and served the homeless on a sidewalk not far from Bethel Baptist Institutional Church, the other large Baptist Church not far from
 the lighthouse of 1^st Baptist, Jacksonville.  When we ran into difficulty with permits and bureaucracy we began to serve on Bethel's nearby satellite property, providing only dry and canned goods while Bethel provided clothes and some other services.  We greeted, chatted and prayed with those that would stream from the bus station and all over the area.

            But now we are thrilled, at our Middleburg location, to help an average of about 120 families and individuals with those same dry goods and produce once a month.  We begin at 10 in the morning with usually about 60 early arrivers and our folk holding hands in prayer.  We have them sign in and with a smile begin to chat with them, eventually offering prayer for healing and other needs (jobs, work, loved ones), and even Bibles.  One team grills the biggest baddest hotdogs you ever ate and invites the folks waiting for the food to partake for free!

Our youth join in and help carry the grocery bags full not only of dry goods but produce and eggs and bread for a number of either mothers or the infirm.  Of course we invite them to Sunday School and church.  We've probably gotten four or five families:  two from those we've helped and two or three who've come and liked what we are doing.   Even the assembling of these supplies on Friday night is a great time of fellowship...and an amazing example of the efficiency of Henry Ford's assembly line!  Of course none of this would be possible without a small core group of devoted folk that go and get the food.  All of the food is bought cheaply at Second Harvest Food Bank and one of our members has an amazing gift of getting businesses to donate produce...and the bad boy hot dogs!

Looking ahead, a small group is investigating getting a grant for a kitchen to serve prepared food.  We are just taking the initial steps to provide snacks for the huge percentage of kids that qualify for the free lunch program at a nice local elementary school (Tynes).  We want to be intentional about bearing witness and have just begun a brand new eight-week evangelism course, the Master's Way, in order to put words with our love witness.  We recently completed an excellent Marriage Course on DVD for us and for the community.

Our Sunday School for all ages (3 adult classes) and our children's church and children's ministry is critical and foundational.  The modest but significant growth in Sunday morning attendance is largely due to the hard and faithful, persistent work of a few in our Sunday School.  Our children enjoy Sunday School and they are learning!  We seek to worship God and His Son in Spirit and in Truth at a traditional Rite I service at 8 o'clock at which we are beginning to add a little music which is being well received.  At 10:30 our effort is to provide a blended service employing a spectrum of music.  It's a great church!  But by God's grace we're going to grow more and more into what He wants us to be!  Come visit!