From the Field
Weekly News & Events of the Diocese of Georgia
In This Issue
Bond Sale Update
Happening Registration
Diocesan Staff Events
Clergy Salary Survey
Convent to Move
The Loose Canon
98th Birthday
VBS Photos
Quick Links
to From the Field
 


 
Like Us on Facebook
The Diocese of Georgia has a new page on Facebook, which as a fan page functions differently from our previous group pages. Technical details aside, we want to direct all the Facebook users in the Diocese of Georgia to our new Facebook page:

Visit the page and collect "Like" in order to have diocesan news and events appear in your feed from Facebook.

Bond Sale Update

Honey Creek Bell Tower 

To date, the Honey Creek Bond Sale has raised $955,000 to assist with the three goals of restructuring the debt, making improvements and providing a financial cushion for the turnaround of the business.

 

The Bond Sale Continues
Qualified investors in the state of Georgia may now request a prospectus for the Honey Creek Bond Sale. As previously announced the Diocese of Georgia is offering a $2 million issue of non SEC-registered, non-secured bonds having a 10-year maturity and a per annum return of 5%. It is expected the Bonds will pay semi-annual interest only, with the principal payable in a balloon payment at maturity.
To request a prospectus, contact Canon Mary Willoughby at (912) 236-4279 or send her an email.

Happening Registration

Click this link to register candidates for Happening #87, July 29 - 31, 2011. Registration deadline is July 18th, 2011.

 
Honey Creek
Successful Summer Camp Season Concludes

A full to capacity final session of this year's Summer Camp at Honey Creek is underway now. The camp season has been very successful with a staff of 13 taking care of a total of 180 campers this season. Three of the four camp sessions were full. 38 of the campers received diocesan support, primarily through Episcopal Youth and Children's Services, but also through a fund in memory of Lonnie Lacy's mother and some other sources. This is in addition to generous support at the congregational level.
 

Activities offered: included a Challenge Course and Ropes Course, Kayaking, Swimming, Arts & Crafts (everything from friendship bracelets to drawings to fuse beads and everything in between) and Needle Creations (sewing--made organizers, pillow creations, quilt, embroidery, learned how to use a sewing machine). There was also Fun with Food (made healthy granola bars for snack time and for the fire department down the road, made healthy no-bake cookie balls, made communion bread to be used at each camp's closing Eucharist, made pine-cone bird feeders to hang along the trails when going on nature hikes), Cheer (created a camp cheer, learned technique), In Motion (contemporary dance), Fishing (caught all kinds of things...shark are the most exciting with crokers taking a close 2nd because they make noise), Disc Golf, Board Games, Field Games, and Ultimate Frisbee and Slackline (both for older campers).

 

The campers enjoyed daily singing and music as well as worship everyday as a total community and in dorms before bed. Middle & High School Camps had "reverse day" where everything was done in opposite order.    

Other activities that made the camp fun were Pool Party w/ Giant Slipn' Slide, Movie Night, a Bear Hunt, Throw Back Field Day Relays, Nature at Night, Light the Night Talent Show w/ S'mores, Square Dance / Line Dance, and the Closing Camp Dance.
  

 


 


 

Diocesan Staff Events

Canon Logue is working on deployment issues for three congregations and is working to "clear the decks" to be on vacation from July 24-30.

 

Canon Willoughby is working on pulling together the diocesan asking for 2012 to give congregations time to decide if they need to make an appeal to the Diocesan Council.

Diocese of Georgia Clergy Salary Survey

Salary ComparisonsCanon Logue has compiled a survey of current salaries of priests working full time in the Diocese of Georgia. The data is a cross-section, but is not complete as it does not refer to either clergy serving more than one congregation or those with a significant endowment, as these special circumstances make listing an annual budget and ASA (or average Sunday Attendance) problematic for comparison. The chart compares the salaries of 38 priests working full-time in congregations of this Diocese to give data intended to assist vestries in their budget work. The PDF file is online here: Salary Comparison 2011

 

The comparison data shows the cash compensation, which is the total of salary, housing, and Social Security offset. It does not include the costs of either pension or insurance. The data is collected from the latest report of the Church Pension Group, which is based on current payments into the pension system.

 

Assisting Priests

The survey shows that the average salary of an assisting priest is currently $53434, which takes into account both the new curates who work at the diocesan minimum of $48,000 alongside more experienced assistants at larger churches whose salaries are in keeping with their greater experience and duties.

 

Full-time Vicars and Rectors

The remaining priests are grouped by budget of the congregation and the data shows the following amounts as the median for compensation:

 

Church budget $121,000-$150,000   - Median salary $53,809

Church budget $151,000-$200,000   - Median salary $59,395

Church budget $200,001-$350,000   - Median salary $60,600

Church budget $350,001-$600,000   - Median salary $76,351

Church budget $600,001-$900,000    - None in this range

Church budget more than $900,001 - Median salary $117,497

 

The diocesan staff is working with the few congregations whose clergy are below the current diocesan minimums to bring those compensation packages up to the new standard. The minimum compensation guidelines adopted by Diocesan Council on November 12, 2010 are posted online here: Minimum Compensation Guidelines .

Order of Saint Helena

Sisters Purchase Land for New Convent 

The Order of Saint Helena (OSH) has identified the site for its new convent. The sisters are purchasing 28 acres in Aiken County, South Carolina, which is about 20 minutes north of the present convent in Augusta GA. The new site will be in the city of North Augusta, SC if the sisters' petition is granted for the property to be incorporated.
 
Two years ago the sisters announced that they would sell their properties in New York State and relocate all of the sisters to the Augusta convent (pictured at right). This move was planned as a temporary step, while they searched for a location in which to build a new convent and a new future.
 
This significant step was taken on April 20, 2011 with the purchase of 28 acres in Aiken County, South Carolina, which the sisters are petitioning to be incorporated into the city of North Augusta. This new property is about 20 minutes north of the present convent, located in Augusta GA.
 
"We have felt that God has been with us throughout this process" said Sr. Ellen Francis. "Even though it has taken longer than we first expected to decide where we would ultimately settle, it seems to me that this is the place where God is calling us to be, to grow, and to thrive."
 
 The Order of Saint Helena has served and ministered in the Augusta area since the 1960s (the current convent is pictured at right). The sisters hoped to find a location that would be convenient for guests and for the ministries of the sisters, and also be a quiet and natural setting for retreat and contemplation.
 
Sr. Ellen Francis continued, "The new property has all of the qualities we were looking for: a beautiful, wooded place, that is also close to a major highway, airport, and other facilities."
 
The sisters plan to design and build an energy-efficient convent that will house the sisters, provide hospitality for guests, and be a place of prayer, rest, and refuge.
While this move will take the convent out of the bounds of the Diocese of Georgia, it will not change many of the ways in which the order has ministered to the people of the Diocese. With the new convent just 20 miles away, there will continue to be ongoing and important connections between the Sisters of OSH and the people and congregations of the Diocese of Georgia. We are thankful for the gift they have been to the Diocese, and even more grateful that their proximity means that the relationships we have forged will continue
.

"There has been a healthy increase in recent years
of the recognition that in everything the Church does
its basic responsibility to evangelize must be involved....
Church schools, conference centers, parish houses,
coffee receptions, vestry meetings, altar guilds, covered dish suppers, diocesan conventions demand to be evaluated on this basis
just as much as teaching missions and street-corner preaching.
The question is "Have we in this way enabled people
to discover or rediscover the wonder of God's love?"
-Bishop Albert Rhett Stuart
Bishop's Address of 1960

   

The Loose Canon
Making Mundane Events Missional

 

At the heart of the quotation above from our own Bishop Stuart is a key question to use in looking at everything your congregation does. As he challenged this diocese, can we really use all we do from coffee hour and altar guild to diocesan conventions to enable people to discover and rediscover the wonder of God's love?
 

A Case Study - Church of the Atonement
 One recent example from my travels around the Diocese of Georgia may illustrate the larger point of how to make the most of the events we hold. I met recently with the vestry and some other members of the Church of the Atonement on Tobacco Road, which is on the growing south side of Augusta. The church has long had a vital signature ministry as it is an important food source for those in need in the community. Its well-run pantry shares the love of God in a very concrete way to those in need. The signature event the church puts on is a BBQ sale in the fall.
 

In working with the group, we discovered together two ways to maximize that contact with the community. First, I learned that while they use the proceeds of that sale to fund Christmas presents for needy kids in their community, this has not been advertised as part of the event. Making plain that the funds raised are not for the church, but to provide Christmas for more than 60 kids in a typical year will garner both more support for the already popular sale and may result in donations beyond the food purchase. This also lets the community know how Atonement is reaching out in love to kids in their community.
 

I further learned that the sale does not give anyone a chance to visit the church. I recommended that as the sale does not involve the church building, that they use signage and personal invitation to let folks know they may tour the church while they are there to purchase the dinners. Having some appropriate music playing a someone on hand to show the church and talk about it to visitors allows for important contact. The reason to do this is that the Holy Spirit could well use their coming to the property to interest someone in worshipping at Atonement. A tour will offer the opportunity for those who come to the sale to have a no pressure way to cross the threshold of the church, making it easier for them to return for Sunday worship.

 

None of this is particularly groundbreaking. These are just a couple of simple and free ways to make more out of what the Church of the Atonement is already doing for folks along Tobacco Road.
 

How does this apply to your church?
The same principal Bishop Stuart addressed to the convention in 1960 can help you find ways to turn mundane meeting and events to opportunities to discover and rediscover God's love. The ways to make these events more missional abound. You can start meeting by reading a discussing the scripture for the upcoming Sunday, offer opportunities for prayer requests and thanksgivings followed by prayer so that those meeting may share one anothers' joys and bear one anothers' burdens. Try it for yourself. Think of one fairly mundane event in your church calendar, from a committee meeting or fundraiser to coffee after worship. Have the vestry or appropriate committee or other group, pray for God's guidance, then brainstorm ways to use that time to discover or rediscover God's love. The change may be small and need not be daunting, but the effect of doing this all across your church's calendar is more than a subtle shift, it is recapturing a sense that everything we do flows from our love of God and is a response to that love.
 

Let me know how it goes for you and your congregation.

  

 

The Rev. Canon Frank Logue
Canon to the Ordinary 

 

 

The Loose Canon is a regular column in From the Field whose content is gathered together with other items of interest to those concerned with congregational development at loosecanon.georgiaepiscopal.org

Christ Church, Savannah

Celebrating Celia Williams' 98th Birthday

This past Sunday, Christ Church Savannah celebrated the 98th birthday of Celia Jones Williams, a true matriarch of their Church.  The granddaughter of an Episcopal priest, she was born on July 16, 1913, in Lynchburg, Virginia. She married Bernard Franklin Williams on October 1, 1938, at St. John's Episcopal Church in Lynchburg, then she moved to Savannah where she joined Christ Church and has remained an Episcopalian for life.

When Mrs. Williams joined Christ Church 73 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, the Most Rev. Henry St. George Tucker (brother of Christ Church's 37th rector Dr. F. Bland Tucker) was the presiding bishop, the Rt. Rev. Middleton S. Barnwell was diocesan bishop and the Rev. David Cady Wright was the rector (He served from 1922-1944).

Mrs. Williams' daughter Celia Williams Dunn said, "Mother is pure of spirit and has a rare enthusiasm for life.  She always thinks of the other person and never herself.  She is always cheerful and thoughtful of others.  She  is a true Christian." Mrs. Williams is pictured above with Christ Church's Rector, The Rev. Michael White.


Vacation Bible School in Photos

The Vacation Bible School photo album is collecting pictures of our kid-friendly catecheses taking place around the Diocese this summer. Send your congregation's photo to [email protected]

The photos will be added to the album: VBS Photos and used at the diocesan website. Some of the photos will be shared here in From the Field. If you create a Facebook or other online album, you may also just send a link to that album to the address above and our online photo gallery curator, Julius Arial, will copy the photos to the diocesan album.

Send your news and events to [email protected],
so we can feature them in upcoming issues
of From the Field.

Sincerely,
 
Diocesan Staff
The Episcopal Diocese of Georgia