Rev. Scottie's column and Saint's Alive will return next week.

Six of our young people have been preparing for confirmation.  They will be confirmed on June 1, at 10:30 a.m. at the Cathedral.  All are invited to attend.  We will celebrate our confirmands as part of our 10 o'clock Eucharist on June 2.  The young people who will be confirmed on June 1 are:  Dan Coveney, John Fitzgerald, Sarah Ines, Greg Landry, Holly Manzelli, and Rachel Manzelli.  Please hold them in your prayers as they prepare for this important milestone.  

This year we will celebrate our hundredth anniversary as a parish!  The next time you are in our sanctuary, check out our beautiful red banner with the sheep and our name.  That banner was created by Carol Brown and Ann White as part of the celebration of our 75th anniversary in 1988.  Church of the Good Shepherd was founded by folks from Reading who attended church in Wakefield but who longed for a church in their own community that would serve Reading and North Reading.  Church of the Good Shepherd originally met in the Oddfellows Building (an appropriate choice for an Episcopal Church, since the Oddfellows was a charitable organization that began in England).  Parishioners reached out in faith and with generosity, and raised the money necessary to buy a parcel of land on the corner of Woburn and Chute Streets and to build what is now our sanctuary.  They were able to consecrate our church building in 1924.

Do you have memories of our church and what it was like in decades past?  Do you have old pictures of the church or parishioners?  We would love to share those in the E-News and as part of our celebration this year of 100 years of Church of the Good Shepherd.

We truly hope that every member of our parish will participate in some way in the first capital campaign at our parish in over sixty years.  Together, we can address long-deferred maintenance and make improvements to our building that will make us more energy-efficient, and that will ensure the beauty and soundness of our building for years to come.  Of course, not everyone will be able to give equally, but we hope that everyone will give generously, even sacrificially.  Over the past few weeks, the rector and senior warden have been visiting vestry members and other parish leaders.  Soon after those visits are completed, other parishioners will be setting up visits to talk with parishioners in their homes, answering questions and inviting pledges.  Our hope is that every family or individual will be offered a visit, and that parishioners will be open to receiving a fellow parishioner as a visitor.  We hope that we can reach our goal by early summer, and that we will be able to undertake some projects over the summer.  Watch your mail for more detailed information about the capital campaign. 

Chuck and Ginny Barthel, Dorothy Brown, Nancy Campara, Christine Camper, George Chace, Betty Fraser, Gloria Graves, Bishop Gayle Harris, Bernice Herrick, Allan Johnson, Deborah Katt-Lloyd, Tony Lopes, Carole Lutton, Maureen Manzelli, Lynn McDonald, Sara O'Brien, Rhonda O'Keefe, Eleanor Schott, Bishop Thomas Shaw, Kevin Smith, Anjelica Ventola, Ralph Ventola, Stephen Wagner and Ashley Westerman.