Rambling Rector

Apparently, it takes being informed at least seven times for individuals when addressed as part of a community to mentally take in a message. So, today is the first of seven announcements that I will be making over the summer about a program for the fall called RenewalWorks.

RenewalWorks at http://renewalworks.org/ is a ministry of Forward Movement https://www.forwardmovement.org/Cart/Checkout3Phase.aspx.  RenewalWorks will form the focus of our Annual Renewal Program, which always takes place in the autumn months of October and November. This year we will be part of a cohort of parishes using RenewalWorks. The commencement date will be September 12th and the program runs for approximately 13 weeks.

By visiting the link above you can read more about RenewalWorks. In summary it's a spiritual inventory process that will help us clarify a direction of travel as we look at our spiritual needs, individually, as well as a community, over the next year and beyond. On Sept 12th we will launch a parish wide online survey tool. We need 60% take-up for statistically significant (reliable) results. The team at RenewalWorks will then analyze our data and send it back to our in-house Leadership Team.

A Leadership Team has been gathered and their task will be to explore the findings in four workshops to identify within St Martin's five qualities that best characterize most spiritually vibrant communities. The Leadership team will then make recommendations to the parish about ways to further build and strengthen our spiritual capacity. This is not another program to spawn ever-new programs for already over programmed communities. RenewalWorks is a tool for strengthening what I refer to as spiritual capacity for us as individuals, and together as a community. As I mentioned I will be repeating and expanding on this message over the summer months, so stay tuned.

July 5th is the start of our summer Sunday worship program. The 8 and 10 am services will be replaced by one service at 9am with the introduction of a new worship opportunity at 5.30pm. Mid week services will continue on Wednesdays with Eucharist at 7am and Morning Prayer at 9am. Morning Prayer on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays will be suspended during July and August.

Summer feels almost here. Some of you have already departed either for the seaside or your favorite rural idyll. If you are still in town, then see you on Sunday, in Church.