We have experienced temporary technical difficulties with electronically mailing the formatted Autumn Newsletter. Here is the welcome letter from the Rector and a link to downloading the formatted newsletter to your screen or desktop. Viewing on tablet or smartphone will not be possible.

Autumn Newsletter please click finished-newsletter

 

The Rector’s Autumn Letter
Welcome back! I trust that those of you who have had a chance to get away over the summer have returned refreshed and ready for the start of another cycle of work, school, and church. It’s odd that the calendar year runs from January to December, but the significant rhythm to our lives actually runs from September through June.
This autumn, the catchword I want to give you is investment. You know the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child”. Well, it requires investment by each and every one of us to raise a healthy, vibrant and spiritually anchored community. We are an every member ministry parish. This means there is no illusory other person to do that which we are not willing to do. We – individually and as a community – are fed and nourished only through the extent of our mutual investment. Through investing ourselves in our common life, we are fed through nurturing our relationship with God and with one another. Investment makes us magnetic; and we begin to attract others to our community because it’s exciting to be around committed people invested in a common vision.

We ended our very successful program year in 2015-16 with an end of year story. In it we identified our milestone achievements and immediate challenges going forward. We noted three key priority areas emerging from our engagement with the RenewalWorks program: embedding the Bible in parish life, engaging our passions, and the heart of leadership as the priorities guiding our future. The video of the end-of-year story can be viewed online at stmartinsprov.org.

We begin the 2016-17-program year on September 11 continuing the theme of story with a Beginning-of-the-Year Story that will identify our Table of Contents (see attached calendar) for the coming program year. A special
Build-your-own Bagel Coffee Hour will follow the 9:30am service.

Join us. It’s an exciting time to be at St Martin’s!

Mark+