Monday, July 30, 2012

Mission Trip

A group of us from St. Paul's went on Mission Trip to Elyria, Ohio last week.  Three adults and five teenagers spent a week building handicapped access ramps to allow people to get into and out of their homes and also making new friends and having fun.

In the sermon that they preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Elyria on Sunday some of the youth said that just like Jesus used the little that he had (five loaves and two fish) we used the little that we had (some skills and experiance and few tools and some wood) to change the lives of people and our own.

I can't think of a better sermon than that.  Ask Haley, Dan, Mary Frances, Timmy, Steven, Jason or Brian about their week - they have stories to tell.

Monday, July 16, 2012

General Convention

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church is over for the next three years and, as I suppose can only be expected of a gathering of more than 2,000 people that lasted more than a week, the reports of it are not quite the whole truth. 

You may have read some things about what we did or didn't decide as a denomination - but here are two of my favorites.

The first is a fairly comprehensive report of what did happen from the Episcopal News Service.  The second is a first hand report in the Huffington Post by Winnie Varghese.  Winnie was the voting secretary for the House of Deputies so she was there for every minute of debate and dialog.

Neither of them, nor any other reporting I've read truly captures the mix of legislature, family reunion, church picnic and vestry meeting that is General Convention - but they begin to give you a sesnse of  what happened. 

Let me know if you have any questions.