Mission Trip

We had been hoping to be heading off to Mexico this week - but since I read in the paper yesterday about people being killed at a party, I'm guessing we made the right decision to postpone that for this year.

Instead we will be heading off a week from tomorrow for the wilds of Buffalo - we will be staying at a church in Riverside and working at the food pantry of the Buffalo City Mission - it should be a good introduction to need right outside our doors.

Please keep the leaders, Andrea, Aaron and I and the youth in your prayers next week while we work, pray and have some fun too

What St. Paul's Does Best

In the last several weeks we have had a Chicken Dinner fundraiser, a parish picnic and had the hamburger and hot dog concession at Clarence Day in the Park.

It is very clear to me that one of the things that St. Paul's does best is to eat and feed people.

That makes the motto that the vestry adopted for St. Paul's for the next couple of years: St. Paul's - feed body and soul really appropriate. It is what we do - we feed people, ourselves, others, physically and spiritually.

So, over the next few months think about other ways that we could use our gifts for feeding people in the world around us.

Happy Father's Day

This Sunday is Father's Day. In the last few years it's become harder and harder to find portrayals of fathers on t.v. or in the movies that remind me at all of my father. The fathers in the media tend to be incompetant and need to be rescued by either their kids or a woman (sometimes their wives) or both.

That isn't the father I grew up with. My father knew alot about lots of things. If he didn't know how to do something he'd help me figure it out and I knew that he was always there for me.

Thanks, Dad, for everything.

Rite 13 Celebration

Here are the five young adults who celebrated their Rite 13 ceremony last week.

I think that it is great to have a write of passage that marks the beginning of the journey from childhood to adult hood.

I actually think that there are several events that are, if not rites of passage, signifcant milestones in that time. Moving from elementary to middle school is the start of the journey. Moving from middle to high school is another, getting a driver's liscense is another, getting a first job in another, moving on the college or other post-high school work is another. In my mind the end of the journey is the second month after moving out of your parents' home - when you are fully responsible for your own rent, utilities etc ...

It's really challenging and exciting time and I'm glad that we take seriously our job as a community to support these young people.

Congratulations to all five of them.

Ten Ways Christians Tend to Fail at Being Christian

Check out this article by John Shore on the Huffington Post.

He hits, at least by title, the biggest issues facing Christianity in the 21st Centuray and the issues around which we are struggling as a gathered people of faith.

Definately raises some points worth thinking and talking about.

What do you think are the 10 ways we fail at being Christian

Springing up like flowers

One of the things that I love about spring is how the flowers spring up - all of a sudden where there was nothing before there are tulips or daffodils or crocus - it's wonderful.

The ECW basket auction was another kind of spring flower. Nothing much was happening and then all of a sudden, out of nowwhere, baskets appeared and then people appeared and bingo - an event out of nearly nowhere.

Come next week for the Carnival which is happening in a similar way - these are the miracles of spring

Images of Holy Week

The contrasting images of Holy Week - the plain wood cross drapped in black and the Paschal candle lit and drapped in flowers.

The contrasting images remind us of the real contrast of Holy Week, moving from death to life as Christ dies, descends to the dead and is raised in glory