Welcome Back

We are kicking off the school year with a blessing of the backpacks. This picture is of the supplies donated last year for this event.

This year we will bless backpacks at 9:50 in the front of the church - rain location in the parish hall - and then send the children and youth off to Sunday school and the rest of us in to church. Invite your friends to come with you and bring some school supplies for School 6 in Buffalo.

Mission Trip

Our youth group was on a Mission Trip to the Buffalo City Mission last week. It was a good time and I think all involved had a good experiance.

This is from the article that Carri Ludwig wrote about the trip:

"...Last week they spent 2 days reorganizing and stocking the Food Pantry. The Pantry distributes 1500-2000 pounds of food each week to needy families throughout Western New York and is a beehive of activity. According to Charles Walke, Food Pantry Coordinator, the kids were wonderful; 'They transformed our pantry into a moder day TOPS; it has never been this organized. I am thoroughly impressed. I don't want them to leave - ever.'"

We also had a great time at Darien Lake on Saturday. Be sure to sign up for next year's trip.

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