Rector’s Annual Report for 2007
The Rev. James V. Stockton
Annual Meeting January 20, 2008
It has been a good year and a challenging year all at the same time. 2007 marked our sixth year together, which means that our relationship as rector and parish has now surpassed the average length of time for a rector’s tenure here at ECR. This is important for both you and me because it means that for most of last year, all of us together have been navigating some largely uncharted waters.
In our community this last year we have experienced the loss of Jeffrey King, Charmaine Weerasinge, and Erlyne Pankratz. In addition to these I had the privilege of baptizing Dolly Ponder, mother and mother-in-law of Holly and Charles Davis, into the fellowship of this community and that of the wider Church, and then officiating at her funeral just a couple days afterward.
We were blessed with welcoming by the sacrament of baptism Mariah Galvez, Marissa Galvez, and Diane Galvez.
We bid fond farewell and good luck to Jody Harrison who completed her year as our senior seminarian last spring. We are blessed to have Jody and her husband Tom visiting us frequently.
We welcomed back in the fall our now-senior seminarian Sue Wilmot, and were blessed to welcome the beginning Sue’s ministry as an ordained deacon of the Church back in October. With the canonical 30 days grace period having expired, Sue is now awaiting the finishing up of some paperwork that will officially license her to serve as deacon in our diocese, and she will resume her ministry more fully again here. It is exciting for me, for us, and I know for Sue that time in the transitional diaconate, prior to her ordination to the priesthood, will be spent entirely with this community. We are blessed, and as Sue herself will tell you, she is, too.
We welcomed also Sam Giancarlo as our new junior seminarian, and then bid him also good luck and Godspeed as he decided to pursue his studies at a seminary in California. Sam’s time with us here at ECR was, as he fondly told all of us, his most blessed experience of the fellowship of the Church during all his years in Austin. We may rightly be proud.
We’ve heard today from a number of our leaders of ECR’s ministry, so I hereby give my thanks to each of you Ministry Leaders for your leadership, your service, your faithfulness, and your example. You are an inspiration to all of us, not the least of which is me. Thank you.
Thanks are due also to our Vestry, especially to those whose term of service ends today. Thanks to you all, and especially to Joan Medrano, John Tabor, Jon Ellis, David Prather, and Kenny Oyler. Joan was my Senior Warden through the year. Joan grew quickly and wonderfully into a role of responsibility that she’d not occupied before. She has been great to work with and to pray with, and I appreciate her good counsel and support. David has been both wise and fun, and always committed to ECR. As we’ve seen today, Jon has done great work in bringing solid and helpful information to ECR to enable us to take charge of our future. John Tabor has been a wise and inspiring presence, his work always grounded in his love for God and neighbor. And Kenny was good enough to step in to fill Bill Jameson’s unfinished term when Bill and his wife Nancy needed to relocate. Kenny never missed a beat and though serving for only a few months at the end of the year, he seemed immediately a long-time part of the Vestry.
I’m please to announce that Paddy Langford has accepted my invitation to serve as my Senior Warden this year. Thank you, Paddy; I look forward to our working together. I’m also happy to announce that Mike Paulsen has agreed to be nominee for election by the Vestry to serve as our new Junior Warden. Mike, thank you, and good luck in the election! I’m also please to note that Shelly Page has agreed to serve as our new Vestry Clerk; so thanks also to you Shelly. (amended to original report - January 22, 2008.)
Last and certainly not least, ECR’s long-time and well-beloved Treasurer Alice White retired last month. Alice’s example to me from my first days here at ECR were of a Treasurer who broke the mold. She quickly impressed me as one of the most pastorally sensitive persons I’ve ever met. And I’ve found that this quality, this gift, has shaped her ministry to ECR as our Treasurer. Conscientious about the dollars and cents, to be sure; yet, Alice understands that the people, the hearts and souls and faithfulness that money can only represent are what matters most to God, and most to ECR. Treasurer for at least seventeen years, Alice has concluded a ministry for which is just about impossible to offer adequate thanks. Nevertheless, Alice, thank you. Thank you very much.
Linda Bryant graciously accepted Alice’s invitation to succeed her as Treasurer for the first month of this year, until Linda could be officially selected by the new Vestry in accordance with our parish by-laws. Linda, we thank you and welcome your new ministry.
Our Children’s Christian Education program director and leader of the Readers Ministry as well turned over responsibilities for these two ministries to her successors late last year. Diane Greer has been with ECR for about 20 years, and became quite actively involved in our ministries over the last five. She has been an amazing go-getter and someone who knows how to ‘get ’er done. Married yesterday, Diane and her new husband Duke DuTiel will be living in Washington D.C. where Duke is now serving at the National Cathedral as their new head Verger. We will miss Diane, her leadership, her service. And we will continue to be blessed by all that she has accomplished here in these last years. Thank you Diane.
Diane is succeeded by Adrianne Cantor as Childrens’ Education Ministry Leader, and by Lana Beyer as Readers Ministry Leader. Thank you to both for your new service to the mission and ministry of ECR.
Thanks are due also and perpetually to our Parish Administrator Evelyn Griffin, without whom most of us could do nothing. She consistently goes above and beyond in her support of ECR’s ministry, and of this entire community.
Also thanks are due to Rick Carpenter our Sexton who accomplishes untold miracles and countless important tasks behind the scene. We depend on the work that he does, even though we usually never even know that he has done it. Thanks go to Laura Celius our nursery care giver, reliable and committed. I am committed to getting volunteer assistants for Laura and our nursery care ministry in order to ensure the best possible environment for our children and for those who care for them. And big thanks are due, as always, to our Director of Music Mike Stout. Mike works with a temperamental organ and makes magic happen anyway; sometimes with a temperamental choir and still helps them make beautiful music to guide our praise and worship of God; and with a demanding but kind and loving rector who appreciates Mike very much. Thank you, Mike, Laura, Rick, and Evelyn.
It’s been good in that many of us didn’t notice that we’d crossed over from the usual, even predictable, pattern of life here in the parish. It’s good because this indicates that our leadership and I are meeting with success in transforming the old unconscious collective habits of Resurrection, planted from the past, and are bringing to the forefront a way of being this community that is overwhelmingly positive, spiritually nurturing, and is invitational to those yet outside the family and neighborhood ECR.
As good a thing as this is, it has been challenging, as well; and we all do well to acknowledge this rather pretend it isn’t so. I spent a good deal of the year working and praying to open the heart and the life of ECR to more people around us. I know that we all have the desire that others would come here to know with us the blessing that is this community, and the blessing that is God’s lively presence within it. With some of our folks here, I explored a number of approaches, strategies, and programs that might teach us how to ‘do evangelism’ or to be more evangelistic, i.e. to share with others the Good News of God’s Love in Christ for all. I remain excited about what I’ve learned, what we’ve learned together.
This collective desire to help others around us come to know God has always been a part of ECR. I’m convinced of this from reviewing the formal history of Resurrection and from hearing the informal history that many of you have related over the years. This is a good thing. Yet, the challenge that has loomed most urgently this year has been the realization that ECR is physically unable to welcome more people here.
Our church building has a seating capacity of approximately 190 people, and that’s at 100% full. This figure does not include the choir pews, since these are regularly reserved for members of the choir. The reality, though, is that once a church is 80% full, most people have reached their comfort level for a church they will regularly attend and to whom they will commit themselves in ministry. So, at this 80% mark, ECR can accommodate 152 people in the pews, but our church parking has a capacity of 129 people. Here again this figure represents 100% full capacity. Again the reality is that after parking lots are 70% full, people begin to turn away because they appear full, even though they are not. This means that at 70%, our parking lots will accommodate 90 people. And this is just about the number of people that are parked here on Sunday from 9:45 to 11:00, from the end of our earlier service to the beginning of our second service.
I personally have parishioners tell me this past year of driving into our parking lot on a Sunday morning and turning around and going back home because they could find no place to park. If parishioners are telling me about this, how often has this happened to visitors from whom we’ll never see again, because they went elsewhere and made a connection there. I’ve heard even more times from people in our neighborhood, who’ve lived here for years and driven past ECR almost every day of their lives, who then ask me where people park if they want to go church here. Our main and largest church building parking lot is invisible from Justin Lane, and even invisible from Burnet Lane where the driveway to the parking lot begins.
It is no mystery then, the average Sunday attendance here at ECR has remained quite steady over the years. Because there is literally no place for them to park on a regular basis, there is simply no way for ECR to welcome in more people to our worship and ministry. It is also no surprise then that when, 25 years ago, plans were drawn up for the construction of our church building, they included plans not for the 56 parking spaces that we have now, but for 96 parking spaces. 96 parking spaces will accommodate 220 people at 100% capacity. At the 70% full mark, that means that ECR would be seating 154 people. This is almost exactly the same figure as the 80% full seating capacity of our nave, 152 people.
The challenge of the past year, then, has been for the leadership of ECR, the Vestry, the Ministry Leaders, and I, to face the reality that ECR must construct new parking lots in order for this parish to realize the huge potential that we have here. The good thing about this in the past year has been that the mystery is solved, the answer is clear.
We do not have a cold, impersonal collective personality that we need to overcome in order to realize our potential. We do not have a shortage of available land in order to realize our potential. We do not need to learn to care more, to love more, to do more, in order to realize our potential. We here at ECR have all we need to be the people God is calling us and equipping us to be. We only need to build a parking lot.
We’re in for some excitement, some challenge, and some unprecedented accomplishments in our mission and ministry. Hold on to one another tightly, trust one another more purposefully; God is entrusting us with more.
The challenge for you and me is to put our good intentions into action. The challenge is to act decisively and get it done. Then challenge is to be unafraid. The challenge is to be confident in God, to be encouraged, and to be courageous. Then the challenge will be only to welcome in the new additional people who will turn in here, here to ECR, looking to meet God in this place, and more importantly, finding here God in you and me.
Respectfully submitted,
The Rev. James V. Stockton
January 2008
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