New things for a new year

Dear St. Paul’s family,

We stand on the brink of a new year, and there are some wonderful new things starting to bubble up in our corporate life. I see two main categories of new initiatives: small-group based ministries and the digital mission field.

In the small group area, here’s what’s happening:

• A number of parishioners have started to meet and brainstorm about how to create a faith community for the 21^st century. They are forming a community that builds relationships, that serves others, and that gathers for some kind of non-traditional worship.

• Some of our young parents are looking at starting a group for families with young children, for mutual support and fellowship.

• Our youth minister, Maya, is reorganizing the youth group to bring together youth from our Spanish and English-speaking services.

• A number of parishioners in their 20’s and 30’s have been meeting regularly to eat together and encourage each other in holding to a simple Rule of Life.

 

As for the digital mission field, we all know that the average Episcopalian attends church less frequently than in the past, and there are many, many people who rarely if ever enter a church, but nevertheless are hungry for spiritual nurture. Thanks to a combination of generous individual gifts and a dynamic young formation team, we are able to offer access to both worship and formation activities through the Internet. Our live-streaming of the 10:30 am and 5 pm services each week, as well as the Tuesday organ recitals, brings our beautiful music and worship into the homes of hundreds of people all over the world. Now that those events are on Facebook Live and YouTube, it’s very easy for people to stumble across them and worship with us from afar. If you “like” the St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral Facebook page, you will see the stream pop up. Or you can go to stpaulcathedral.org/videos to find archived events.

Our formation team (David, Maya, and Jackie) have developed a wonderful, digital faith formation program for families, Faith to Go (myfaithtogo.org), with a weekly email that includes prayer ideas, reflections on the week’s Gospel, and an engaging podcast, to nurture the faith of families who may not be able to make it to church. How amazing, that we are able to harness technology in this way to share God’s love with people beyond our walls!

With so much ingenuity and creativity going on, St. Paul’s has much to look forward to in 2019. Happy New Year!

Your sister in Christ,

Penny