The letter below was received today from Susanne Miller, from Oneida, New York. This is a wonderful group of people that I met at Start Up Start Over. They clearly understand mission, both personally and as a gathered Christian community and the priest that accepts this call will be blessed indeed!!!
Last October, the three of us along with our rector, Alan Smith, attended Start Up Start Over in San Antonio. For all of us, it was a life-changing experience, and the changes in our congregation, worship style, and focus reflect what we learned from you all.
The purpose for our church is clearly to bring people who are spiritual but do not have a church nearer to God. We have enriched our worship service with dancers, elaborate processions, Prayers of the People, sermons, hymn lyrics on screen. We have embraced the concept of door-to-door evangelism and have developed a team of 10 people for this mission. We have written and earned a $13,000 grant to be used toward the purchase of multi-media equipment and have asked our diocese to look to us to be a poster child of parishes working to redevelop ourselves.
We are serious and want you to know how much we appreciate what you did to inspire us.
Now we seek your help once more. When Alan came to us three years ago, we knew he would be leaving in three years. November is the end of his time here. We hate to see him leave, but we feel his best gift to us was to energize us to continue to move forward without his leadership.
We are, however, looking for a new leader. Because you both have had experience with starting new congregations and helping small parishes thrive, we are hoping you might know of someone who would fit our needs: a spiritual person with high energy, creativity, and commitment to working to move parishes up and into the 21st Century.
Unfortunately, our position is, of necessity, still a part-time position. We do have a wonderful bonus of being close to Syracuse University, Colgate University, Hamilton College, Cazenovia College, SUNY Morrisville, and LeMoyne College.....each within 30 minutes of Oneida and wonderful sources for advanced degrees in philosophy, medicine, law, sociology, and numerous other fields. Many opportunities for bi-vocational positions are available in our area as well. To learn more about our diocese, check out the Diocese of Central New York. Skip Adams is our Bishop......a wonderful and caring pastor.
Our deployment form is in the national church computer, but we are looking beyond that to you because the codes available to us didn’t suit our newly defined needs. Since you have so much contact with folks who become engaged with the Start Up Start Over premises, we think you may be excellent resources!
If you know of someone who might be interested in this position, please e-mail us at the following e-mail addresses:
Susan Slaunwhwite: skslaunwhite@yahoo.com
Kellie Lanz: Klanz@liberty-resources.org
Sue Miller: smiller7@twcny.rr.com
We would greatly appreciate it if you could steer us toward anyone who is excited about taking the church into the 21st Century!
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