The Lion's Roar

September, 2022

The Adult Forum will begin again in mid-September, with the first topic being “Praying with Scripture.” We’re going to look at some tried-and-true ways of taking the words of the Bible and using them for prayer.

We’ll explore how St Benedict of Nursia encouraged his 5th century monks to pray, and we’ll look at some more modern applications of Benedict’s work. We’ll look at how St Ignatius Loyola encouraged us to pray in his book, “The Spiritual Exercises,” and then we’ll do a few more “hands on” methods.

Starting Sunday September 18th, we’re going to go back to doing the Forum, live-and-in-person, from 9 till 9:45. AND, starting Wednesday September 21st, we’re ALSO going to reprise the Forum at 7:30PM, live-on-Zoom. So, there will be two opportunities to plug into the Forum each week.

If you’ve never taken part in the Forum, I encourage you to give it a try. It’s such a fun community of people who enjoy each other’s presence every bit as much as we enjoy the substance of the discussions.

See you there!

Fr Rick

As September begins, I want to wish all our new college students a fabulous year. We look forward to seeing you when you return for breaks.  And as school begins in town, I wish all our students a happy, healthy year.  

This September at church, we are finishing up our capital campaign in hopes of paying off our mortgage, finishing our roofing needs, and updating the church organ. We’d like to encourage your pledges to be placed by September 18 so that the Vestry can begin to accomplish these tasks.  Thanks to your generosity to date, we are well on the way to meeting the goal

Martha Heiner

2022 Year-to-Date (YTD, through July) Financial Results

The Floor is Finished - There was a lot happening around the buildings during August.  The major work was the installation of our brand new Parish Hall floor, it looks MARVELOUS.  

Many many thanks go out to Tim Opremcak for volunteering to coordinate the work with Rug Beater. They did an expert job turning our old cracked tiled floor to a beautiful room.  They are highly recommended if you need any floor work done. Martin Hale did a lot of prep work making sure every chair has adequate leg cap protectors and now is adding additional protectors to all tables.  Next up is putting protectors on all the clothes racks we use for the rummage sale. 

Storage Space Update - We did a lot of work this year converting all of the rooms in the lower level into multi-purpose rooms, mostly to be able to participate in the HOME program but also to create space for Zac’s Treehouse for young families. This required moving and consolidating storage areas around the church complex.  I am sure I ruffled a lot of feathers especially over the summer as storage space required reconfiguration.  Some of the space being used had to be eliminated due to safety concerns, most notably the Attic Access room attached to the Heritage room. We are working diligently to open up new storage areas.  There is 8 ft of storage space now in the Lion's Den (the kitchenette that was the old sunday school office).  In a week or two we will have a spacious walk-in closet area by Kevin's Room (near the J2A meeting room). We also have the potential for three ft high continuous storage all along the walkway behind the altar.  This space currently has old venting grates that have not been functional for over 20 yrs and are no longer needed.  We just do not have the funds to convert this space this year. In addition, now that we have much better access to the Heritage Wing attic, we have quite a bit of storage space up there especially for those items we do not use often. As always, if you need some storage space for your project please reach out to the office.

If you walked around the church grounds in early spring you would have noticed some areas of our gardens crying out for a much needed makeover.  If you walk around the grounds today you may think you were transported to the Garden of Eden (minus the Adam and Eve that is).  Even with the scorching summer heat,  our new plantings were lovingly tended and are doing quite well all thanks to the tireless and sweaty work by our own garden master, Beth Kujan.  She did multiple plantings along Lewis street as well as add new plants to the front and side of the church. Beth even dug out hundreds of pounds of rock from the memorial garden bed near the hedge row, amended the soil and planted some beauties.  I cannot wait to see everything blooming and growing next spring.  Thank you , Thank you , Thank you BETH.