INDIANAPOLIS DEANERY ANNUAL PARISH REPORT

Transcription

1 INDIANAPOLIS DEANERY ANNUAL PARISH REPORT St. Paul the Apostle Church, Dayton, OH In the course of the past year the parish has seen some growth with 14 catechumens being received into the parish by Baptism and/or Chrismation. We have also suffered the loss of a few members who have for various reasons decided not to continue their membership in the Orthodox Church. In Christian community where there is a living relationship with Christ, such additions and losses are part of the ongoing struggle with personal problems, problems in the world, and problems with the Church. The parish has continued to work on and strengthen its ministry to welcoming visitors, catechumens and new members to parish events and into the parish community. New materials for giving to inquirers were produced. The parish has continued to explore issues of lay ministry, spiritual gifts, and how to incorporate new members into active life in the church. Lay members took the initiative in further developing charitable outreach, encouraging a morning prayer discipline and talking about parish evangelism. Parish members took advantage of programs offered online by the Diocesan Parish Health Coordinator, Joe Kormos. The Parish Council continues to explore with Joe how to become more active in the spiritual health and growth of the community rather than merely dealing with issues of building maintenance. St. Stephen the First Martyr Church, Crawfordsville, IN. Our Church year at St. Stephens began with the blessing of an Archpastoral visit from His Grace, Bishop MATTHIAS in September. An historic day for our community, His Grace consecrated the altar of St. Stephens and presented us with relics of St. Innocent of Alaska. Fr. Joel Weir was also officially installed as rector. In the past year, the community has been blessed with five chrismations and two baptisms. The parish continues to grow and welcome many regular visitors and inquirers. The Children of Thunder Youth Group, under the leadership of Sdn. Luke and Janna Beecham, has been very active, meeting most Sundays and even taking several field trips to area parks and sister parishes. Having completed the planning and necessary paperwork, the long-awaited Youth Shack, funded primarily by a Parish Growth Grant from the Diocese of the Midwest, is slated to be built this fall. The Youth Shack will serve as a main hub for Youth Group meetings and activities while also being a centerpiece for community outreach events planned and coordinated by the Youth and Young Adults of St. Stephens. Our Church School continues to thrive under the leadership of Presvytera Maria with the help of dedicated parents and youth group volunteers. The focus for the older kids will be learning the Scriptures via a Bible Quizzing curriculum. The prayer and liturgical life at St. Stephens continues to develop as the foundation of all activities at the parish. In addition to the usual weekend services, there are #!$"$%&'!(#*$"*+,+*%& DOM Assembly 47 Delegate Book

2 opportunities to pray and worship together at St. Stephens nearly every day of the week. With the help of dedicated readers, daily morning and evening prayer services have become a regular part of life at the parish. A weekly Bible Study, Chant Class, and the monthly Pizza with Padre informal discussion with Youth and Young Adults occur in the evenings before and after prayers. In the past year we have also hosted several community activities including concerts, guest speakers, and cookout/family nights. St. Stephens continues to support and be involved in various other ministries including the Wabash College OCF, Achaius Ranch, Hagia Sophia Classical Academy, and St. Johns Camp Programs. St John the Forerunner Orthodox Church Indianapolis, IN This year has been a year of transitions. We moved our offices from our old church building to a leased building space adjacent to our parking lots. We spent most of the first half of the year getting ready to move into our new worship space. The new building was ready the first part of July and we moved into our new space July 22 nd. We commission Fr Jerome Sanderson to paint a very large Pantocrator (15 in diameter for our cupola and a Diesis for the Altar area. They are breath taking in their beauty. We re working with Fr Jerome on a design for the rest of the space in the Apse and other places in the new building. The Journey of the past 10 years has been a journey into the Prayer of the Heart. We have grown in our corporate prayer as we celebrate the Fasts and Feasts. We gather to pray throughout the week. We gather each Lord s Day to celebrate His Resurrection and the Gift of the forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. Prayer and worship are at the heart of our community. Our communion with one another grows out of the Eucharistic life in union with the Blessed Holy Trinity. We are teaching our children and grandchildren how to live in Christ. Our life together manifests itself in the overflowing love for our neighbors. We are growing as others are drawn to learn to pray with us and to worship the Blessed Holy Trinity. At present we have 10 catechumens, folks from the neighborhood are coming to pray with us, and at least 3 families have come from other communities to join in our pilgrimage into the Kingdom of Heaven. This year has been a year to celebrate our 10 th anniversary of being in the Orthodox Church in America. You may know that our community was a part of the Evangelical Orthodox Church and in 2002 Archbishop JOB (of blessed memory and 17 clergy from other jurisdictions welcomed 120 adults Home through Charismation. We have been feasting our anniversary through various activities centered around Thanksgiving and food(we had a great cake walk. We will be hosting an Open House on September 23 rd of this year for our neighbors and the other Orthodox Churches in Central Indiana to #!$"$%&'!(#*$"*+,+*%& DOM Assembly 48 Delegate Book

3 visit and see our new facilities. We sent one member of our community, the Reader Joshua (Kurt Bringerud, into full time mission work in Mongolia this year. He and another couple, who are membered here, are sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Mission Center out of St Augustine Florida. Fr. David Rucker, the Associate Director of OCMC, was here for Joshua s Commissioning Service on August 19. The other couple: Chris and Jen Moore are waiting to be assigned and placed as full time missionaries too. Also this year, several members of our community have participated in part-time mission trips to Guatemala and Alaska. Besides inviting our neighbors to our 10 th Anniversary Celebrations, we also sponsored a Kook-out for Kids every Saturday throughout a very hot July. We cooked hot-dogs for our neighbors and had a pretty good turnout of folks, young and old, who were glad to consume those nicely roasted dogs (pass the mustard please. We also partnered with our neighborhood community center, Mary Riggs, by providing food for their Food Pantry and participating in other projects that you will hear about next year. We had an excellent in house retreat led by The Very Reverend James Ellison (Ant and his wife, Presbytera Linda, on the topic of An Orthodox View of Death and Grief, the Funeral Service and related topics. Fr. James and Linda are the parents of Riesa Ellison, who was the Choir Directory at St Mary s in Minneapolis. She passed from this life into everlasting life early in The Ellison family are intimately acquainted with this subject matter. Christ the Savior/Holy Spirit Orthodox Church Cincinnati, OH Christ the Savior/Holy Spirit Orthodox Church in Cincinnati continues a steady growth rate that has increased our upcoming Church School year enrollment to its highest number ever with seventy-eight students from grades K-12. We still face the challenges of a mobile society in a city that can bring people here for work but yet have others move away just as quickly. This past year we added some new participants to an already lively parish prison ministry in the greater Cincinnati area. The name of this ministry is Kairos. One of our experienced members has even trained for a ministry to death-row inmates Chilicothe, OH. We have established a Stewardship Ministry within the parish in order to study the biblical practice of stewardship so as to raise the awareness of all of our parishioners and to move toward full parish pledging and eventually a wider participation in tithing. #!$"$%&'!(#*$"*+,+*%& DOM Assembly 49 Delegate Book

4 This past summer we completed a very well-attended Bible Study on the first eleven chapters of the Gospel According to St. John. We sponsored a young woman in the parish who travelled to Kenya as a member of an OCMC Mission Team. We continue to sponsor one of the children at the Hogar Rafael Ayau Orphange in Guatemala City with a full year of financial support. Fr. Steven continues to teach at Xavier University in Cincinnati as a member the theology department s adjunct faculty. St Stephen, the First Martyr Lima, OH The biggest news from Saint Stephen's is our successful conference on Healing Homosexuality. Our three speakers were very good, and our six testimonies of folks out of the gay lifestyle by the love of Christ in community were moving and helpful. Attendance was disappointing, however, as we only had about 25 or so attendees. (Most disappointing in this is the lack of promotion and the complete lack of attendance from the deanery, again. We have begun Wednesday night Vespers, coupled with either a Bible Study or a talk or a potluck dinner together. His Grace's direction to publicly promote a Healing Service was a great idea, and we do that using His Grace's handout service on the first Wednesday of every month. We have rented a billboard in a busy section of town which mentions this service, in the hopes of generating visitor interest. We have had two baptisms, we now have five in our "seekers" catechism class, and we hope to have a baptism and chrismation by the end of the year. Our annual events went well: Epiphany Great Blessing at Lima's major reservoirs was well attended, but our Name Day celebration (with "white elephant" sale as a youth fundraiser I'd like to see expand, with greater preparation; "Vacation Bible School" this summer instructed fewer children this summer, but our Nursing Home Visitation is growing and going well. This past winter we tried something new with a "Cookie Walk," which generated a lot of enthusiasm among our women members and was well received by non-orthodox friends and visitors. We also went out on our Neighborhood Christmas Caroling, just saying "hi" and giving out cards with information about St Stephen's --this has been and continues to be very well received. Next month we have arranged for and are promoting an exploratory Vespers in a small town about 40 minutes east of Lima, and we hope it sets a "pattern" for several missionary Vespers, to see if there is significant interest (this is how we began St Stephen's. St Thomas - Kokomo, IN Rector, Rev. Philip Lashbrook Here are some of the highlights of our year at St. Thomas, submitted by Matushka Becky Lashbrook, on August 30, 2012: #!$"$%&'!(#*$"*+,+*%& DOM Assembly 50 Delegate Book

5 Oct., 2011 Fr. James Ellison came to our church to present a weekend seminar on death and funerals from the Orthodox perspective. Oct., 2011 Harvest Party at the home of Fr. Deacon Raphael & Lisa Fadil, in Wabash, IN Oct., 2011 Fr. Philip & Glenn McCroskery, accompanied by Mat. Becky and Lynda, attended the OCA All-American Council in Seattle, WA. Dec., 2011 Christmas Party for the parish at the home of Fr. Philip and Mat. Becky. Mar., 2012 Passing of a dear parishioner, Avra Hopkins. Apr., 2012 Bp. Matthias visited our parish for the weekend, celebrating St. Thomas Day with us. Jul., 2012 manned a booth for our church at the Haynes-Apperson Festival in downtown Kokomo, as an outreach to the community. (In spite of a terrible storm that knocked down our tent! Jul., 2012 sent 6 young people to St. John s Church Camp near Mitchell, IN Aug., 2012 Hannah Fadil left for first year of college at ISU Evansville. We continue to meet with offenders at the Miami Correctional Facility twice a month. We are trying to adjust the meeting times to make our services more available to more offenders. We also regularly collect gifts of food and basic needs, such as soaps, toothpaste, socks, gloves, etc. for the CAM organization here in Kokomo, for the support of the poor. #!$"$%&'!(#*$"*+,+*%& DOM Assembly 51 Delegate Book