Throwback Thursday: The Messenger, July 2006

Our series looking back twenty years enters its seventh month. Last month I shared the June 2006 issue, with its feast-day celebration and a graduating class headed out the door. The July 2006 issue is the sound of a parish exhaling, and then, almost immediately, asking what comes next.

"Now that we are settled into our new church," George Plumis writes in his President's Corner, the questions have turned practical: ongoing building-fund contributions, maintenance, a capital campaign on the horizon. Giving to the building fund is still important, even in our new building, George reminds his readers—keep giving, keep "using your blue envelopes". We call it Building Love, but none of this sounds twenty-years-distant.

I laughed out loud to read George's enthusiasm at their new accounting program called Church Windows. Fast forward to 2026 and we are still using Church Windows. As you might expect, it's more than a little outdated, and a committee of folks are gleefully working to replace it with the new better thing.  To anyone reading this in 2046 who is on the committee to replace that software package, please know we did our best.

Treasurer Dave Betts reports an unusually large outflow this month due to the parish move back in January. The change-of address caused bills to be delayed getting to the parish, but by July things were getting sorted out. I happen to be married to the current Holy Apostles Treasurer, and when I showed Nick the 2006 Monthly Treasurer's report with it's note about tracking down lost bills and late billings he laughed, "the struggle is real."

Our "continuity within change" theme continues, even amidst the nitty gritty of functional parish management.

Fr. Tom's message this month, "I Couldn't Believe It!", begins on an airplane. Flying home from Florida, he watched a flight attendant ask a couple to move five rows back, from row 10 to row 15, because row 10 had the extra oxygen the lap-riding infants needed. The couple refused, comfortable where they were, and got up only when told the plane couldn't leave the runway until they did.

You can see where he's going. "I thought about how often I've become comfortable in my seat," he writes, "how complacent I have become in my 'row 10.'" His invitation: get out of row ten and "joyfully walk as children of light." There's that word again. Light. I've been archiving Fr. Tom's essays and reflections on this blog for two years and I can't tell you how often he uses the word light. We are to live lightly, speak lightly, carry light, reflect light, bring light, choose light, be light.

The month's advertised social event was a thank-you: an Appreciation Luncheon held for the Church of the Redeemer on Sunday, July 30, in gratitude to the parish that sheltered Holy Apostles while it found a home of its own. Everyone should sign up! says the announcement. During our own remodel project we are not borrowing other people's space, but so many people are working tirelessly to bring this remodel—now decades in the making—into its home stretch. And, we are leaning on the patience and flexibility of our own parishioners. Gratitude has wide coverage and a long shelf life.

The rest is summer at parish pace: the Sunday School closing its year with a barbecue, the Holy Apostles Knitters meeting out on the deck when the weather allows, the Mom's Group picking a new day. There's the sense of lots of ministry stuff doing what it does in the summer and winding down and winding back. Twenty years later, we do the same thing. July and August are ministerially quiet. Lots of planning and the laying of groundwork, but fewer activities and events.

The full July 2006 PDF is below. Click on the cover image to download. I'll see you next month for August.

Warmly,

Erica