This Week at St. Paul's
Mother Michelle Walker
Dear St. Paul's Family,
I can't tell you how excited I am for our May 6th service of Renewal of Ministry and Installation. I am so honored to be your priest and to be serving in the faith community that first introduced me to The Episcopal Church. The Installation service is such a lovely liturgy, full of symbolism of a different kind that our typical Sunday morning. During the course of the service, several different members will either be presenting me to the Bishop for approval, or presenting symbolic items such as:
a Bible,
a Book of Common Prayer,
a Pyx (small carrying device for the Blessed Sacrament),
a vial of oil stock (for anointing of the sick), and
the bread and wine for communion.
All of these items are critical for my ministry as your priest and are offered with prayers full of hope and joy. We will celebrate the Eucharist together and even have Deacon Kathy Townley serving at the altar with us. It is going to be a lovely celebration that I hope each of you are able to attend.
In other news, I'm excited to share progress on my Wabash Pastoral Leadership initiative to spend time with community leaders. Thanks to an introduction by Jean Burns, I met with Maria Fruth of the Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte. What an amazing asset that organization is to our community! She was delightful and shared some excellent ideas regarding how our congregation can give back to and more deeply integrate with the LaPorte Community. I can't wait to share some of the ideas with you, as well as some interesting information I learned about LaPorte overall.
I would be remiss to not express my appreciation at this point for the multitude of ways so many of you already volunteer within the community. Your love for LaPorte, and the wellbeing of those of us that live here, is second only to your love for the Lord. I hope we/I never lose sight of that!
Have a wonderful day and please, please, please do your best to attend the Installation service on Thursday 5/6 @ 6pm.
Blessings,
Mother Michelle
priest@stpaulslaporte.org | 219-575-0226 (c)
Our second and final educational session with Bishop Doug took place on Tuesday, April 27th. We all learned a lot. The vestry will continue conversations at future meetings. Please don't hesitate to reach out to either myself or any vestry member with your thoughts.
