From the Senior Warden - Advent Eagle (Newsletter) 2014

St. John's Senior Warden, Bruce J. Burton, writes - 

We are truly blessed at St John’s.  Who could have ever imagined all of the great things that are happening within and around our parish only two or three years ago?  Who could have imagined that our beloved city would suffer bankruptcy and then emerge with prospects as good as we have seen in the past 100 years?  Most of all, St John’s is right in the center of all of this very positive activity and we should feel blessed that our good and gracious Lord has provided us new opportunities to minister in our immediate community, just like we did 150 years ago.

Let us all take a few minutes and reflect on how we have been blessed over the past few months: 

Our first blessing was that our vestry came together over the summer and prioritized the opportunities to improve our parish.  The first item on our list was to minister to the young people in and around our parish.  We all prayed on this and we received our second blessing very shortly thereafter: John Gardner was available to join our ministry team as our Assisting Pastor.  John has a strong background in young adult ministry, having attended Purdue, where he was active in the Campus Crusade for Christ.   He continued this ministry at Wayne State University, only a few blocks from St. John’s.   John is recently married to Lindsay, and I hope that you will spend time with both John and Lindsay at St John’s or in your home.

No sooner than the vestry made our list, Olympia Development provided us with our third blessing, which has appeared in the form of an economic opportunity to enter into a long-term contract for the lease of our land.  To all of us, a long-term commitment for our property for an apartment building is very threatening and is a visible change to our immediate neighborhood.   The vestry asks that all of us pray daily for guidance on this blessing.  Everyone one of us are included in making the decision to enter into a contract with Olympia when we assemble at a special parish meeting on December 7. 

Please continue to pray for our parish, our vestry, our clergy and lay ministers and every member of our parish. 

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Our prayers are being answered!