Homecoming every Sunday - Rector's Rambling for October 25, 2020

      One of the things that has been put on hiatus for this year is our Homecoming Sunday.  Last year we augmented our 19-year tradition of holding a special Sunday with a luncheon by adding to it a bounce house for the kids.  Although I was about a month post-surgery last year on that big day, I may have had a bounce or two, just for fun.

But this year we are “on hold” for so much that we regularly do.  We are not allowed to host luncheons yet, and I am pretty sure it would be rather hard to social distance in a bounce house!

Yet I am so grateful that we are open for worship (week 17 today!) and that more and more parishioners, and some guests and visitors, are coming to St. John’s to worship and to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Right now our Average Sunday Attendance for all the services together is about half what it was for 2019.  I know of one parish in NYC that averaged 600 people on Sunday last year and they had 44 the other day.  And as of last week we are still the only Episcopal parish in the city open for public worship in our building.  I hope that before long we will not only be at last year’s average attendance (157), but that we will begin to grow beyond that!  With four Sunday Services (7:30, 8:00, & 10:00 AM, and 5:00 PM) we could have 450 people in the chapel/church on Sunday and still be able to social distance.

I hope that you are getting a chance to read and soak in Bishop Emrich’s writing about the renewal of the Church.  The booklets, with 28 short sections, are available in the back of both the chapel and church, and on-line via the St. John’s Web site at www.StJohnsDetroit.org, and at www.StJohnsRenewal.blogspot.com.

Bishop Emrich guided our diocese, which then encompassed all of the Dioceses of Michigan and Eastern Michigan, from 1948 to 1973, and 49 new congregations came into being during his tenure.  His writing reminds us that the Church is primarily to be about the mission of the Good News of Jesus Christ through worship, sound doctrine, and evangelism.  And St. John’s renewal will be based on exactly this.  Four-hundred-fifty people on Sunday should be possible if all of us dedicate our selves to a full-blooded faith in Jesus Christ, and to share His love for us with others.

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Next Sunday is All Saints’ Day, November 1, which means that Monday, November 2, is All Souls’ Day.  We will have two public Requiem Masses on Monday: At 10:00 AM we will have a service in the chapel at Elmwood Cemetery, where our founders and many parishioners are buried.  At 12:15 PM we will gather in St. John’s chapel.  Be sure to submit your names of love ones you would like to be remembered at that time.