Annual Meeting Address 2007
The Rev. Tricia de Beer

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened. (Mt. 13:33)

This must be the shortest parable Jesus ever told. It is so simple and yet in this one line it tells the story of God's mystery in our midst. There is someone who begins the process - she takes something and hides it. There is the leaven which is not visible to the human eye as it does its work. There is something surprising, something wondrous about the way that leaven affects the whole thing. The thick and heavy dough becomes light and airy. It will become food which can satisfy and delight us.

This is my image of what has been happening at Redeemer in the last year. For example, something was begun in the mission committee. Bill Robinson, Jonathan Taylor, Chris Needham, Evelyn Hausslein, Cathy Mirani, and Bob King had a dream which they started to act on. They believed that if we extended ourselves more to those who are most in need, that our own spirits would be expanded - that our relationship to a living God would become more real. They worked on mission strategies that put flesh on these dreams. They brought them to the congregation and then later, the Vestry adopted them. That was what we could see. Then there was the hidden action of the yeast. The relationships within the committee deepened. They were ready to commit to launching two mission trips to Honduras, and to keep up the connection to Habitat for Humanity. There were the exchanges between parishioners which happened after the visit from Dr. Deborah Frank, Director of the Grow Clinic. There were the conversations between anxious parents and determined young people who wanted to go half way around the world to make a difference in the lives of the boys in the El Hogar orphanage. Randy Bowlby headed up the Bikeathon to raise money for the trip. Prayers for that ministry began and the Spirit was moving in hidden ways.

Then there was the surprising increase that God gave. Twenty one people from our church made plans to go. They came back speaking not only of the inspiration they experienced working side by side and listening to their Honduran brothers and sisters, but also of the new relationships that had happened among our team. They worked hard, played together, and prayed together, and something new was born in those challenging cramped quarters. I am told that those nightly prayers on the porch became a wondrous time in which God's grace was apparent. Growth had taken place in ways we could not quite have predicted and certainly couldn't control.

It is hard to measure growth in a community of faith. How do you measure faith, hope and love? Love is often hidden beneath the action. Faith as trust in God, or in one another, is hidden in our willingness to take a step into something new, something we can't quite control. These primary marks of following Christ can be hidden and then something new happens and we can see how God is blessing us.

There are only a few things which we can look at in the life of the congregation to objectively see if we are growing. One of these is the average Sunday attendance. For the year, we have had an increase of 11 in average Sunday attendance with the numbers going up each of the last three quarters. The other objective measure of congregational growth is in the level of our financial giving. For 2007 we were blessed with a 13% increase in giving for the second year in a row. This year's growth was made up of increased individual giving and 22 new pledges! And this happened in a year when we had a successful rummage sale, we raised over $20,000 in the Abundant Harvest Auction and Dinner, and we raised over $25,000 in direct appeals for mission. There is a lot to celebrate! These wonderful increases in generosity and commitment are evidence of the mysterious work of God. It is the work of God in partnership with so many who took action and initiated something, like the woman who took her leaven and hid it in three measures of flour.

I wonder what happened in people's lives to make all of that take place' to increase a desire to share in worship and a desire to make a commitment to this community and to our mission. Was it the opportunity to share in small groups in the 'Dear Kim' class last spring? Was it the hard work and incredible creativity of Eveyln Hausslein, Janet Kern and Sally Zimmerman who gave us the opportunity to come together in fellowship at the elegant Abundant Harvest dinner? Was it the excellent Stewardship team or the witness of Peg Wright, Leah Archibald, Murray Daniels and Pat Boyd which came to us in their sermons, as in their lives? Was it a few people who came up to you on your first Sundays here and made it clear that you were really welcome? Was it the parish retreat and the way it brought us together to relax and play? Was it someone who gave you a call when you went through a family crisis? Was it the new relationships that are forming in the Youth Group? Was it an anthem from our adult or children's choir which touched you and opened up a new airy place in which God's spirit was moving? We initiated many things programmatically, but I am sure there were also so many hidden individual actions taken in love or hope or faith, that have been part of creating something new.

The worship Discernment process was a big part of this year. In the spring, 118 people participated in the afternoon parish wide meeting. 69 people participated in the written survey. This fall we saw approximately 45-60 people at each of the discernment forums. I believe that we were faithful in providing varied opportunities for people to have a voice. The day long retreat for the committee began with people with very different perspectives, and ended with a surprising consensus about how to move forward in love. God's grace was evident there. The vestry endorsed my recommendation that we act on that consensus. As we knew from the beginning, there is no way that we can make change and have 100% approval. I do hope that those who are disappointed with the decision we have made, will continue to be in direct conversation with me about your perspectives.

In the Discernment process, I believe we accomplished the goal of arriving at a decision which will work for the majority of the congregation and help us become a richer community of a faith. I am immensely grateful to all of those who participated, and especially to Mary Etta King, Connie Parrish, and to the members of the committee who gave many hours to help us arrive at a graceful conclusion to this very large undertaking. My hope now is that you will have patience as we work out the specifics of the transition and that we will give ourselves time to adapt to the change. I am sure that we will need to make adjustments along the way. My prayer is that we can put this issue to rest as a primary focus of our energy and invest in the many opportunities before us as a community of faith, learning more and more how to love one another, and reach out to those in need.

A very large part of the year for me and my husband, John, has been the sudden death of our 33 year old son, Michael. John and I will forever remember the generosity of so many of you to our family. Your delivered meals and weekly prayers for three months, and the many cards, emails and prayers have been some of the things that made it possible for us to get through what is certainly the most difficult year of our lives. How God will take what is thick and heavy, and leaven it, is hidden at this point, but I am confident that it will happen. At times, God's presence has come in the shape of your hands and hearts and you are a part of our ongoing healing. Thank you. It reminds me of how important it is that we are a community of care for each other. I hope that our newly forming pastoral care team will be able to extend that kind of care to many who will need it in the years to come.

Last year in the annual meeting address, I spoke of a scene in atrium in which Michael Alessandro, (who I later learned was actually Stephen!) held up a yeasty mix in a cup and proclaimed that it would grow. I think this child was right. It did grow. We have been faithful. We have taken actions on many fronts this year, much of it was hidden in the ways we care for one another and for this church. God has blessed us with a miracle in which our life together is growing. Thanks be to God!

Now we have new dreams - many new opportunities to deepen our community will flow out of the discernment recommendations. We are re-working our routines for worship with expanded liturgy teams and crafting a covenant that supports children in worship. We are creating a way of consistently welcoming and incorporating those who are coming new to Redeemer. We will be studying the possibilities for a third service sometime other than Sunday morning. We will be initiating an architectural study of the Great Hall and the Sanctuary to create more flexible and hospitable environments for fellowship and worship. We will be offering opportunities for individuals to discover more about their own unique gifts and the dream to which God calls them. We will be creating an agreement about how we want to deal with the conflicts and tensions which inevitably arise in any living community. We will be continuing to expand our mission efforts in the local area while continuing to build our relationships with El Hogar. We will be creating a long term plan for the care and maintenance of our church and rectory. We will be seeing the fruition of much careful planning regarding the Labyrinth Memorial garden.

I hope that these efforts and others will be supported by the hidden leaven of prayer, and the leaven of each of you bringing what God has given to you and continuing to offer it generously. This year there were many women and men, many girls and boys, who took leaven and hid it in three measures of flour, and it is all becoming leavened. This is the mysterious way in which God's reign moves among us. Thanks be to God for all the abundant blessings of this year.