Rector’s Report
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I’m happy to say that the year 2022 was a fruitful year here at Church of the Messiah. While we were not free from the reality of the COVID virus, we were able to start returning to a more “normal” form of life here, especially with regard to our worship life and the many fellowship/study opportunities that we have to offer here. As the year moved on, we were able to lift masking restrictions and to start having Coffee Hour once again. In addition to this, we began to see steady growth in the numbers of people worshiping with us on Sunday mornings and at other times. In fact, in October we finally returned to the average Sunday attendance numbers that we had had in March of 2020 when the pandemic first broke out, and we have been holding to those numbers almost every week since. It has been such a joy for me to look at both our 8:30am and 11am services and see so many of you out there! And it has been such a joy for me to get to know so many of you who are new to our congregation as well!
All of that said, our little church has been quite busy this year as you’ll see in the reports below. Our Vestry has been working hard to be good stewards of the building, grounds, and finances that our gracious Lord has so generously provided for us here. Our team of teachers have been working hard to keep us grounded in God’s Word in the Old and New Testaments. And Rochelle and I have been working hard to keep our worship Christ-centered, which is to say Gospel-centered, every time we gather. On top of that there have been so many of you who have given of your time, talent, and treasure to help keep this church operating smoothly and allowing us to do what we’re called to do here which is to proclaim the Good News of God’s grace and mercy in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For that, I want to say thank you to all of you!
I must tell all of you that I feel very blessed to be called to be your Rector here at COTM. It’s often hard for me to believe that I have now finished 8 years here. It has been both humbling and joyful for me to see how the Lord is at work in this congregation, through the good times and the not-so-good times, working faith in you and bearing good fruit through you. My prayer for this coming year is the Lord will continue to do these things here among us as He draws each one of us closer and closer to Himself in His great love for us. I look forward to another year of God’s blessings with you all in 2023!
Your spiritual father in Christ,
Kyle+