Notes from Sunset Convocation Meeting of October 7, 2001

Those in attendance:

St. Barnabas: Cynthia Reynolds, Mark Mahon, The Rev. Ted Rodrigues

St. John: Jeff Honeyman, Alice Speers, Bud Furber, Joseph Schafer, Mary Dorscheimer, Frank Dorscheimer, Kimberly Beck, The Rev. Valerie Ambrose

St. Bart's: Stu Cato, Ray Hayes, The Rev. Roger Reynolds

St. Francis: Norman Weekly, Nancy Kopeck, Ko Ko Sutton, The Rev. Marilynn Brown

St. Gabriel: Deby Falconer, Pat Ademosky, The Rev. David Brownmiller

St. Michael: Ron Cheney

St. Catherine: Mary Cramer, Betty Powers

All Saints: Bill Whipple

The meeting began around 2:10, with opening prayer by president Cynthia Reynolds.

Sharing followed, with a focus on response to September 11 attacks:

St. John the Baptist

Set up a steering committee with members from both parish and OES to deal

with emergency situations, education about Islam, and other subjects TBA.

The five school chaplains joined forces with parish clergy to be on hand for

people during the week.

Making plans to minister to the health community: counselors, doctors, and

other health-care professionals. Clergy are available on Sundays after

worship services.

Making pastoral calls on those who remember WWII and are affected by this in

that unique way.

Search Committee still working...

Adult Education Forums are focusing on Creation and the stewardship thereof.

Annual Auction set for November 10.

Recent ingathering generated $5000 for Presiding Bishop's Fund for World

Relief.

St. Gabriel

Had a noon prayer service and evening Eucharist on September 11.

Candlelight service at noon on Friday, September 14.

Deby Falconer enrolled in Metro-East Convocation preaching program.

Adult Forum working with "Grace," by Philip Yancy; the subject is

forgiveness.

New youth minister is from the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in

America).

Praise services every first and third Sundays at 6:00 p.m.

St. Bartholomew

Prayer service on Wednesday evening (September 12). Friday evening

Eucharist was attended by approximately 100 people.

October 7 - Muslim Arab-American couple as speakers. Also this weekend,

hosting the Diocese Youth Conference.

Wednesday night education program continues.

St. Barnabas

September 11 - unlocked and opened church doors, prayer service that

evening. Thursday morning healing service with Eucharist as usual. Friday

evening prayer service.

Hosted Yom Kippur services for local Jewish congregation.

Life as usual to encourage standing firm: parish picnic, cleaning and

painting youth room, youth activities, etc., etc.

Cynthia Reynolds enrolled in Metro-East Convocation preaching program

St. Catherine

September 11 - Unlocked church doors, held evening prayer service. Church

was full for Friday noon prayer service.

Search Committee working, some Sundays are Morning Prayer and lay homilies.

Ministering to singles in the community with "Happy Lunch."

Grounds committee working very hard - area looks good!

St. Michael/San Miguel

New priest - George Hemmingway, having a huge impact! Bi-lingual,

carpenter, plays guitar!

New playground equipment purchased and installed.

Weekly staff meetings being held.

Eight acolytes going to Corvallis this year with the bishop.

St. Francis

September 11 response: Evening services, telephone tree, pastoral care for

the home-bound, church doors unlocked and opened.

"Godly Play" very popular - adding a whole classroom for this!

Two new youth group coordinators.

Annual "Blessing of the animals" went well, even with the horse!

Invited other denominations to Life/Planning meetings, which involve

hospital and hospice care, help with Medicare, and guest speakers.

All Saints

Healing services being held on Tuesdays at noon.

Acolyte classes being held.

Also holding inter-denominational Adult Christian Education.

Congregation looking younger (more families and singles attending).

Involved some Cursillo-type music into worship, with great positive impact

and results - wow!

Mission Statement

There were concurrent suggestions to change the "His" to "Christ's."

Overall, everyone likes what we've done so far, so we will meet again after

convention and begin work on the vision statements.

Budget

Not much discussion here - looks like we're going to convention with what

we've got.

Resolutions and canonical changes to be voted on at convention

Everyone who had reviewed these seemed to understand what they involved.

All were urged to make sure they were familiar with these by convention.

Introduction of search process for new bishop

Frank Dorscheimer - presented a good deal of material on this process. We will try to get most of it on the web page. Per these instructions, we will meet again at

2:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 9, at St. Francis Wilsonville to discuss

nominations to the two sub-committees.

Additional convention notes:

Make your reservations for hotel space now if you haven't done so already!

Space is limited and filling up quickly.

Friday lunch at West Lake Chinese Restaurant on Hemlock Street in Seaside.

Was originally intended for fellowship purposes, but now will also do some

preliminary selection/transition committee nomination work - hope to see

everyone there.

Other business:

Need nominations/people to come forward for diocesan council reps: one

clergy, one lay.

President's term up this January - be thinking about re-election or

nominations for new president.

Ended at 4:20 p.m., with closing prayer by host Father Ted Rodrigues.

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Also following are notes from JoAnn Leach, our clergy representative, from the last council meeting. JoAnn wishes to continue as our clergy rep to council. We are still in need of someone to step forward as our lay representative to council.

19 October 2001

Dear Sunset Convocation;

I apologize for not being at the last meeting and not letting Roger know that I would not be there. He suggested that I let you know some of what was going on with Council. I attended the last meeting today of this Diocesan Council. We met at St. Francis in Wilsonville. The Rev. Alice Scannell joined us to discuss her role as the consultant to the Search process for the new Bishop. She discussed the purpose of the focus groups and that parishes had been randomly chosen to submit names of laity for the focus groups before convention. The clergy have not yet been chosen for the focus groups; that should happen at clergy conference. We were asked to write about what we saw as concerns of our congregation for the diocesan leadership and what our vision would be for the Diocese for the next 8-10 years. The Bishop said that the National Church is very interested in our process, particularly the way we are using focus groups.

Each Diocesan Council Member was supposed to visit three parishes and explain the DPA and answer questions about the budget and programs of the Diocese. The Council members shared their reports. The congregations in the Diocese graciously received most of us and liked the communication with the Diocese. Many congregations expressed a lack of communication and that they did not understand the programs of the Diocese. There was a lack of knowledge about the convocations and how they functioned. There was diverse opinion on the DPA. If parishes were behind in their payments, there was usually more of a negative opinion. The Bishop felt that this was so effective that the new Diocesan Council should do it next year.

The budget is in good shape. There will be a small excess and we voted to put it toward the increased insurance premiums for the retired clergy.

Feel free to email me with questions. I would like to serve as your representative again but perhaps some one else might like to do it. I have learned so much about the Diocese from going to these meetings. Thank you for that opportunity. See you in December.

Faithfully,

JoAnn Leach