Describe a moment in your worshipping community’s recent ministry
which you recognize as one of success or fulfillment.
St. Mary’s works best when it works together as a whole. We love sweat equity projects!
Whether it is Project Thanks, the Epiphany Pageant or Vacation Bible School, when our
Parishioners are involved working together we are successful.
Our Music program has also grown over the past three years we have more adults in our Choir
and have added a children’s and bell choir. We also enjoy instrumental music for our Christmas
Eve and Easter Services.
Our Ashes to Go on Ash Wednesday has also been a success, gives us the chance to get out into
the community.
We pride ourselves on being an inclusive church, we welcome people of all viewpoints, race
and sexual orientation. We believe that God loves all of us no exceptions.
Our next rector must have the ability to engage the involvement of all our congregation and be
able to tap into people personally and include the young adults, parents of small children as
well as our long time parishioners.
The youth of our Church has a strong desire to become involved and grow. They would like to
see programs that encourage them to help others. They have been on mission trips to Jamaica,
Mississippi and West Virginia to help habitat for humanity.
They want to participate in activities that encourage a sense of family, such as overnights at the
church and dinners.
How are you preparing yourselves for the church of the future?
St. Mary’s has developed several avenues to communicate with our congregation. We have an
active website, Facebook and You-Tube page. We make use of Constant Contact to regularly
email our congregation to keep them abreast of church happenings.
There are a few members of our congregation that do not utilize email, we provide printed
communications for them.
We have learned that the best way to find leaders and people to help us with our ministry is to
ask and be personal. Church members have been asked to do simple things and in short time
found themselves on Vestry.
Like many other Church’s St. Mary’s is struggling with the competition with secular activities
that take our youth and parents away from Church on Sunday’s
Our Youth is eager to come to Church and love to participate, they want the fulfillment of
church led activities. We need to provide them.
For the past year the in-reach committee at St. Mary’s has been actively working to improve
how we welcome new people to the Church. We are looking for ways to provide mentoring so
we can get our new comers involved without being to over bearing when they first come.
In five years St. Mary’s would like to be a joyful, financially stable, well attended Church with a
full time Rector. We would like to be active and involved with the community and helping to
meet the community’s needs.
Please provide words describing the gifts and skills essential to the
future leaders of your worshiping community.
St. Mary’s motto is “Off the beaten path, literally and figuratively.” This is because we have a
church that sits in a residential area outside the main section of Sparta and because our
members like to think outside the box.
Throughout St. Mary’s history, we have been blessed with some exceptional Priests, their best
qualities and ones we long to continue to have are being Pastoral, Good Homilists and being
organized.
We need a Priest regardless of their feelings toward an individual parishioner that will make
themselves available to all in both the happiest and darkest hours.
Our next priest should be able to relate and be comfortable around young children but also
make sure the teenagers are not missed.
Our teenagers are very involved with worship services as Acolytes and Torches. While they
make every effort to well in assisting during worship services, they do from time to time make a
mistake. Leaders need to be understanding and supportive toward them.
Our leaders need to delegate and allow work to be done and be willing to allow people to help
with the leaders short comings. We do not expect our leaders to be perfect
Our leaders also need to go out into the community, and represent St. Mary’s.
Our ministry is not a job our leaders must bring the Spirit of the Lord with them each day.
Our next Rector must insist on Vestry feedback so they know “How am I doing”
Describe your Liturgical Style and practice for all types of worship
services provided by your community:
St. Mary’s is a “Middle of the road Episcopalian” church. We have a congregation of various
age, race and ethnic groups. We welcome people with conservative and liberal viewpoints. We
are an open and affirming congregation.
We like to switch it up – While our music program has grown and is very popular, we also like a
prayerful service. Our last rector held a monthly Contemporary Service and we enjoyed the
change in liturgy.
Our youth and children also enjoy being involved with worship, on Mother’s and Father’s Day
the Children have been allowed to Communicate their parents during Eucharist.
We enjoy a meaningful sermon that uses biblical history, applies the Gospel and relates it to
everyday life.
We enjoy following the Book of Common Prayer but are open to the occasional alternative.
Our current Interim Priest has us read the Collect of the day, this has become a meaningful way
for us to begin our worship together at each service.
What is the worshiping community’s experience of conflict and how
have you addressed it?
Conflict at St. Mary’s typically arises when there is lack of communication. In the past few years
we have taken great steps to improve how we communicate. Our Communication Committee’s
mission statement is “Let no one say “I didn’t Know””
We have also found that when the person in charge doesn’t properly communicate what they
are trying to do and most importantly listen when the congregation is trying to tell them that.
They need to let people who disagree be heard.
To address change we must continue to make St. Mary’s a safe place to air opinions. We need
to remember that we are all Christians and the importance of beginning and ending meetings
with prayer.
To answer these questions we have held series of “Cottage conversations” more of these would
be helpful as well as having church events where we come together: Picnics, weekend retreats,
youth work activities.
We must also celebrate and share our joy and remember to that whomever we call to lead us
will not be perfect and we must uphold and support him or her.
What is your experience leading/addressing change in the church? When has it gone well?
When has it gone poorly? And what did you learn?
With our growth in the past few years, St. Mary’s has moved toward a “Program Church” which
has perhaps caused us some growing pains.
Making sure we are welcoming new members and finding ways of getting them involved has
not been easy.
Things go well when we remember that many do like to participate and we utilize the personal
touch vs. emails and social media messages.
We have many positive things happening: The hiring of our music director Laura Lopez and the
way in which she has grown our music program is something we take great pride in. Last year
our choir released a CD titled “Let It Shine.” Our last two Christmas Eve Services have also
included orchestral pieces.
We have added E-Chimes, a weekly newsletter that keeps everyone informed about church
happenings.
To answer these questions we utilized Cottage Conversations and have found them to be a
sincere way to bring the congregation together to discuss topics of concern. There is a lot of
interest in continuing these conversations as we move forward.
Our younger children now have their own service twice a month, they begin by processing the
halls playing their instruments and making “joyful noise to the Lord”
Things work well at St. Mary’s when there are as many of us working together as possible. They
don’t go well when our leaders do not communicate and not ask for help when they need it.