INSIDE St. Luke's Episcopal Church - January 2012

Cottage Meetings are fast approaching!   Thanks to the efforts of Mike Peinovich and Doug Eberle, St. Luke’s is gearing up for an exciting series of small discussion groups to be hosted in parishioners’ homes.   Built upon the surveys we conducted last year, we are calling them ‘Cottage Meetings’ after a similar effort held in 2005.  Those meetings ended up with a delightful outcome for St. Luke’s.  It was not long thereafter when we seized upon a certain, tall, enthusiastic, shiny-pated Rector who has been leading us in worship ever since!
While we are certainly not on the market for a new rector (breathe easy, John), we fully anticipate this new round of Cottage Meetings will rock us with equally exciting change as we jump into the next five years of parish life together at St. Luke’s.

This is an open invitation to every one of you, whether you are an old hand at St. Luke’s or brand new to us.   In fact, though we expect to learn a great deal from each other about how we will enrich our St. Luke’s experience in the coming years, as meaningful as anything else about the series, is the opportunity this forum gives us to get to know each other a lot better.  In the company of old friends and new faces, we will voice our hopes, wishes, concerns and ideas, for St. Luke’s, in a place of family, a living room.

So here’s the drill.   We are planning for as many as 15 meetings in parishioners’ homes, generally on weekday evenings, plus three or four meetings on Sundays after Coffee Hour or between services.   Each meeting is freeform but still follows a loose formal structure and will be conducted exactly the same at each house.  Each meeting requires a volunteer Host, Discussion Leader, Scribe, and Refreshment Coordinator, in addition to the other ten or so attendees whose only responsibility is to participate and enjoy.  Mike and Doug have already done the hard work for us and drawn up a sheet to outline the various responsibilities.  They have also written up questions to jumpstart the conversations and outlined basic ground rules of civility.

Everything is open for discussion, though based upon the feedback the vestry received from you in the Parish Surveys, primary topics at each meeting will include Worship and Music, Adult and Youth Education, Outreach and Stewardship.  None of the meetings are specialized, they are meant to each touch upon all of the topics important to us.  At St. Luke’s, what delights or dismays us?  What spiritual and/ or social needs does the parish fulfill?  What opportunities are we missing?  What will make us stronger?

We want to get started the first week in February.  If you have always harbored the wish to be a Scribe, a Host, a Refreshment Coordinator or simply a Guest, now’s your chance!   We hope all of you will participate.  Please see Mike or Doug at Coffee Hour or reach out to them by email (Mike: mpeinovich@verizon.net, Doug: dnweberle@verizon.net) or to your wardens, wardens@slechurch.org.  We are beginning to draw up meetings now.   We will likely have a short meeting before we get started for coordinators to outline the ground rules so everyone is on the same page.

What radical changes will we unleash this time?   We can’t wait to find out.  See you at the 2012 Cottage Meetings!

Sincerely yours,
Martha Thalheimer and John Wyatt