Letters to the Churches of Carbon County and Beyond - May 20 2009

May 20, 2009

Hello folks this week in flying by! As I write this I realized that Tuesday is almost behind me. Wednesday is over the hump day and everything flows down hill toward the weekend and the upcoming weekend is extended by a day. A quick look around the Carbon County looks like this – St. James in Encampment will be getting together on Friday night to create a master plan for the church, what will go where and etc. St. Paul in Dixon is planning the big summer kick off with the gathering at Reader Cemetery for Memorial Day and then reconvenes at the Savory Museum for a hamburger fry! St. Thomas is working hard for a grand event and I would ask people to save the date – May 21, 2009 and plan on attending a service that starts at 6:30pm. What am I talking about? Why not come and see for yourself. Soon I will send the minutes of my meeting with St. Luke’s in Medicine Bow and I have already thought of ways of including more Diocesan staff in their efforts to transform the world. I hope this letter finds you well.

Where to start, after all this is May, the month that we manage to do more in less time. I will start with last Monday. I was so pleased to make it to Encampment for their bible study. More importantly I got to reconnect with the leadership of the church and to find out how they are doing. All is well in the quiet and peaceful community of Encampment. That afternoon I participated in a web/phone meeting with the Regional Reps throughout the Diocese. We did a general check in and talked about the Mustard Seed Project and we are now attempting to get a reference point for Safeguarding God’s Children training opportunities.

Tuesday was an informal day off. I worked around the house, planted a tomato plant upside down (this is not a typo). Wednesday was a full day of activity. The standing Wednesday web/phone meeting with the Ministry Developers took place. During our conversation we talked about using twitter (micro blogging) to keep in touch on the fly. We also talked about Safeguarding God’s Children training and did some preparation work for the month of June extended web/phone meeting. Around 4pm I was one of the technology hosts of another web/phone meeting with the group who will be attending General Convention this year. Between the two web/phone meetings I got together with Karen Buckingham to plan a service. It was a full day!

Some people may know about Karen from St. Thomas in Rawlins is a Candidate is getting prepared to be ordained into the transitional deaconate, pending the approval from the Standing Committee; so the altar guild of St. Thomas, Karen, and I got together to learn the process of setting the table. This took place on Thursday.

Friday I was at Kraft Hall and that afternoon I was in Laramie. Saturday I meet with two different, yet similar groups. The first group was the worship leaders of St. Thomas and we planned the worship schedule for the month of June, completed a book study, and talked about the Pentecost Service. About 30 minutes later I met with the Ministry Support Team (MST) and we debriefed from the DiSC training that took place; a full morning.

The reminder of the week looks like this – Tonight I will be participating in a web/phone meeting with EDS to check in with those who are taking a “Ministry Development for Ministry Developers” on-line course @ 6pm. Thursday is a celebration to take place in Rawlins @ 6:30pm. Friday I will be in Kraft Hall for a couple of hours starting @ 10am. Then it is Memorial Day Weekend. Sunday I will be presiding at St. Paul’s (Dixon) starting at 9am (please note the time change!) and then participate with the Reader Cemetery weekend event. Monday I am taking the day off! Have good week.

Doug