Passing of Loretta Gibbs

Loretta Gibbs, mother of David Gibbs, passed away at about 11:30 on Monday night, August 7. The memorial service was held Friday at the church.

MAC Thanks

Along with seven other churches, we are part of the South Central Mission Area Council (MAC). Recently, we were able to distribute funds to respond to several requests for grant money. Here is a thank-you we received from Mount Vernon:

Your very generous donation to St. Paul's Hot Meals program in Mount Vernon will provide the matiching funds requited to purchase a processed steer, which will supply beef for about five months of meals.

Program changes at Mid Ohio have made meat virtually unavailable to us. This gift is a God-send!!

Sincere Thanks,
Sharon Blaydes

New Church Website

Today, after about a week of intense work, the new church website went live. I got started on this project when I realized that some of the web links in the old version didn't work any more. Then a visitor commented that she liked the welcoming language, but it was extremely wordy. Then a friend commented that the whole color scheme of the old one was very dreary, especially the picture of the church exterior. Then I realized that the thing simply didn't work on most cell phones.

It's going now, and my main worry is that Google will have trouble indexing it. (That's a common issue.) The main aim of the site is to introduce newcomers to our church, and I think the new design is more appealing.

Parking Lot Business

Tomorrow we are getting new lighting for the parking lot, which will make winter meetings much safer and more pleasant. The old lighting system was about 40 years old and simply didn't work. Every time someone tried to turn on the lights, the circuit breaker would trip. A local electric contractor is putting in new lights and wiring, the whole thing to be paid for by Capital Campaign funds donated by the members of the Parish.

A little later this summer, the parking lot itself will get repairs and new paving. If you have come by in the middle of the week, you probably have noticed that we gave our next-door neighbor permission for their staff to park on our lot, and the Montessori school in our basement has a regular parade of parents dropping off children and picking them up later. Both groups have agreed to help with the cost of the lot because they get benefit from it and we will make up the balance from the Capital Campaign.

Rev. Kay's Sabbatical

Rev. Kay has been our Rector for seven years now, and (as provided in our original Letter of Agreement with her) she will be taking a three month sabbatical from May 15 to August 15. She certainly deserves it.

A Spiritual Growth Team, headed by Senior Warden Mike McKinley, has been making plans for these three months. We will have four different priests coming on Sundays to preach and celebrate Holy Eucharist, and we will have Morning Prayer with sermons by our own Lay Preachers.

Three special Saturday programs, focusing on Prayer and the Hymnal, Ignatian Prayer, and Drama will provide high points for the parish this summer.

While Rev. Kay is gone, Sister Nadine will be the Pastoral Associate, so any special needs should be addressed to her.

New Floor in the Parish Hall

By Sunday, the new floor will be installed in the Parish Hall. It's quite a change. Instead of tan tile, falling apart and leaving gaps, we will have a nice dark brown floor that looks like polished wood. It was about time for a change. As far as we can determine, the original tile was installed in the 1970s and had a predicted service life of about 10-15 years.

Money for this came from the "Planting for Tomorrow" Capital Campaign and from a special donor. The Capital Campaign has enough left over now that we can ponder some other improvements.