Rector's Annual Report
May 2006

Often one is asked the question, “What makes us an Anglo-Catholic parish?” Indeed that question was asked last year at one of the rector’s forums, and it was interesting to hear the responses. While I don’t want to get into all the possible responses here, one surely is that any Anglo-Catholic parish is a eucharistically centered community. If we truly are that, then one of the characteristics of that community must be thanksgiving—indeed the word eucharist means just that.

So it is that I would like to begin this Annual Report, as usual, with my thanks.

One of the challenges that I reported last year was to find a new priest to become our curate following Fr. Barnett’s departure to become rector of St. Paul’s Church in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. You will recall that we had a fairly extensive search, with the position advertised in the national church press and over 20 applications. You may also recall that we had two excellent final candidates, and one of those was the Rev’d Nathan J. A. Humphrey.

I called Fr. Humphrey to be our curate, and he began his ministry with us in the middle of October. His wife, Anne Stone, has also taken her place as a faithful and beloved member of our parish family. The decision to call someone to be one of our full-time priests is an important one, and one always hopes that one has made the right choice. I think you will all agree that Fr. Humphrey has most certainly turned out to be the right choice, and in his seven months or so with us has brought already his gifts to bear on our parish life. I certainly couldn’t ask for a more loyal and competent assistant. Fr. Humphrey has been most assiduous in learning our peculiar ways liturgically and in so many other ways. He has taken seriously his responsibilities for our youth programs and has been a support to those who run the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd as well as other programs for youth, including our choirs. Many of you benefited from the splendidly creative Narnia series for families on Friday evenings in Lent. Of course, Fr. Humphrey has also taken on with distinction and effectiveness the sharing with me of the liturgical, preaching, and pastoral work of the parish. He has also had oversight, along with Paul Francke, of our ministry to students at the George Washington University. A milestone has been reached there in the formal recognition now of a GWU “Canterbury Club.”

In addition, Fr. Humphrey has already been on some study leave to pursue his academic interests in the currently thorny issues of Anglican ecclesiology. I am sure that his time in England will be mutually beneficial, and I am sure that we will be seeing some of the fruit of his work in our own parish. When Fr. Humphrey came here, I suggested that this parish was really like an ecclesiastical laboratory for his research in the broad ranging identity of Anglicanism and how we here live with strong differences of opinion and yet retain some notion of communion.

While it is jumping ahead, let me say here that I regard the articulation of our own ecclesiology as a parish as something which we need to tend to in the years ahead. The sands are shifting very quickly and in some cases alarmingly within Anglicanism, and we need to be able to articulate who we are, and why we are who we are, and how we fit in not only in terms of Anglicanism but also, given the tradition in which we stand, in terms of Catholic faith and order. I shall be, in the years ahead, looking to Fr. Humphrey to assist us in the conversations and subsequent articulation that need to take place. I am very grateful to Fr. Humphrey and to Anne for all they have brought to our community and for all they are to me personally.

So one of the challenges from my report last year has been met and resolved most happily. So has another, namely the appointment of a new part-time assistant director of music. Last summer, Charles Burks accepted the call to become the organist and director of music at All Saints’ Cathedral in Albany, New York. As so often with the clergy, so it seems with musicians, that it is like a chess game of moving the pieces to different squares! Mark Dwyer, of course, came to us the year before last from All Saints’ Cathedral in Albany, and Charles Burks thus becomes Mark’s successor there. Charles did a splendid job in his time here and is sorely missed, though we are proud of his accomplishments not only here but also in his new position.

We have been most fortunate in being able to appoint Scott Dettra to succeed Charles Burks as our assistant director of music. You know from hearing him play of his superb talent and, as usual, we have somebody in a position of the highest possible caliber and someone of whom it would not be true to say that we are just getting what we pay for! Which is also so true of all the other members of our staff. More of that later!

Mark Dwyer has continued to build up and develop our music program, and the three choirs that sing each Sunday and on feast days continue to rise to the occasion. I am very struck by how well and happily two such talented musicians as Mark and Scott are able to complement each other and to work so easily, agreeably, and happily together. So often that is not true of the clergy and, dare I say it, even less true of musicians! We are truly blessed with two people of such talent and spiritual integrity. I and we are grateful to them both and to all who volunteer their time and talent to make music happen in this place.

Our budget for music is not insignificant, and from time to time that becomes a topic of some debate and conversation. I am currently reading a book called What Is the Point of Being a Christian? by Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. You will be hearing much more about this book as I finish it, and we may well study it in the rector’s forum. Let me quote here some things that he has to say about the place of music in the beauty of worship.

John Donne believed that the word with which God created the universe was a song. This is a theme that crops up throughout our tradition, from the psalmist who sung of the whole creation singing to God, to the medieval theories of “the music of the stars,” to modern string theories of matter and its harmonics. Michio Kaku said “Physics is nothing but the Lord’s harmony. The universe would be simply as these vibrating strings and then the mind of God, that Einstein wrote about, the mind of God would be cosmic music, cosmic music resonating to ten-dimensional hyperspace.”

So one of the signs that we need in the face of death is music, quavers and crotchets, on a page. In the night when the psalmist is tempted by despair, he sings, “Awake, O harp and lyre, I will awake the dawn.” It is, above all, music that overcomes the darkness and speaks a hope for what we cannot imagine.

That puts far more eloquently than I could some of the reason for my unwavering support of our music program and our musicians and the importance that the place of music has in the beauty of holiness.

I often, only partially in jest, say that our parish administrator, Melva Willis, actually runs the parish. This is true of the administration of the parish in so many ways. As I said in previous years, her job really does defy description and is multifaceted beyond what most of us either see or even imagine. Melva is unswerving in her dedication to her work and the well-being of this parish. She takes enormous strain and stress off me and my desk, and I am very grateful to her, as I hope all of you are.

A recent visitor who had visited here in previous years mentioned to me how much cleaner everything looked than the last time they visited. The last time they visited was before our present maintenance manager, Fred Murdock’s time with us. Murdock, as he likes to be known, continues to keep an aging and somewhat in the past neglected physical plant looking spick and span. Murdock, as indeed with all our staff, regards his job not so much as a job but as a vocation and a ministry. Often his is thankless work, and I do hope that everybody from time does take the opportunity during the week to thank Murdock for his hard work and devotion

While most of our staff received some very modest salary increase for the year 2006, I continue to be concerned about the inadequacy of our compensation, and I worry about the fact that we get more than we pay for, and I hope that we do not take for granted our stellar staff, without exception. I continue to challenge the Vestry to constantly review our staff salaries and to see where we stand comparatively with others in our diocese. As I said last year, I cannot imagine that anywhere else places more demands on any of our staff than St. Paul’s, K Street. I am certainly not satisfied that the staff is adequately compensated, and I hope that that is as much a concern for you as it is for me. All the more reason, then, to be grateful and certainly no reason at all to take any of our staff for granted.

Then there are those who work hard for no compensation whatsoever. Among these are, of course, the hundreds, literally, of volunteers who give their time and talent to allow this parish to function. As I have often said before, it is not the six paid staff that essentially make the place work, it is the over 600 who give of their time and talent in so many aspects of our life. Not least among these are our honorary clergy. Honorary means, of course, that they don’t get paid. We are very indebted to Fr. Lewis, Fr. Radley, Fr. McQuin, and Fr. Gillespie, who selflessly and tirelessly assist with our demanding liturgical schedule and indeed assist in the pastoral care of this parish. Similarly, Jean Litwin, our parish , receives no compensation from the parish for the many hours that she puts in making visits nearly every day to the sick, the hospitalized, the shut in, and those in need. The all-too-modest budget attempts to reimburse her for mileage and that is all. Again, I have pointed out to the Vestry that the in many ways fills the pastoral work of the non-existent third full-time priest on our staff. Without her ministry, many of our people would feel neglected and be at a loss. Again, this work is discreet and on the whole unheralded. I am grateful to Jean for her dedication to Our Lord and to this parish church.

It is always dangerous to mention too many names in this category, but I would like to thank our office volunteers, Peg Northen-Cole, Jenny Brake, Paul McKee, and Ken Springstead, who between them fill the slot of administrative assistants in our office. Others who work hard and bear considerable responsibility, and who I am sure do not often enough receive our gratitude, are our hard-working treasurer, Polly Peckham, and our assistant treasurers, Linna Barnes (counters), Paul McKee (posting), Ann Schnorrenberg (pledges), and Lynne Walker (Millennium Fund); the parish catechist, Edie Davis; the new director of our Altar Guild, Lynne Walker; and our interim volunteer director of Christian Formation, David Chase; David Chase, as the master of acolytes, and Ron Meekhof and David Lewis who assist him. I would like to thank them and all those who work with them in these important aspects of our parish life.

This past academic year, we have been blessed with the presence of two fine seminarian assistants, Seth Dietrich, from the Diocese of Milwaukee, and Paul Francke, from the Diocese of West Virginia. They stand in a long line of fine men who have served in this capacity. Seth and Paul have risen beautifully to the various challenges of our peculiarities. In turn, I believe that the clergy and people of this parish offer an important, even essential, perspective to the priestly ministry. I am delighted that both Paul and Seth will be returning next year, and that Seth’s wife, Maggie, will have been confirmed here at St. Paul’s on Ascension Day. Three-year-old Ella Joy has been a joy, and we look forward to the new Dietrich addition in June!

This annual report is always an opportunity for me to recognize and thank those who will be going off the Vestry after this annual meeting. This year we lose both our senior warden and junior warden, David Chase and Phil Schlatter. To my delight, David and Phil have been able to fill the important and demanding positions of church wardens for two years. This has provided an important consistency in our leadership and certainly David and Phil could not have worked harder or have been more dedicated to the welfare of our parish. I shall miss them sorely, and it has been a delight to work with them in our positions of leadership.

Also going off the Vestry at the completion of their full three-year terms are Deb Loucks and Jerry de Michaelis, who also have given of themselves tirelessly in their work as members of the Vestry and their respective responsibilities in so many areas of our parish life. These will be hard shoes to fill, but I know that God will provide in the election that occurs at the annual meeting.

I am very grateful also to those who have agreed to be nominated to stand for the Vestry and I am grateful to the nominating committee for their work.

As I look at the challenges that are currently before us, I am grateful to Almighty God for his grace by which the challenges of this past year have been met and so well. You will be hearing reports of the annual meeting from our Stewardship Committee, and I am enormously gratified by your faithful and generous response in that area for this year. I am grateful to the Stewardship Committee for all the hard work that they have put into this effort and will continue to do so.

Other activities that you will be hearing about at the annual meeting will include a report from the Planned Giving Awareness Task Force, and another challenge is being met as we begin to see some real fruit in this area. You will be hearing a stunning report from our Commission on Mission, and again words fail me to express my gratitude for the extraordinary generosity of this parish in what it has given for Christ’s work outside of the parish, not only through the tithe of our pledge income but above and beyond through various fundraisers. You will be hearing specifics from the Commission on Mission in their full and thrilling report. I am grateful to Deb Loucks and Rhoda Geasland for their leadership on the Commission, and all its dedicated members.

There is of course one area that continues to be extraordinarily frustrating where we appear to see little or no activity, and that is, of course, our building project. Ground has been broken all too long ago, designs and plans have been proposed and seen, and still we have not turned earth or seen one stone go upon another. Nobody finds this more frustrating than I, and I regret that yet again this is the nature of my report in this area for yet another year. However, I must say again that the Building Improvements Committee, the Vestry, and others really have been assiduously faithful in trying to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, and despite the apparent lack of action work really has been going on behind the scenes. I am grateful to Larry Cook, the chair of this committee, and the members of that committee for their ongoing work, and at the time of writing this, there may be a glimmer of hope in the report that David Schnorrenberg will give us at the annual meeting. All I can do is to say that I share your frustration but also, yet again, to assure you that I will see this project to fruition and completion with the help, support, and encouragement of the whole of our leadership in the parish, as indeed the whole parish.

Every year, I seem to say the same thing regarding our challenges in general. I continue to believe that our greatest challenges are in the areas of stewardship and evangelization. As I have said before, our long-range plan and our vision for the future all depend on these two aspects of our common life. While we have made extraordinary strides in our budget and in our pledge income, it is significant that we continue always to hover around the same number of pledging units, at around 275. That may say something about the mobile context of our parish, with people coming and going for all sorts of reasons to do with work and retirement and other things. But it does press home the urgent need for us to grow not only the monetary value of our pledges but also the number of pledges that are being made. Again, as I have said before, we have got to recognize that this parish cannot simply be run on a barebones budget supported only by our annual pledges. This is where the new and ongoing work of planned giving becomes so important as we seek to build up an endowment that will relieve those who come after us from some of the burdens associated with maintaining the physical plant, among other things. The work of evangelization should spring naturally from our experience of the Risen and Ascended Christ if indeed that experience is authentic. May I continue to urge you, like Philip the Apostle, to encourage you friends, family, colleagues and neighbors to “come and see.”

Once again, may I urge all of you to be sure to have a person to invite to join our Pilgrims class this fall with a view to being baptized, confirmed, or received. This year again, we have a large, exciting, and enthusiastic class that will have been confirmed, received, etc., by the Bishop on Ascension Day. It seems to me that the thrust of the work of evangelization is indeed the ministry of the laity as we all seek by grace to reach out to one another in our pastoral care and love of one another and indeed to reach out beyond our own doors not only in good works but also in the proclamation of the good news. I am very aware of the ever-increasing number of rather grand apartments that are going up all over our neighborhood and of the thousands of people who will be moving into our parish boundaries. How are those to know of our existence and to hear the good news?

Our innovation in our formation programs this year has been the introduction of materials from the Trinity Foundation for Christianity and Culture, based at our “partners in mission” church, Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London. Our use of these materials is part of their introduction to the U.S.A. We shall have offered all three courses of the first round of materials by the end of this calendar year. These are currently pilot courses whose feedback from participants around the world will help polish the final version to be launched in London in September. I am grateful to Linda Wilkinson, who has taken on responsibility not only for the introduction of these important materials in our own parish, but also serves as the coordinator of the American consultants. Linda, along with Ann Korky, Peter Laugeson, and Ed Loucks, accompanied me at the beginning of this year to Charleston to receive training in the use of the materials. I have been appointed by the TFCC Board in London to serve as the Chairman of the U.S. consultants and to serve on the newly formed TFCC America board.

To continue the theme of thanksgiving, let me end by expressing my thanksgiving to Almighty God for the extraordinary privilege and pleasure of serving the people of this great parish. As many of you know, I put a lot, if not all, of my eggs in the Triduum/Holy Week basket! This year’s powerful Triduum is still very much in my heart and mind. I am still aware of how true it is that I cannot imagine anywhere else that I would rather be than to serve as the parish priest at St. Paul’s, K Street. I am thankful to God for calling me here, and I am thankful to you for that opportunity and for your love and support, patience, forgiveness, and kindness in so many ways.

Andrew Sloane+