Pastoral Care

Pastoral Care Leadership Team Report

Wannabees

The Wannabees continue to meet on the first Monday of each month, usually at the Alley home. The group is wonderfully relaxed and friendly, a great place to be recharged and encouraged among creative, believing women.

Projects include both personal and outreach items, which provide a way for us to share our time and talent to others. We welcome newcomers! Please join us and/or tell others we'd love to have them join us.

Wedding Guild: Sherry Kerley

The purpose of the Wedding Guild is to provide a ministry committed to making weddings at St. Matthew’s a time of joy, love and worship. Our function is to co-ordinate with the Rector and the bride all logistical aspects of the wedding as they pertain to St. Matthews. The team leader meets with the bride prior to the wedding to discuss plans and review church policies. Three team members are present at the rehearsal and wedding. Our guild currently has twelve members. According to our charter there can be fifteen members. We meet two times a year. The guild met in March. The wedding guild assisted with one wedding since June 1, 2007. There are three wedding planned for 2008 at this time (one in July and two in October.)

At this time I feel that everything is fine with the current membership and our system.

St. Margaret's Circle: Debbye Silva

St. Margaret's Circle completed another successful year last week with our annual May Salad Supper at Lynda Jenkins home. It has been a fun and productive year - from a fellowship standpoint, spiritually - studying the Bible together, in fundraising activities, and in the funds that were raised and donated.

We support our members when needed, with meals, in December we send our college students Starbucks Cards at Exam Time, St. Margaret’s Circle make and sell Saintly Seasonings and Super Sunday Soups and plan and organize the annual Women's Retreat.

We are blessed to be able to donate $1.550 this year to the following:

$350 Jamie Cocke Fund at Georgetown Hospital
$400 Rogers Family in Africa on mission
$500 To Our Youth for the Mission Trip to Belize
$100 ECW Transition House
$200 For Ken Langley at seminary (to go into a fund at the seminary for his use)

Thanks to everyone who helped with these outreach opportunities by purchasing Saintly Seasonings and Souper Sunday Soups!! We could not do this without you.

The Women's Retreat will be held March 20-21st, 2009 at Shalom House.

We will resume our monthly meetings again on September 23rd.

Feed My Sheep: Paula Butz

St. Matthew’s Feed My Sheep ministry began more than a year ago. Over the course of the last year, the group has delivered almost 40 meals to families and/or individuals. Additionally we made more than 60 calls to offer meals (some people graciously declined the offer). Feed My Sheep is comprised of 17 teams (3 individuals per team,). Each team has cookers and drivers. Team Leaders are responsible for coordinating the food and delivery of the meals. We began the team rotation on May 6, 2007.

Feed My Sheep’s ‘annual' meeting took place on May 18, 2008. At this meeting decisions were made regarding meal delivery assignments and better distribution of the work load among all of the teams. We are excited about this revitalized and reorganized ministry.

The appreciation of St. Matthew’s Feed My Sheep ministry is positive as we have received numerous thank you notes from parishioners for the meals this ministry has provided. This has been a welcomed outreach to our St. Matthews' family. Please call Jean Ray (360-3575) or Paula Butz (273-0381) with your questions. If you know of any St. Matthews 'sheep' that need our attention, please let us know.

St. Matthew's Visitation Team: Page Jarratt

The St. Matthew’s Visitation Team is comprised of 18 members who are presently “calling on” approximately 16 shut-ins in the community in a variety of ways. Activities of the team include such things as personal visits, phone calls, notes, cards, flowers, copies of sermons and lessons, transportation to church functions, or assistance with medical and personal needs as appropriate. All attention given is intended to show God’s love and care, to share our time and talents, and to extend the mission, ministries and teachings of our church family to those who would otherwise be unable to join us for worship and fellowship.
Regular update memos from Mario to all team members provide information about any changes and feedback received at the church concerning any of the shut-ins. Team members notify Mario of contacts they make by voice message or email so that clergy and lay visits are appropriately spaced and all updates may be noted in a timely manner.

Shrine Mont – Annual Parish Retreat: Norm Hyde

Many thanks for all the kind comments about our annual parish retreat. From all accounts, it was a great deal of fun and people felt they were truly blessed by attending. Our evaluations generally graded us at either a 4 or a 5 on a five-point scale. We’re already talking about who to invite for speakers next year.

Unfortunately, we’re also still fund-raising. You may have already heard that we finished this year's retreat about $2,400 in debt to the parish. This was a surprising and disappointing development for everyone on the committee and many other parish leaders. Thank you again for the Vestry’s financial support for this year – without it, the deficit would be significantly higher. To avoid future shortfalls, we have met with the Finance Committee and the new parish Operations Committee and are working on setting up a more structured approach to planning the parish retreat. Patrick deFur, St. Matthew’s Budget Committee chairman and a former Shrine Mont committee co-chairman, has already volunteered to help shepherd the committee’s finances for next year. Other changes include returning to charging full rate for Shrine Mont participants unless they are “on-scholarship.” (in recent years, the rate has been discounted for ALL participants.) It also includes setting up some ground rules for who the committee can be expected to support financially, and tweaking our child-care provider plans. Our child-care program has grown to the point that we paid for 8 people this year, plus two more leaders the Youth Ministry paid for. We’re not sure what we can do to reduce that expense, since Diocesan rules require two adults for every group of children. But we’re looking at it.

Our plan to repay the debt includes a fund-raising appeal to all participants later this summer (after the summer mission trip,) an aggressive marketing campaign for our St. Matthew’s “swag” and possibly more fund-raisers later this fall. Our goal is to repay the difference ASAP, since we’ll be cutting into next year’s fund-raising opportunities otherwise. If we sell out of all our ball caps, umbrellas, flashlights and tote bags, we’ll earn about $1,300 – a significant reduction in the overall deficit. If every participant in this year’s retreat donated an additional $10/person later this summer, that would raise another $1,200 or so.

Plus the committee has two new fund-raising opportunities, although at the prices we’re charging, they won’t bring in much income – the picture slideshow and Johnny’s teachings on CD. (See order for below) Once we do our first duplication run for these items, I also plan to post them on the new web site.

On a personal note, I would like to again express my gratitude for all the kind words and support from the Vestry and parish leaders for this year’s retreat, and my sincere regret about the financial situation.

St. Matthew's Intercessory Prayer Ministry: Sue Rickman

St. Matthew's Intercessory Prayer Ministry continues to receive prayer requests from the staff and congregation of St. Matthew's. Prayer requests are given to prayer wheels consisting of 4 or 5 intercessors. All prayer requests are confidential. The Intercessory Prayer members usually meet as a group once a year.