Chapel of St. Francis

Chapel of St. Fancis (CSF hereafter) is our church. Last Sunday we began a new chaper in the life of this ten year-old parish. I am now the celebrant on Sundays, and we began with some music and liturgy changes this past Sunday. Until we get some more folks for our worship band, a lot of what we're singing will be on cd. My friend Paul from New Jersey is to move here and be a part of our church. He plays guitar, and the plan is for him to be our music director (whatever we decide to call that!) So for now, I'm the pastor, the outreach pastor (I'm developing a strategy to grow our church -- more on that in a bit!), and the music pastor. Whew! So, we all agreed -- the music was great last Sunday. Yeah!! Our worship was enhanced and was wonderful.

Strategy? When Shirley and I married and moved here a year and a half ago, CSF met in the bishop/abbot's home, then moved to ours a few months later. I am now beginning a search to find us a public place to worship -- a storefront, an abandoned church, an earlier (9am?) service in somebody else's sanctuary, or a larger church's chapel. Once we get moved into the new worship space, the fliers will go out on people's doors. We'll take out an add in the paper ($120 a month, which is why we don't have one now!!) Of course, our first strategy is prayer: that God would be glorified, be in our midst, lead, and bring the people HE wants to us.

As I said a moment ago, it's a new chapter in the life of CSF. I, for one, am very excited. We've begun to see the Spirit move, and my plan is to be right in the middle of the movement.