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Goals for Jubilee  
A Message from our Rector February 19, 2004

Dear Friends,

We have entered our Jubilee year as a parish. It was fifty years ago that the Rev. Harry Tisdale conducted the first service for St. Bartholomew’s Mission. This time of celebration is a time to honor the past, nurture the present and plan for God’s good future. The Jubilee Committee has been busy planning for a variety of events throughout the year and I appreciate their creative and deliberate work. In early February, the Vestry and staff were on retreat at Camp Mikell, praying, assessing the state of the parish and its ministries, evaluating and honing strategic goals, planning next steps and simply having a good time. I am thankful for our leaders and their willingness to give of their time and of themselves for the health and well-being of this parish.

Coming out of the retreat, we decided to keep the goals that were raised up last year and to add one more. This now gives us six strategic goals on which to focus, long-range goals that will help build a healthier congregation. These are not immediate "fixes" but will take time and will need attention and your support.

Here are the goals, along with the committees that will oversee each:

1. Institute a comprehensive plan for Christian formation for adults, youth, and children.  
Oversight: Christian Education & Youth Committees

2. Develop an understanding and ownership of Stewardship as a framework of all that we do in the parish and in our daily lives.  
Oversight: Stewardship & Christian Education Committees

3. Increase children and youth participation in worship.  
Oversight: Children’s Christian Education, Youth & Worship Committees

4. Develop a mission program that will

· Renew our baptismal identity through service and evangelism;

· Enable us to do the work of Christ in the world;

· Build community in the parish.  

Oversight: Missions & Christian Education Committees

5. Maximize music ministry.  
Oversight: Music Committee comprised of representatives from Christian Education, Youth, St. Bart’s Arts, Evangelism, Parish Life, Missions, and Worship Committees.

6. Foster and develop a more hospitable community focusing on 

· People – Oversight: Parish Life, Evangelism & Pastoral Care Committees;

· Grounds & Facilities – 
Oversight: Property & Evangelism Committees.

Your vestry has chosen well. These are good and sound strategic goals. Keep the vestry and these goals in your prayers as we move forward. If you have a desire and time to help within these areas, contact the vestry liaison of the oversight committees. In our own visioning for life, I encourage us all to make good use of this Lenten Season, this season of reflection and preparation, that we all may come with great joy to the celebration of the paschal mystery.

Your servant in Christ, 
The Rev. Wm McCord Thigpen, Rector