RyanThis weekend we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, the title commonly given to the Fourth Sunday of Easter. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims himself the Good Shepherd. After doing so, he immediately qualifies that title by teaching us that the Good Shepherd (as opposed to the hired hand) lays down his life for the sheep.
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RyanWe recently received some very wonderful news. St. Paul’s is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places! Our main campus is part of the Old School Square Historic District. As we celebrate this great honor, let’s recommit ourselves to making a difference for Christ here in Delray Beach and beyond.
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RyanOn March 9th the Episcopal House of Bishops concluded its retreat meeting at Camp Allen in Navasota, TX and published two statements: one on gun violence and the other on sexual harassment and gender bias. I’m happy to say that the Episcopal House of Bishops is not a newcomer to the public square when it comes to these two important issues.
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RyanAs we celebrate this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we realize that we are now more than halfway through this season. Believe it or not, in two weeks we will gather to celebrate Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred time of our Church Year. This year we are adding services to our Holy Week worship schedule.
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RyanThe observance of a holy Lent includes a commitment to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. As we gather in prayer this weekend, we have a wonderful opportunity to give alms through our support of Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida. You may make a donation online here. I encourage you to be as generous as possible.
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RyanThis Sunday we will commission our 2018 Vestry members. As we live into our Vision 2020 Parish Strategic Plan, our Vestry members are key servant-leaders who will help to lead us into becoming the parish family God is calling us to be. Each Vestry member is a part of one or more goal committees serving our common life.
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RyanThis past week, on Ash Wednesday, we were all shocked and saddened to hear of the horrific school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Sadly, this tragedy was just the latest in a series of school shootings we have seen throughout our country.
I’m grateful to Rev.
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RyanThis year, the secular calendar and the Church calendar intersect in two interesting ways. The first is this coming Wednesday, February 14. On the secular calendar, it is Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate romance (although this holiday was originally the date set on the Roman Catholic calendar for the Feast of St.
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RyanI want to thank everyone who made last weekend such a special time for our parish family of St. Paul’s. To all those who helped to plan, organize, and accomplish our Annual Parish Meeting and Festive Meal, we all say “THANKS!”
At our Annual Meeting we elected Jim Garner,
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RyanThis weekend we celebrate Stewardship Pledge Weekend for 2018.
For we who follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our support of our parish is a tangible expression of our gratitude to God for all the blessings we have received. A good steward magnifies the assets of the Master.
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RyanNext weekend we celebrate Stewardship Pledge Weekend for 2018. Yes, I used the word celebrate! For we who follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our support of our parish is a tangible expression of our gratitude to God for all the blessings we have received. A good steward magnifies the assets of the Master.
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RyanYou Are St. Paul’s!
Through your commitment to St. Paul’s,
You…feed the hungry (CROS Ministries)
You…shelter homeless families (Family Promise)
You…mentor and nurture children (Paul’s Place)
You…share Christ with his children (St. Paul’s Day School, VBS)
You…spread God’s love in the world (South Florida Haiti Project)
You…foster community (Brotherhood of St.
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RyanYou Are St. Paul’s!
The beginning of a new year is a wonderful opportunity for us to take personal inventory, to resolve to make healthy changes and to give thanks for our many blessings. As we begin this New Year 2018, we can all count our spiritual family of St.
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RyanMay the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and forever! Whether you are a member, a regular attendee, or a first-time visitor, we are blessed to have you with us.
Yes,
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RyanThis weekend we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent, also referred to as Gaudete Sunday, or the Sunday of Joy. It is the Sunday when we light the rose colored candle on the Advent wreath. This is to remind us that while one aspect of Advent is penitential, preparing the way of the Lord by turning from sin,
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RyanI hope that, despite the “busy-ness” of this time of year, you have found some time and space to prayerfully reflect on the Incarnation, the profound mystery that we are preparing to celebrate at Christmas. I encourage you this Advent to take some time away from the malls and the internet retail sites,
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RyanThis year, we will have several Advent offerings at St. Paul’s that will help us live into our Vision 2020 Parish Strategic Plan’s goal of deepening our spiritual vitality. Sunday, December 3rd, we will make Advent wreaths that will fill our homes with the beauty and aroma of fresh greens as we prepare to celebrate Christmas.
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RyanToday we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. This feast brings the liturgical year to a triumphant conclusion, as we proclaim the Reign of Christ sovereign in our lives. The Resurrection of Christ forever bears witness to the power of love. It is this love, particularly shown to “the least of [his] brothers and sisters,” that is the defining characteristic of the Reign of Christ.
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RyanThis past week ended on some incredible “high notes.” On Thursday, I had the joy of joining the children, staff, and volunteers of Paul’s Place Afterschool Program for our annual Thanksgiving Feast. On Friday, our Day School children, their families and friends, our faculty members, and our Board members gathered for our annual Thanksgiving program “The 1st Thanksgiving”.
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RyanThis weekend we honor our veterans. Much like Thanksgiving is certainly not the only day of the year that we give thanks, Veterans Day is not the only day that we honor the selfless service of the men and women who serve, or have served, our country as a member of our Armed Forces.
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RyanToday we welcome a special guest, Pere Phanord, the rector of Bon Samaritan Episcopal Church and School, our partner congregation in Bondeau, Haiti. Our partnership with Pere Phanord and the people of Bondeau began nine years ago through our participation in the South Florida Haiti Project (SFHP), a collaborative outreach effort of several Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Southeast Florida and elsewhere.
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RyanAs a parish family, we celebrate the new activities and initiatives of our Vision 2020 Strategic Plan. It is our shared call to take an active role in implementing this vision for our common life over the next three years.
Our Strategic Plan calls for the formation of several new ministries that will help us to build the kingdom of God here in Delray Beach and beyond.
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RyanThis past week, Rev. Kathleen and I joined Bishop Eaton and clergy from across our Diocese of Southeast Florida at our annual Clergy Conference. We engaged in lively discussions about the mission and vision of our diocese, and considered new, emergent patterns of ministry. Our many ministries here at St.
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RyanI’m happy to share with you that the final, complete version of our Vision 2020 St. Paul’s Strategic Plan is now available! As you may recall, we “rolled out” the Plan in May with discussions after each service. Since then, we have begun the implementation process. The implementation of the Plan is a call that we all share.
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RyanI want to thank everyone for your generous response to last week’s Hurricane Irma relief appeal. To date, we have collected $4,622 in cash donations, $675 worth of Home Depot gift cards, and lots of critically needed items. As we continue to collect cash donations (checks may be made out to St.
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RyanAfter a couple of very stressful, and often chaotic, weeks, things seem to be coming back to some semblance of normalcy for us here in south Palm Beach County. As we know, that is not the case with many other communities, including communities in our own diocese.
One area that was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Irma is the Keys.
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RyanWith the coming of Hurricane Irma this past week, we once again were reminded of how powerful nature can be and of how vulnerable we are. Some of us chose to stay here in south Florida to ride the storm out, some of chose to evacuate to a safer place,
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RyanAs we witness the devastation that Hurricane Harvey has brought to the people of Texas and Louisiana, we are called to respond with generosity and compassion. Any natural disaster like this has three stages: rescue, relief, and recovery. First responders and military personnel have been focused on saving lives and getting people out of harm’s way.
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Did you know that 22.5% of children in Palm Beach County are food insecure? That means that 60,340 children go to bed hungry in our community. Did you know that 14.7% of all people in our county are food insecure? That means that 199,460 people in our community do not know where they will get their next meal.
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At a time when white supremacists are still assembling to foment hate and division, when terrorists who have perverted the message of Islam are still perpetrating death and destruction, advocating tolerance seems like a necessary starting place for restoring respect and civility to the public square. But how do we,
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Believe it or not, this Monday, our Day School begins its 54th year of providing quality education in a loving, Christian atmosphere! Please pray for Liz Ryan, our Day School director, and our teachers: Grace Aho, Morgan Miller, and Kathy Yates, as we begin the 2017-18 school year. We have 34 children enrolled this year!
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Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. This special feast day invites us to embrace anew the divine gift of Jesus Christ, revealed to Peter, James, and John as the Son of God, the Chosen Messiah. Jesus, in his transfigured glory, appears with Moses and Elijah.
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Believe it or not, it is the last weekend of July, which means the new school year starts in two weeks! Our Children, Youth, and Family Advisory Council met this past week and we are excited about the new school year for Church School and Youth Group. In the Acts of St.
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It is wonderful to be back after two weeks of vacation. Irene and I spent a week in southern California helping to move our daughter Ingrid into her new home in Anaheim. We enjoyed many special family moments, and now Irene and I are adjusting to the bittersweet reality of our “nest” no longer including Ingrid.
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Happy Independence Day! This long four-day weekend, as we celebrate our independence, is a great opportunity to count our blessings as citizens of the United States. We often think of freedom as “freedom from…”, yet the blessings of freedom are perhaps most powerfully exercised in terms of “freedom to…”. In this country,
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Congratulations to us! This past week, Delray Beach was selected for the prestigious “All-America City” award by the National Civic League. This is the third year (previously 1993 and 2001) that our city has received this distinction! This follows being named a “Pacesetter Community” by the nationally distinguished Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.
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Today, we honor and celebrate the men in our lives who have nurtured and nourished us. At our services this weekend, we will ask God’s blessing on the special men of our parish and we will prayerfully remember those dads who have gone on to the larger life of heaven.
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Today, we have many reasons to celebrate! We join the Church throughout the world in celebrating Trinity Sunday. This foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, one God in three persons, reminds us that we worship and walk with a God who is constantly creating, redeeming, and sanctifying us.
We also continue to celebrate the arrival of Dr.
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Today, as we observe Memorial Day weekend, we prayerfully remember the women and men who died in service to our country. As we were painfully reminded once again this week with the dreadful bombing in Manchester, England, we live in a world in which far too many people turn to violence and terror as a means of imposing their own personal worldview on the global community.
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This weekend the secular calendar moves from March to April. For sports fans like me, that means its time to enjoy the thrill of the college basketball finals and the excitement of baseball’s Opening Day!
Meanwhile, our Church calendar welcomes us into the Fifth Sunday of Lent. As we continue our journey of Lent,
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Today we bid a grateful farewell to Dr. Keith Paulson-Thorp, who has served as our Director of Music Ministry for more than 10 years. As Keith enters into his well-deserved retirement, our prayers and best wishes go with him and Marshall. We will have two festive farewells for Keith this weekend,
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This Third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday to rejoice. As you contemplate the various causes for rejoicing in your own life, one that we share in common is the infinite love our Creator has for each one of us, a love that overflows with grace and mercy.
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One of the great joys of Advent is that it is a time of new beginnings. As we begin the new liturgical year, the Church invites us to repent and, with God’s grace, turn our lives once again toward God. Where our lives have been broken by sin, Advent is a season that encourages us to seek reconciliation…with God,
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Happy New Year! Today we begin our new liturgical year with the celebration of the First Sunday of Advent. Advent is a sacred season in which we prepare for the coming of Christ in three distinct ways: remembering Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, anticipating Christ’s triumphant return at the end of time,
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Today we celebrate Day School Sunday. This precious ministry has been a part of the fabric of St. Paul’s since 1963. Our Day School is a loving place where our three and four year-old children are nurtured and taught some of life’s most important lessons, like “God loves you” and “kindness matters.”
We will be blessed at our 10 am service to hear the joyful sound of our Day School children singing!
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This Sunday is Social Media Sunday. Today reminds us that as baptized Christians we are called to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world around us. Social media, used responsibly, is a wonderful way to connect with others and to share the joy of your faith!
Today we also welcome five children into the Church through the life-giving waters of baptism.
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This Sunday is Choir Recognition Day at St. Paul’s. Under the direction of our incredible Director of Music Ministries, Dr. Keith Paulson-Thorp, the members of our choir bless us by ministering to us with the gift of voice. Today is an opportunity for us to ask God’s blessing on Dr.
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