Our Church has agreed to the five marks of Anglican Mission:

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers

3. To respond to human need by loving service

4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society

5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

I want to thank Coral, Fr. John Morrison and everyone that filled in for me at church these past couple of weeks for my vacation. I am deeply thankful for the dedication and service of all our parishioners that take the mission of the church seriously and passionately follow Jesus Christ. The mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other. At St. John’s our mission is to know Christ and make him known.

After two weeks of sailing, golfing, and relaxing on Long Island and celebrating at the wedding of my son Andrew and his wife Pauline, I am excited to continue the mission of the church with focus and passion. I think it is good to reflect on our purpose before starting another church season at St. John’s. I hope each of you have relaxed and enjoyed this beautiful island that we live on this summer! My goal in the next few weeks is to get you focused back on being followers of Jesus Christ and carrying out the mission of the church.

Our first priority is to love God. That requires us to get our families back into the practice of worshiping on Sundays and praying to God on a daily basis. In today’s collect we pray, “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.” God reaches out to us at all times that we may love God with our whole heart, soul and mind. When we turn back to God our next priority is to love our neighbor. I noticed during my vacation that there is a lot of anger in the world today. People shooting each other and blowing each other up is just the tip of the iceberg. Many people in the world are just not nice to their neighbor. In this week’s Gospel from Luke Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” I think we should all consider a ministry at St. John’s that provides loving service to our neighbor. Our biggest event of the year for this is our Harvest Fair and I would like 100% participation this year. Join our ECW in making this year’s event on October 26th another fabulous success. The money we raise will help our neighbors, but more than that will bind us together in our mission to make our community a better place.

Sunday school starts again on September 8th and we could use at least one new teacher. Please contact me if you are interested in assisting Barb Burns in the pre-K class. Please bring your families to the Canterbury Corner at 9:40am on September 8th for registration and a fun family project.

Deacon Anthony will be ordained to the priesthood on Sunday September 14th at 11:00 am at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. Please keep Deacon Anthony in your prayers as he continues to prepare for the priesthood.

In Christ's Love,

Fr. Duncan