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St. Stephen's Episcopal Church

215 N. 7th, Terre Haute, Indiana

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What’s an Annual Meeting?

Living, The Rector's Blog · January 23, 2017

What’s an Annual Meeting?

Aside from the obvious, of course.

Most churches have parish-wide meetings. St. Stephen’s is no exception. We have one annually at the beginning of the calendar year to do the most basic business of the church.

  1. We give reports of the year that was.
  2. We preview the year to come.
  3. We elect some new leadership.

It’s a ritual which brings with it a sense of obligation and expectation.

For many, these obligations and expectations come in the form of certain specifics: the economic performance of the church, its investments, and its leadership.

For others, it is the election of one-third of our vestry (our governing body) to three-year terms.

Still others are more focused on the vision, hoping to hear where we are going in the next year.

And among all these groups are people who just want to get it over with. To be totally honest, I can be one of those people.

But do you know what’s missing from these expectations?

Purpose.

Why we get together. Why it’s important to take on our fiduciary responsibilities and care about our leadership and focus. Without purpose, we’re not likely to value the meeting or our church’s mission at all. We’ll worry more about balance sheets than the ministries we create.

Like teachers who don’t love education or lawyers who don’t love the law, Christians who don’t love the missio dei  (mission of God) aren’t likely to be effective or yield results. Or demonstrate much love for Christ at all.

Our annual meeting isn’t simply an opportunity to get together, do our business, and go home without any focus or direction toward the very love of God and our call to share it with the world. This is the purpose of our gathering.

It’s our chance to get together and see how we’re doing against that mission. To look ahead at this year and see how we might be called to better embody that mission. And make sure we have the leaders best equipped to guide us on that mission.

Our vestry begins each meeting with a time of learning and ends each meeting with a homework assignment. Because leadership begins with ongoing discernment. And it’s maintained by a constant focus on the purpose, not just the particulars.

Grace and Peace,
Drew+

Filed Under: Living, The Rector's Blog Tagged With: annual meeting, missio dei, mission

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CONTACT

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
215 N. 7th St
Terre Haute, IN 47807

812-232-5165

officeadmin@ststephensth.org

ABOUT

St. Stephen’s is a sacramental community following Jesus’s Way of Love.

We worship on Sundays at 8 & 10.

AFFILIATIONS

St. Stephen’s is a member of The Episcopal Church and congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis.

St. Stephen’s is a member of the Wabash Valley Homeless Coalition

PARKING

St. Stephen’s is across from Indiana State University. Nearby parking lots are run by ISU and are free after 5pm weekdays and are free all weekend long. 

Five marked spots in the lot directly behind the church are available during the week.

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