and what structures already exist to move people and what things we need to build.  I am so thankful for this team.  It is just so right that we are giving lots of energy to this particular topic at this particular time:  helping people become conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others is the very center of why Restoration exists.  Everything else–  staff, buildings, programs–  exist to that end. Patrick and Ceci Kelly”]The end for Patrick is very near.  Many of us have made almost daily trips this week to NIH to see him.  His breathing is more shallow and at times more labored.  The veil grows thin between earth and heaven.  There will soon be an opportunity to celebrate his life and our unswerving hope in the resurrection.  I’ll let you know as those details emerge.

Jumping In To Outreach

Saturday there will be a gathering of folks who want to pray, lead, and facilitate our outreach opportunities at Restoration.  It is at the home of Liz and Simon Gray.  You can email Liz for more information.  I believe that God uses the risks we take in sharing our faith and serving the poor to conform us to the image of Christ.  In fact, those risks might be the most catalyzing thing we can do for our spiritual growth (especially if you are feeling stalled out, plateaued and blah about God).  This is an easy next step–  and you get fed!  I guarantee you’ll laugh.  Awesome group of people.

How was your week?  

See you on Sunday.

-David

Yesterday we concluded our vestry election for 2011.  Our new elders are:  Santiago Sedaca and George Patterson.  Cindy Darnell was also elected to a full 3 year term after serving as the interim for Mary Vinson.  I thank God for Santiago, George, and Cindy.  They are wise, Godly, and full of ideas!  I encourage you to get to know them– have them over for dinner, grab coffee.  The folks on the vestry are fantastic people.  Take some time to ask them what they love about our church and why they serve it with such enthusiasm.

We have also created a new position at Restoration:  “The Seminarian”.   The position is open to a current seminary student who has been approved for ordination in the ACNA and is serving at Restoration for on-the-job training as a preparation for active ministry in the local church.

This person will be an active member of the Restoration staff team, tasked to one or two areas of ministry, and be given opportunities to lead liturgically and preach.  Restoration will provide compensation in the form of 20% of their seminary costs during the time they are serving.

My desire is that Restoration will be a place for people to develop their gifts for ministry.  We have several people who have felt called to lead in the church and we take seriously our role to prepare them.

I am thrilled to announce that Liz Gray will be serving as our first seminarian!  She has been through Restoration’s discernment process and is currently a student at Nashotah House.  She is under the care of Bishop John Guernsey and anticipating ordination to the transitional diaconate in the summer of 2012.  Liz will focus on 2 areas during her seminarian year:  outreach and prayer.  Our hope is that she will come alongside a team of people who will continue to push us forward in both of these areas.  Liz is a gifted, prayerful leader and I am so excited to have this season to both intentionally develop her and for her to intentionally serve the church.  She will preach on January 1!!

Please continue to pray for our search for a 3rd clergy.  We hope to have a longer update on the process in December.  For now, please pray!

As we head into a week of thanksgiving.  I am so thankful for the people who serve in our church.  Thanks be to God!

-David

I’m here for the next couple of days for the first meeting of my Lewis Fellows cohort. The Lewis Fellows program brings together young clergy (under 35) who have already been serving a congregation for a couple of years, with the aim of developing leadership skills. Already, I’m so enjoying spending time with these colleagues from around the country and from a mix of denominations. Our ministry contexts vary greatly, but we share a lot of the same joys and challenges in our ministry. I’m really looking forward to learning with and from these folks over the next year. I’m grateful to the Lily Endowment, which makes this program free for all of us and our congregations, and for you all for giving me the study leave to be able to do things like this!

I had a great time worshiping with you all on Sunday.  I’m having so much fun working through Esther. It’s really encouraging to hear how many of you really resonate with this story, and I especially love hearing the ways you’re seeing God’s fingerprints in your lives right now, or discerning what that unique position is that God has placed you in to be part of his Kingdom-building work.  God is doing amazing stuff in and through you all; it’s an honor to get to be witness to it.

And it was great to have our own Lucas Koach as worship leader and celebrant on Sunday! The next two weeks we’ll have the chance to be led by two other gifted leaders in our congregation, the Rev. Julie Cate Kelly and Jesse Blaine. It’s amazing to me how richly blessed we are as a congregation with leaders of all kinds, and it’s a real treat to get to be led by them and benefit from their great gifts!

I’m eager to see you again on Sunday. Til then… stay cool!

- Erin

I wanted to make sure I told you about our vestry meeting last Tuesday.  We approved our budget for Fiscal Year 2012!! It goes into effect on September 1.  If you’ve been attentive over the last 6 months, you know that Restoration has been laboring to pray, listen, and discern ‘what’s next’.  We feel this budget funds the vision to which God is calling us and we’ll tell you all about it and give you a chance to ask questions at our parish meeting on September 27.  This budget will help us make disciples, here are some highlights:

• We budgeted money to pay for a modular unit that will go in our backyard.  Kathy K. has begun the (probably slow) permitting process with the county.  We hope to have it in place by September 11 when the fall programming kicks off. We also set aside money to fund research into more significant building changes.
• We created a new leadership position on our staff team.  We are receiving resumes and creating a hire team that will interview applicants.  We hope to have this person on-site in early 2012. One of the things I like about this budget is that we included some faith goals.  If our income is at a certain level this fall, there is an opportunity for us to hire a second staff person who might focus exclusively on our youth.  We’ll see what God does.
• The budget is a careful, disciplined, faith-full stretch.  It acknowledges the growth we have experienced while being prudent about the current economy and the growth limits our facility may place on us in the near future.  It comes in just over $800k. I am so thankful for the long hours and loving work that our finance team gave to this effort.  They have served us all so well.  Again, I look forward to our treasurer walking you through it and answering your questions on September 27.

Other highlights:

• We are starting to receive proposals for our seed fund!  People are thinking creatively about how they might build a relationship with their neighbor and Restoration is paying for it. One guy is handing out breakfast burritos!  Another group is using the grant to build momentum for an ESOL program here in Arlington.  The seed fund is a brilliant idea–  cause you guys are so smart and creative.  Go for it!
• You might have heard by now that our beloved Ken and Mary Vinson are moving to VA Beach this fall. Ken’s company was awarded a contract with the Navy–  but he comes with the package.  Ken and Mary have been gifted, tireless, stalwart pillars of service to Restoration.  They were on the original servant team back in 2008.  Mary has served as a warden and also directed our personnel team.  ’Grateful’ just barely begins to describe how I feel.  Because of the move, Mary resigned from our vestry last month. In our bylaws, if someone is not able to finish their vestry term, we have an alternate who steps in for that person.  The alternate is the person who finished ’4th’ in the most recent vestry election.  That was Cindy Darnell. In God’s foresight, Cindy had already joined our personnel team this year.  Consequently, she was able to both take Mary’s spot on vestry AND move into a facilitator role on the personnel team.  God is good.  The transition has been smooth.
• One more…  Restoration is served by 4 ‘Advisory Teams’: personnel, finance, outreach, and facility.  These teams have no governance power, but they serve the church by making recommendations to the vestry on policy and action.  These teams are a HUGE gift.  Folks serve on these teams for 3 years with a third of the team rolling off each year.  If you are interested in serving this way, feel free to contact the team facilitator or staff liaison. Most of them will be adding new folks this fall.  Here is the facilitator:
  • Personnel:  Cindy Darnell
  • Outreach:  Mitch Wallin
  • Finance:  Jan Ryerson
  • Facility:  Kathy Kenyon (team is forming, Kathy is staff liaison)

Thanks for reading this far.  I love being the Rector of this church.

Because I love the people with whom I get to serve, pastor, and partner in leadership.

Because I love Jesus and the way He is worshiped, proclaimed, and followed when we get together.

I’ll miss ya.  See you in August.

-David

Generosity means you go first. Matthew 5.43 is one of the most challenging things that Jesus said:  ”For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  [everyone does that!”  Generous people lead the way.  Generous people take initiative.  They love before they are loved.  They forgive before they are forgiven.  They are kind first.  Being generous involves risk.  It means we don’t just respond.  Generosity means that you put it out there–  even if it might get rejected or wasted or unappreciated.

New to Restoration. I am looking forward to dinner in a couple of hours with people who are new to the church.  I love getting to tell our story–  and getting to hear yours!  God never intended us to follow Jesus all alone.  He put us into communities to live life together.  Everyone should be a member of a church.  Excited to talk with these folks about ours!

We are hiring a new Youth Director.  Right now our youth demographic tilts heavily towards the middle school years, but we have a growing number of High School kids as well.  Plus we are the closest church to Washington-Lee High School.  We are seeking a full-time person to join our staff team and love, teach, and disciple our students.   Is this your passion?  Do you know someone who wants to invest in kids?  We would love to talk with you.  Send an email to Mary Vinson to inquire about the job.

Have a great week.  May God give you lots of chances to be generous…

-David

Laurel and I finally watched The King’s Speech last night.  Totally worth the wait.  Geoffrey Rush was ‘sublime’.  I loved his suits.  Loved the way he would stand kind of off-kilter as the camera faded.  Loved his demand for equality and friendship.  Loved his confidence.

It was actually the perfect movie for me to watch after preaching on Making Disciples.

Geoffrey Rush is an example par excellence of disciple-making:  he invests all that he knows and has experienced into the King.  He multiplies the fruit of his own labor into the life of someone else.  Rush knew WHAT he could do for the King and he knew HOW to bring transformation in the King.  Rush was faithful.  He was present.  He was available (but on his own terms–  ’my house, my rules’).

To be honest, we would all love to have a Geoffrey Rush in our lives–  what an incredible gift to have someone who is contending for you and able to bring growth and change to your life.  I am thankful that I have a few Geoffrey Rush’s in mine.  I also have the privilege of being a Geoffrey Rush to others.  I love coming alongside folks and cheering them on.  You can too. Into whom are you pouring your life?  Don’t miss out!

Kathy Kenyon has just been hired as our new part-time Parish Administrator.  She will be managing our facility and managing the suite of partners who take care of finances, payroll and benefits.  She brings to the job a wealth of experience in real estate and office management.  Most recently she was working for a local builder as the liaison between clients and the contractor.  Those skills of listening and implementation will serve Restoration GREATLY in the coming months.  I am so thrilled to have her on the team.

The Hankes got their residential permits on Monday. Thanks for praying.  We literally no longer have a roof over our heads.  Excited to see this thing go!!

Andrew Thompson, our APEX coordinator and chairman of fun, was recently accepted into a post-baccalaureate program at VCU in Richmond.  Andrew feels called to be a physician and this program is the next step in his pursuit of matriculation at medical school.  I am so happy for him!  And so bummed for Restoration!  Andrew will be moving to part-time on July 1 and then leaving our staff team on August 1.  Over the next couple of months he will be finishing the school year with our APEX ministry and then coordinating various social and outreach activities for the church in July.  Andrew has been a great gift to our team.  I am going to miss him a lot.  We hope to have a new director of youth ministry in place by September 1.

Vestry is meeting tonight to synthesize what we have been hearing during this season of prayer and discernment called The Next Chapter at Restoration. Next Tuesday, May 24th, we will have a significant parish meeting to talk about what we think the Lord is calling us to next.  If your calendar is free, I hope you will be with us on May 24 at 7:30pm.

This is an exciting time at Restoration.  We are trying to faithfully move forward one step at a time.

Keep praying.

The way is becoming more clear.

Stott is a theologian who acts like an evangelist.  He lives on the other side of complexity and invites us to worship our Maker there.  Stott explains fundamental truths in a way that expands our trust and love of God.  His gift is clarity.

Peterson sees Christ in everything.  Perhaps I could say he’s a monk who lives like a statesman.  A public figure with a deep, deep interior life.  He makes God so big, yet treats Him like He is right there.  Peterson lives and writes about life that is SO interesting because God is in all things.  His gift is vision.

In the past 6 months 2 books have come out about their lives.

I am almost done with this biography of Stott, Basic Christian.  Its strength is in its subject, not in its author.  I have grown in my appreciation of how hard Stott worked.  Writing and preaching and leading are hard–  nobody gets around that.  Stott labored and labored to make things clear.

I can’t wait to start the memoirs of Peterson, The Pastor.  I can see from the chapter titles that a lot of the stories have come out in other books, but I can’t wait to spend some long hours reading them all at once.

I am always encouraged by the stories of the faithful.  Maybe one of these books will encourage you too.

Mitch Wallin

Jan Ryerson

Ray Blunt

Krista Obitts

Thank you for stepping up to serve and lead our community.  I am thankful for you.

And as a reminder, here are the 5 members who will continue in the year to come…

Logan Breed

Tom Downie

Anthony Swisher

Mary Vinson

Cameron Doolittle

Thank you God for such a great leadership team!

We had a great vestry meeting on Tuesday.  I wanted to share with you the highlights:

• I reported some Fun Numbers:  47 people came to our New Member Dinner last month, 5 babies were baptized, and our average Sunday attendance since the fall retreat has shot up to 343 (adults and kids).
• We approved 5 new policies to govern our life together–  conflict of interest, sexual harassment, child safety, a finance manual, and a statement of faith (currently the Jerusalem Declaration from GAFCON).
• The personnel team reported the great news that we have hired Ramsey Wilson as our part-time Parish Administrator (a combination of the office manager and facility manager roles that were approved in October).  The Parish Administrator will provide staff oversight in five critical areas:  finance, facility, HR, legal and insurance, and managing the office.  We also have great volunteers and vestry members that are involved in each of these areas.
• Taking this position obligated Ramsey to resign from the vestry.  So in our current election, you will notice that the ballot instructs you to vote for 4 candidates.  In addition to Ramsey, Anne Cregger Patterson, Sarah Blaine, and Elizabeth Boesen are all rolling off.
• We are encouraged by our financial status.  Dec 1 marks our first mortgage payment on the building.
• In Outreach, we approved financial support to Cindy Darnell for a mission trip to Kenya, Andrew Thompson for a medical mission trip to Uganda, and Dade Dowdle for a water well drilling project in Mozambique.  We also decided to financially support Jesse Blaine in his full-time work with World Orphans.  We are proud of the continued excitement and creativity from many at Restoration to serve those outside our community.
• Finally, the vestry brought reflections on Restoration’s current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  This SWOT analysis will inform and prepare us for the planning and visioneering we will do at our vestry retreat in January.

God is good.

1. We talked about the Constitutional Convention for our new diocese in the Anglican Church of North America which will take place on May 21-22, 2011. Our vestry will have the opportunity to participate in the creation of canons and God willing, we will elect our new bishop in May!
2. Small Groups are going VERY well.  We have around 65% of adults who attend worship on a Sunday morning also attending a small group later that week.  This is very encouraging to us.
3. We approved 2 new staff positions:  Now that we have closed on our building, we would like to hire a very part time facility manager who will be the person you call with any facility issues.  We also need a part time Office Manager with HR and Financial Management skills.  The Falls Church has generously provided these services to us for the last 2 years.  We will need to take them over by the end of the calendar year.
4. Just to let you know–  we were blessed with a very good inspection report on the property.  There were no surprises.  The vestry approved $25,ooo to renovate the current kitchen, to replace the exterior stair case, to replace the external doors to make the building more secure, to paint the interior, and to landscape the exterior.  These minor changes will allow us to move our staff offices in to the facility some time in the next month.

This is a great team.  I am grateful to work in such close partnership with them.  Please pray for our vestry elections that will occur on Nov 15!