This Week from Mitch

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope and pray that you are well. This week at St. Martin's has been an amazing week filled with prayer, dreaming, and planning for the upcoming program calendar. It has been both difficult and exciting work. This last program year has been our first year post-COVID where we attempted to do a full program schedule. During this year we also celebrated 13 baptisms, 6 marriages, 2 ordinations, and 6 funerals. In addition to their wonderful year-long formation, our youth group completed a successful mission trip to New York and an awesome ski trip. These fun events on top of local parish-wide mission projects, feeding ministries, new services done by the Daughters of the King at Atria, weekly communion visitations, renovations, and campus-wide improvements made this past program year feel both full and busy. In many cases, the work of last year felt like the work of restarting. Isaac Newton was right, objects at rest stay at rest, and objects in motion stay in motion. Restarting ministries took a huge push, and I am grateful for your time and energy. This past year's success was truly a community effort and accomplishment.

This year one of our goals is to keep the momentum going, while also focusing on areas of growth and opportunity. We are committed to the work of strengthening our children's ministries. Lay volunteers have been meeting with Alex, planning, and working toward this goal. We are also working to honor our beloved English Morris as he approaches retirement. His ministry has left an imprint on St. Martins. He has brought beauty, love, and passion to every worship service he has played. As the month goes on, I look forward to sharing more and more with you. By September 10th I plan to share a full calendar year of programming. This will allow families to make plans and dates to be saved. In the meantime, there is work to do.

This week we could still use a couple more volunteers for tonight's safe space dinner. If interested please contact Dannie Smith or Duane Dunn.

Also, Caitlyn and Scott need your help. Let's get together and move them from their rental into their new Columbia home! If you can help it will be greatly appreciated. Please contact Caitlyn if you can volunteer. Caitlyn and Scott have committed to be here in Columbia, let's help them make their new house a home.

It's an exciting time at St. Martin's. I look forward to the blessing of our teachers and students this week, blessing our backpacks, and sharing a snowball with everyone after the service. It's going to be a lot of fun. 

In Christ,

Mitch