April 2012

The profile committee has remained active over the

past month and 2 very important milestones have been

reached. A parish survey was completed, and congre-

gational discernment meetings were conducted. These

activities conclude an important part of the Profile

Committee’s work, allowing the committee to shift its

focus from data collection to analysis and presentation.

The Parish Survey was conducted primarily on line,

although some parishioners completed the survey in a

paper format. In the end, 100 surveys were completed

by the deadline and became part of the final data set.

A few key points are worth highlighting here. First,

the survey responses indicate that while we are not all

of a single mind, there is a great deal of commonality

in the thinking of the members who responded. The

survey also shows that as a community, we are over-

whelmingly satisfied with worship services at St.

Mary’s. Speaking in very broad terms, the survey indi-

cates that the congregation enjoys services that closely

follow the Book of Common Prayer, and would prefer

to see services continue in a similar fashion. The sur-

vey responses also suggest that most persons who re-

sponded are non-literal in their interpretation of the

bible. Overall, there is a tendency toward a slightly lib-

April 2012

Profile Committee Update

Profile Committee

Update

1

Tuesday Morning

Bible Study

3

Love INC Needs

You!

3

Thank You Letters 4

Vacation Bible

School

5

Memorial Card 6

PUSH 7

2012 CROP Walk 9

Birds of the Bible 10

Inside this issue:

Glad

Tidings

Holy Week Services:

Maundy Thursday

April 5 at 7:00pm

Good Friday April 6

at 7:00pm

Easter Vigil April 7

at 7:00pm

eral social perspective, but there is not a desire for social activism in the

pulpit. While life in the church and life out of the church are intricately

connected, there are clearly some parts of the world that respondents do

not want to intrude too far into our worship. Finally, responses on the

survey indicate that outreach is very important to us, both outreach to

those in spiritual need and those in economic or physical need. While

proud of what we do, many people would like to see us engage in even

more outreach.

The Profile Committee also coordinated two discernment meetings. A

total of about 45 individuals from young teens on up attended the meet-

ings. Immediate feedback suggested that participants found the meetings

enjoyable and appreciated the opportunity to discuss St. Mary’s and pro-

vide input. Activities focused on identifying strengths and opportunities

within the church, future goals, and desired characteristics in a new rec-

tor. Referring to strengths, many people focused on the caring, family-like

atmosphere of our church. This theme was verbalized often but also was

experienced by those in attendance who enjoyed the fellowship this time

provided. Opportunities were identified as well and in the coming months

efforts will need to be made to address specific items that we have control

over.

Having completed these activities, the Profile Committee will focus on

completing two important documents. The first of these is the Office of

Transition Ministry Community Profile Report. This report will be used to

list St. Mary’s in the Hills in a national database announcing our opening.

Individuals seeking a position will be able to access this report to deter-

mine if their desires match specific characteristics of our parish. The se-

cond document is a profile report that will be placed on line that provides

a more detailed look at St. Mary’s including information about our

grounds, community, parishioners, finances, and needs. This report will

be accessed by individuals who have identified St. Mary’s as a possible em-

ployer through the national database and who want additional infor-

mation.

PAGE 2 GLAD TIDINGS APRIL 2012

St. Mary’s deserves to feel proud of the work that has been done to

date. Participation in the survey and the discernment meetings was

strong and shows the level of support that the church enjoys. Next steps

include initial meetings of the Search Committee and in the near future, a

hand-off as the Profile Committee meets with the Search Committee to

hand over the reins to the process. Everyone is invited to stay current on

these activities by going online to http://www.stmarysinthehills.org/about-

st-marys/parish-transition-news. Here you will find more information

about the results of the survey, results of the discernment meetings, and

copies of the reports produced by the Profile Committee when completed.

Tuesday Morning

Bible Study

Love INC is in need of a Church

Ministry Coordinator to represent

St. Mary's. This person would be

responsible for promoting Love

INC at St Mary's, making sure

that Love INC events are publi-

cized and encouraging parishion-

ers to participate by volunteering

and attending Love INC fundrais-

ers. Pastor Chris performed this

function for a time. It is now being

performed by Janice, but is not a

task that she needs to undertake

at this time. Anyone interested

may speak to me for further info,

or call the Love INC office. Bobbi

Patton 248.628.4428 or office

248.693.4357.

Each week we meet at church on

Tuesday mornings from 10-

noon. Currently we are really

learning much from the program

by Adam Hamilton, 24 Hours That

Changed the World, for our Lenten

study - Jesus's last hours on earth.

Our next program will begin after

Lent and will be a study of the

Book of Jeremiah - Surviving Dis-

asters, by Reed Lessing. The study

book is $5. If anyone is interested

in joining this particular study

session, please let Sue Sanna (248-

391-0909 or [email protected])

immediately, so that a study book

can be ordered for you. We would

love for you to join us! Coffee and

tea provided.

PAGE 3 GLAD TIDINGS

Love INC Needs

You!

APRIL 2012

http://www.stmarysinthehills.org/about-st-marys/parish-transition-news

http://www.stmarysinthehills.org/about-st-marys/parish-transition-news

mailto:[email protected]

Thank You Letters St. Mary’s received the following thank you letter from Robert W. Radtke,

President of Episcopal Relief & Development. This donation was half of

the Christmas offering.

Thank you for your generous contribution of $937.00 to Episcopal Relief &

Development. Your gift was designated for the Global Needs Fund, which

allows us direct help where it is needed the most. All of our programs ad-

dress one or more of the Millennium Development Goals, fighting poverty

and disease worldwide.

Through your generosity, lives are saved and communities are trans-

formed. We work in partnership with the worldwide Church and those we

serve, to eliminate poverty and ensure that all people can live with digni-

ty. In Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, we are supporting

local programs that alleviate hunger, promote health, create economic op-

portunities and respond to disasters.

Episcopal Relief & Development works with more than 3 million people in

over 40 countries. We are helping to ensure that families have access to a

stable, long-term food supply. Our programs also prevent disease through

education, vaccinations and mosquito nets, lift up women through micro-

finance opportunities and help rehabilitate communities after disas-

ter. We couldn’t do this important work without your compassionate sup-

port.

To learn more about our programs, please visit www.er-d.org. In partner-

ship, we are healing a hurting world.

The following thank you letter was received from Anne K. Lynn, Executive

Director of American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem

(AFEDJ). This donation was from the advent mite boxes.

Thank you for your generous and important gift to AFEDJ. We’re deeply

grateful for your commitment to the important work of the Diocese of Je-


http://www.er-d.org

rusalem. Their effort to provide teaching and healing to all who ask is a

model for reconciliation in a volatile region. Your support in the amount

of $121.83 for the Children’s Fund will provide both material support to a

needy people and a sense of real hope.

Our most recent visit to the West Bank and Jordan reaffirmed the urgent

need to stabilize and grow the small Christian population in the re-

gion. We saw school libraries with bare shelves, blind children with no

way to get to our schools, preventable premature births and a level of des-

pair among unemployed heads of household that’s difficult to de-

scribe. We need to help these faithful stewards of today’s Holy Land.

An educated, healthy community can provide for itself and flour-

ish. That’s our mission. Visit our website at afedj.org to get updates on

AFEDJ’s work. We are deeply grateful to each and every donor at St.

Mary’s.


Another wonderful Vacation Bible

School program is in the works at

St. Mary's. This summer's program

will once again be in the evening

and it will run from June 25th-

29th. The program is entitled Oper-

ation Overboard, a deep sea diving

theme. Teens and adults interested

in helping with the program are in-

vited to attend a short meeting on

Sunday, March 25th immediately

following the 10:00 service. Ques-

tions? Contact Stacy Tines

Vacation Bible School

By the grace of God, Evan Toll has

returned from military tours is Af-

ghanistan, Iraq and West Africa.

He is safe and sound, and released

from active duty from the Navy.

Thank you for all of your prayers.

The Shultz/Toll Family

Evan Toll Returns

Several people at church have asked me where we found the butterfly

thank you card with the plant-able forget-me-not seeds, which we used as

thank you notes for after my mother’s memorial service. Many wanted to

have the address, as they thought this might be something they could use

in the future, either for their own funeral, or some loved one’s funeral.

My sister Mary Beth and I had several evenings of long distance phone

conversations (she’s in Bend, Oregon) and lots of emails, many with links

to what we had found. Since our mother was being cremated, and since

the two memorial services (Michigan and California) were some weeks af-

ter her death, we had time to look for service bulletins, notification post-

card of the memorial service, memorial cards, urns, and thank you notes

that would remind us of our mother. We wanted:

· Stars for the Eskimo proverb her oldest granddaughter posted on

her Facebook: “Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven

where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to

let us know they are happy”. We used this in the notification postcard.

· Sunset and beach for California. We used this in the urn and the

service bulletin.

· Rainbows for the crystals she had in her windows, which turned

her kitchen into a rainbow room, so we found memorial cards.

· Butterflies, as she always likes the image of being transformed in-

to something beautiful, either after hardships in life, or after death. We

found the plant-able thank you cards with the butterfly.

The butterfly thank you cards were from a company called Botanical Pa-

perworks. http://www.botanicalpaperworks.com/ They have all sorts of

cards for weddings, memorial, graduations, birthdays, etc. In the memori-

al collection, there were cards with butterflies, crosses, angels, hearts, as


Memorial Card by Peggy Wenk

http://www.botanicalpaperworks.com/

PUSH – PRAY UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENS

“NO” is sometimes the answer we

get from God. Whether we like it or

not, God is “parent” enough to

make the hard decisions in our life,

the equivalent of “No, you can’t

have the candy bar . . . no, you can’t

start dating at 12 . . . no, you can’t

go to the game because you are still

grounded.”

But I got wondering about the first

word. PUSH. It’s an action verb,

involving movement. Maybe, be-

sides just praying, maybe WE also

need to physically be involved in

On a church sign by my home, it

reads “PUSH – Pray Until Some-

thing Happens”. My first image

was of a little kid near the check-

out, with a candy bar or little toy,

incessantly whining “Can I have it?

Can I? Can I? Can I? . . . “ The goal

is to wear the parent down, until

they give it and let the kid have it.

So are we to incessantly pray “Can

I, can I, can I, . . . “? First of all, I

don’t think God wears down, so it’s

not going to help. All the ministers

I’ve ever heard have also said that


well as cats and dogs. There were also memorial bookmarks. The seed pa-

per shapes come in 15 different colors, and the cards/bookmarks can be

personalized with the person’s name, dates, sayings or poems. Minimum

order was 20, with the cards being $1.25 each, and envelopes, if you want

to buy them from that company, were an extra 28 cents. We ordered over

the internet, the company confirmed the order the next day, and had a

proof the card that we had to approve, and we received the order a couple

of days after that.

Mom had planned out the hymns and readings, and we had time to ar-

range for the cards, etc. So between the pre-planned and the time, it made

the memorial service less stressful. If you like the idea of the seed plant-

able thank you notes for your own funeral, please save a copy of this arti-

cle, or print off a copy of the website, and let your family know.

Lee & Peggy Wenk

our prayer. Maybe God is waiting

to see what WE are going to do to

help Him to help us. Maybe we

need to be involved.

I remember someone telling me

about a person they work with - in

his late 30’s. fairly good paying job,

about 150 pounds overweight, still

lived at home with his mother,

dressed sloppy (all his clothes need-

ed ironing), I think you get the pic-

ture. He wanted a wife. So he

prayed to God every day to send

him a wife. And was disappointed

that God hadn’t sent anyone his

way, after a year of praying every

day. The person telling me this

wanted to know, is God going to

give him a wife? Well, anything is

possible, but I wondered . . . what

was this person doing to help God

find him a wife?

- Was he being a good steward

of the body God gave him? Not be-

ing that overweight.

- Of his mind? No, he went

home and watched TV.

- Was he making himself in-

teresting? No, he never went on va-

cation or did anything to bring up

in a conversation.

- Was he going places where

women were? No, he was at a job

that was mostly men, and then he

went home.

This person needed a PUSH from a

friend, to see that he had a role in

helping God help him. And he

needed to PUSH himself out of his

comfort zone, to start doing the

things needed for God to start help-

ing him.

I think many of us are like that,

asking God for help, but needing a

physical PUSH, from friends and

from ourselves, to start doing the

things God needs us to do, to make

the change so God can start helping

us. If we’re sick, we can pray that

we will get better, but we might

have to physically go to the doctor,

or take some pills, or make some

chicken noodle soup. All of which

God has provided for us, but which

we have to PUSH ourselves out of

bed to take advantage of.

So remember to pray, remember to

listen for the answer, but remem-

ber to PUSH yourself, so God can

work WITH you.

Peggy Wenk


Mark your calendars! The 30th Annual Lake Orion/Oxford Area Crop

Walk is scheduled for Sunday, May 6. It is time to put away snow boots

(even though we didn’t get a chance to use them this winter) and take out

your walking shoes.

CROP (Communities, Responding, Overcome, Poverty) Walk, sponsored

by Church World Service (CWS), raises funds that provide the resources

that sustain life and gives people hope, both here at home and around the

world.

The following are some of the ways the money raised has helped overcome

poverty:

More than two million children worldwide each year suffer severe visual

problems due to lack of Vitamin A. The money raised can help provide

beehives to impoverished families in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In

Gambia, besides selling the honey, the wax from the hives is rolled into

balls and given to the children as “chewing gum.” The wax is rich in Vita-

min A.

In the developing world, a mosquito bite can be deadly. More than 30,000

children die each day from malaria and other preventable diseases. The

money can help purchase insect repellent-treated mosquito nets to protect

more than 200,000 people in malaria infested areas.

Last year alone, enough money was raised to provide lunches for 360,000

school-age children living in refugee camps on the Burmese-Thailand bor-

der.

In Afghanistan, with its poor medical care for women, 1 in 11 mothers die

in childbirth. The money helped to purchase “Safe Birthing Kit”, $35

each, for 15,000 young mothers.


2012 CROP WALK

BIRDS OF THE BIBLE - By Peggy Wenk imagined.

First of all, it appears there are

about 300 verses that mention

birds in the bible. Over a hundred

of these verses use the more gener-

ic terms of bird, fowl, or winged

creature. I’m not certain whether

we are supposed to “know” which

bird the writers were thinking

about, or whether it doesn’t matter.

Second, it appears that the Old

Last issue, I mentioned the eagles

on the top of the American flag

poles in the church. I thought I

would continue with the bird theme

for a while, and see what I could

learn. I thought it would be some-

what easy of a topic, as there are

doves and ravens and sparrow and

quail and cock mentioned in the bi-

ble. As usual, when I started dig-

ging into the topic, it ended up be-

ing more complicated than I ever


Twenty-five percent of all money raised stays in the local community and

will be distributed to Fish and Love INC.

For more information about CWS, visit www.churchworldservice.org.

Last year, 176 walkers helped raised $18,341.51, and out of that total, St.

Mary’s portion was $2,663.77. The Crop Walk’s goal in 2012 is to raise

$20,000. St. Mary’s goal has been set for $2,800.

Please consider walking, strolling, or jogging the 6.2 miles or do the short-

er route that is only 2 miles. If you are unable to walk but would like to

participate, feel free to make a donation or even sponsor one of our walk-

ers. Every little bit helps. It is amazing what a community of churches

can accomplish when we all work together in the name of Christ.

Maxine Henderson (248-393-1906), Erika West (248-894-7154), and Deb

Lunney (248-391-0852) will be leading St. Mary’s in the CROP Walk this

year. If you need further information or to sign up as a walker, please do

not hesitate to contact one of them. Help us meet our goal of $2800!

Testament (OT) writers were more

concerned about birds than the

New Testament (NT) writers. The

OT writers mentioned bird/fowl

over 110 times, while the NT men-

tioned them about 18 times. The

OT mentions some type of dove

about 66 times, while the NT men-

tions them 11 times. Remember, in

the OT, the writers were often just

“listing” what animals

were created, or what

animals went on the

ark, or which animals

could be eaten (or

not), or which ones

could be sacrificed. In

the NT, more often,

the animals were a

symbol used in a sto-

ry.

Next, I found out it

mattered which ver-

sion of the Bible you were reading,

as to which name the bird was

called. If I were to say to you

“imagine an eagle”, probably most

people in the US were conjuring up

the image of a bald eagle. In Israel,

there are about 9 types of birds

whose name includes the word ea-

gle, and not one of them is a bald

eagle. How about if I ask you to de-

scribe what a bittern looked like?

That is a type of wading bird, found

not only in the Middle East, but al-

so in the US and in Michigan. It’s a

brown, sort of striped wading bird,

about 2 feet tall, that likes to hang

out in swamps and marshes by it-

self. Even though it is found in

many places of the world, most peo-

ple have never seen one. Some of

the interpreters of the

Bible will substitute a

more familiar bird,

which can be found

around water, such as

a heron or a stork or a

cormorant, or even a

sea gull or a pelican.

Sometimes the name

used did not refer to

that specific bird. For

example, it appears

that the name

“sparrow” did not always refer to

one type of bird, but rather to any

small, unimportant bird.

In the OT, the birds mentioned

were usually wild or game birds,

and the only domesticated bird at

the time was the dove (turtledove).

In the NT, there were more men-

tion of domesticated birds, such as


ST. MARY’S IN -THE-HILLS

EPISCOPAL CHURCH 2512 Joslyn Ct.

Lake Orion Mi. 48360 (248) 391-0663

stork, or heron. Also bats and fly-

ing insects could not be eaten. Any

other winged creature could be eat-

en. The list of those that could not

be eaten seem to be the birds of

prey (in the Jewish religion, eating

of blood was forbidden), and birds

associated with water (and I can’t

really find a reason for this). Be-

cause sometimes the meaning or

identity of the birds listed in the

bible is not always clear, many peo-

ple just eat the domesticated fowls,

to be on a safe side.

Next issues, I’ll talk about some of

the more specific birds mentioned

in the bible.

the rooster or hen (though this

term may simply apply to the fe-

male of any bird species).

Interestingly, the bat was listed in

the OT as a bird. The distinction of

bird vs. mammal is much newer in

our science history. Also, some-

times the translation of the Hebrew

word that was used could be either

“bird” or “winged creature”. Lev.

11:19, Deut. 14:18, and Isa 2:20.

As mentioned earlier, some of the

birds were classified as “unclean”,

meaning they could not be eaten,

such as: eagle, kite, vulture, hawk,

raven, owls, osprey, cormorant,

Documents

April 2012