Coming up April 27 – May 4: Southeast Mission Area Diocesan Mission Immersion Week
Canon Audra Abt will spend the week in our Southeast Mission Area visiting each faith community to become immersed in your mission and ministry. She wants to celebrate your strengths, gather meaningful stories, and explore challenges and opportunities that we, as a diocese, can address together.
Thursday, May 1 from 3 – 7:30 pm: St. John’s, Youngstown Visit
Canon Audra will visit St. John’s on Thursday May 1 and you are invited to spend some time with her!
- 3 – 4:30: Neighborhood walk and mission mapping exercise. Anyone who wants to take a walk with Canon Audra and introduce her to our neighborhood, meet at the front red doors at 3.
- 5 – 7:30: Open conversation over dinner about joys, challenges, and hopes for mission and ministry. This will be a general conversation but will be guided by a series of questions that will be asked at each congregation. See below.
We would like to have a light potluck-style dinner during our conversations. Please use the sign-up here or use the printed sign-up form on the table on the bridge. If you would like to attend but you’re not sure, please sign up so we can get a rough idea for planning.
This is for everyone, so please come if you can! Sign Up for dinner here: [https://forms.gle/ZhqQZtN61GJUABWd6]
Saturday, May 3 from 9 am – 2:30 pm at St. James, Boardman
The BIG Southeast Mission Area Gathering
The week will culminate in the Big Southeast Mission Area Gathering, where we hope to have 5 or more folks from each congregation come together with your mission area dean to worship, fellowship, learn from one another, and explore opportunities for collaboration. Cost is free, we just ask that you register to help us plan for lunch and snacks.
Any and all who are able are invited to join for fellowship, connection, and sharing among all the congregations in the Southeast Mission area. The day will begin with Holy Eucharist.
Please RSVP for the Big Mission Area Gathering here: [https://form.jotform.com/250915109302044]
Guiding Questions for Thursday’s Conversation
These are provided so you can think about them ahead of time, but you do not need to prepare answers. Canon Audra will be using these same prompts for discussions at each congregation she visits.
- What hymns and spiritual songs do you LOVE to sing?
- What’s energizing and weighing on people in your wider community?
- What’s energizing and weighing on members of your faith community?
- What’s something you’re getting good at because of challenges you’ve faced? (what did you learn or rethink from the pandemic, for example?)
- What do people outside your faith community like to do? What excites them? Where do they gather?
- Who uses your Building or Property (and for what?) Are there maintenance concerns?
- In John 21:1-3 (see passage below), the disciples go fishing because it’s what they know to do, but they catch nothing. What feels like this to us right now?
- Reading John 21:3-6 (see passage below), Jesus tells them to redirect their attention. Toward who else or where else in our community might we direct our attention?
1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” 6 Jesus said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”
— John 21:1-6 (7-19) From the Gospel for Easter 3 (May 4)