Rector's Annual Report - 2025

Vestry, sacristy, chasuble, thurible, liturgy, crucifer, tabernacle, lavabo, lector…

The Church can sometimes seem pretty full of all kinds of funny-sounding words that we don’t ever really use outside of church settings. One of those church-y words came to mind as I considered where we find ourselves as a parish here at the beginning of 2025 - “synod.”

If you pay attention to religion news as nerdily as I do, you’ll know that the Roman Catholic Church just concluded a worldwide “synod” this past year. Or maybe you’ve heard of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. That word - synod - refers to a meeting or assembly of church leaders, traditionally bishops but not exclusively so. The recent Catholic assembly included many lay people. In the Episcopal Church, we usually refer to these sorts of gatherings as conventions - General Convention on the whole-church level and our local diocesan convention here in the Diocese of Chicago, for instance. These are our Episcopalian synods where we as a wider church come together to make decisions about our common life and choose our leaders. This annual meeting today is a kind of synod.

The word “synod” comes from the Greek prefix syn- (like in synchronize or synthesis) meaning “with” or “together” and the Greek word odos (like in odometer) meaning “road” or “way” or even “journey.” Syn-od. A way together. A journey with.

What we encounter at our Annual Meeting every year is a snapshot of a moment on the way, a check-in point on the spiritual journey we’re on together as this parish of St. Elisabeth’s - a journey that began before we arrived and which will continue after we are gone. We journey not only as individuals but together as a community - past, present and future. At the recent Catholic synod there was lots of talk about how this is how we, as the church, are supposed to live and move and make decisions. On the road together. We are meant to be journeying as a community, following the Way of Jesus, drawing closer to God and to one another and to a wounded world in need of Christ’s healing and transformation.

I preached back on January 12th about the Magi and their journey in Matthew’s Gospel. As many of you know, our Congregation Assessment Tool (CAT) survey last year told us that we are a “magi culture.” Magi church cultures, according to the CAT literature, are open-minded and open-hearted, interested in life-long learning and growth, comfortable with ambiguity and questions, committed to justice in human relations. But there’s a shadow side to being “magi”, the CAT material tells us. We “magi” can focus more on what we think about what we’re doing or what we say about what we’re doing than what we’re actually doing. This year I’m proposing that we focus on what we are actually doing.

So, today, I propose a year of vocational discernment together. A year of seeking to more fully understand and inhabit our parish’s particular calling from God. I propose that we spend some intentional time this year where we sit together and pray together and talk together and try and listen to what God might be saying to us together as a parish community. I will be working with the vestry in the coming months to create opportunities to do this sort of discernment work together guided by the Holy Spirit.

This isn’t “strategic planning.” This isn’t “long range visioning.” This isn’t about crafting a new mission statement and it isn’t necessarily even about a new initiative (though it may result in one). Because discernment of this sort isn’t entirely about us - it is first of all about God. It is about asking where God might be calling us. It is about listening to what God might be saying to us through the needs and circumstances of the world around us and the deep desires and the good spirit implanted in our hearts and in our midst. We are to listen. And then we are to act - courageously and generously - on what we hear together. To walk in the direction in which we are being led. To be on the way together. To journey with one another and with Jesus into our shared future. To do what we are called to do. To be who we are called to be.

Here in 2025, I believe God is calling us into deeper and renewed mission and purpose together. Will we listen? Will we answer that call?

Faithfully,
The Rev. Adam Spencer, Rector