On the morning of December 16, the doors of the church were opened at nine o'clock in the morning to welcome the parents and other family members of our thirty kindergarten students. For just over an hour, everyone was delighted with songs and poems from our three and four year olds as the Christmas story came to life through the eyes of innocence. Immediately following the “service,” a reception with birthday cake for Jesus and ice cream took place in the church hall. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay A few hours later, the tower doors were open as our guests and volunteers began to gather for the community market. Seventy guests were received that day. This Friday's market was also different from most. It was our annual Christmas market. Not only were our usual tables heavily laden with food and produce, but additional tables were set up to offer our guests Christmas cookies, coffee and cocoa. In the church, a regular guest gave his gift of music by adding the joyful sounds of Christmas with guitar and voice. Finally, thanks to your generosity, thirty families were able to bring home clothes that will help make Christmas a little brighter. Even before the last can was put back on the pantry shelf, the doors of the church opened again. Forty artists from Perspectives came en masse. By 7 p.m., all the seats in the church were occupied. Everyone looks forward to an annual concert that is unlike any other. The majesty of this concert lies not in the musicality but in the heart and soul, as the marginalized members of South County, those with cognitive challenges, seized the opportunity to be seen and heard as as artists and people for whom God created them. The last doors of the church were closed at 10pm that evening, they would not stay closed for long. Despite the rain and sleet, at 10 a.m. our Sunday school children gathered under the watchful leadership of John Lord, Linda O'Neill, BJ Carangia (Esposito) and others to do the last preparations for the next day's Advent competition. At noon our building had a break as our Sexton David Ousterhout and BJ, who helped David during his recovery from knee surgery, rushed to make sure the building was clean and ready for the 12 program stages of the evening and our arrival early on Sunday. Morning. Like every Sunday, the doors of the church opened around 7:30 a.m. Just in time for the arrival of the first parishioner of the morning and my cue to start greeting many of you on your way to church. As always, the 8 p.m. service ended with the arrival of the choir and Sunday school. Around 10:15 a.m., the church was almost full. More than 180 people gathered for the Advent show. The competition was a collective effort of all staff members, Sunday School teachers, as well as our more than 45 Sunday School students. While the church doors were locked and the coffee hour volunteers finished their cleaning, our Music Director, Cheryl Casola was already back on the organ bench preparing for the choral service of lessons and songs Christmas which will take place at 4 p.m. that evening. Once again, over sixty people from the community and St. Peter's gathered to participate in a traditional service of lessons and Christmas carols complemented by readings of the versionKing James of the Bible. As the church doors were locked one last time for the weekend, I hurried off to host a choir party at our home in Wakefield. Finally, after washing the last dishes late Sunday evening, the life of what is St. Peter's by-the-Sea came to a halt. And yes, even though I was tired, I was grateful. I am grateful to be part of a community of faith so active, so full of the Spirit, and, above all, so committed to nurturing God's people. Over the past few months, I've talked a lot about how St. Peter's is committed to feeding people. . In notes to visitors, I often say that St. Pierreby-the-Sea is a community of faith committed to feeding God's sheep. We do this by feeding the poor physically through the community market, spiritually through the sharing of the word and sacraments each week on Sunday mornings and mentally through the training programs for adults and children held at St. Peter throughout of the week. When I shared this with our staff, John Lord emphasized that a church named for St. Peter should be about feeding people. After all, it was Peter whom the resurrected Lord asked three times to feed his sheep. Here in Narragansett, we forget that last conversation between Peter and Jesus. Most often we associate our patron saint with the ocean and the fishing industry. Our logo represents his net as we answer the call to be fishermen of all. That said, even I, with the most rudimentary knowledge of fishing, know that the best way to lure a fish into your net is to offer it something to eat. Here at St. Peter's, we do this in hundreds of different ways each year as we open our doors and expand our network in South County through the Community Market, our music program, Kindergarten, Sunday School, the adult forums, worship, Brother's Keepers concert series, fundraising events and the countless weddings and funerals we host here each year. All of these and more are the ways we nourish the body, mind and spirit of community while inviting the outsider to engage with us as members of the Body of Christ, an active part of what our presiding bishop calls the Jesus Movement. Today. Looking back on 2016, it’s amazing what we accomplished together. This time last year, our finances and budget were precarious to say the least. After several years of deficit spending, we were faced with another year of deficits. With the help of our treasurer, we were able to make our budget more easily understandable, the needs were clearly expressed and with few resources. . .ok, lots of hassle, we managed to finish this year with a reasonable surplus. . .but only about half of what was needed to erase past deficits. I wish I could say that our financial problems are behind us, but as Roxanne will talk about later this morning, we're not there yet. Many of you rose to the occasion last year and that's why we succeeded. I thank you for your commitment. Unfortunately, if we are to achieve long-term financial sustainability, we must heed the words of the Stewardship Campaign: “It takes the whole parish to sail this ship.” This includes members young and old, rich and poor, new and old. For those who can, but have not yet done so, I ask you to prayerfully consider what we need as an average commitment, that is, an annual commitmentabout $2,200 for 2017 (or about $40 per week). For those who haven't yet committed or have never done so and $2,200 seems overwhelming, set a goal of $10.00 per week, or less than two large coffees at Starbucks. The only way St. Peter's can stay out of the red and offer the level of ministry that it does, is if we all do as the Father does. Mead encourages “to stop being part of the aggregation and become part of the congregation.” Beyond our finances, Saint-Pierre is doing well. I am amazed at the number of visitors we receive each week and the strong attendance that has continued throughout the summer. Overall, our numbers are increasing. Which is not the least result of Cheryl's gentle hand with the choir. The choir benches have disappeared because the choir no longer has a place there. New chairs are arriving. And more are planned. In addition to our adult and children's choirs, one of Cheryl's hopes is to create a hand bell choir for anyone who is interested and available during the day. In other conversations, we talked about the possibility of directing the choir for pay to strengthen and enhance the beautiful choral music that she and the choirs provide each week. Our Sunday School continues to grow and attract new families, through creativity and commitment. of John Lord and our teachers. The community market is growing. John Lord would later report that the number of families we currently serve has increased from 40 to 45 families each week, to 60 and sometimes more than 70 families. Every week, new families join us. For many reasons, the need is growing. By the grace of God, it is growing at a time when we are ready to handle this increase. God always provides in abundance. Thanks to John's community outreach efforts, South County is beginning to take ownership of the program. Organizations like the Boy Scouts, URI's Sigma Alpha Epsilon Chapter, Monsignor Clark, the Quest School, and Ocean State Waves, have all joined us to provide quality food to those in need. Bank RI, The Dollar Store and other companies are now supporting us with financial grants and food drives. More recently, the Chamber of Commerce has been working with John to promote the market to its members. What does the market have in store in the coming years? Conversations are ongoing about the market's relationship with the congregation and how we can open up to new sources of funding. The preschool has also made great strides toward sustainability. Last year we were concerned that the preschool would have to close due to limited enrollment and an operating loss. Thanks to the leadership of Beth DiPanni, with help from Amy Crane, Alison Bateson-Toupin, Nicole Zelenek and Susannah Blair, a vision for the future of preschool is now in place. This year, with an enrollment rate of 70%, the school will likely break even. The goal in the future is to achieve an enrollment rate of 100% and make the school financially autonomous. Most of us remember that preschool was all about play and socialization, with low academic expectations. However, since the early 1990s, the kindergarten experience has been completely transformed, with the development of academic skills taking center stage. These increased expectations for kindergarten students' performance, coupled with the National Early Learning Curriculum's strict standards and requirements for assessment and accountability, have resulted in..