Parish and Vestry Updates

Children and Youth’s Ministry Update - July 2025

Our Wednesday night youth group has been going really well! We’re reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and discussing the spiritual themes and life applications within the book. Our 3rd meeting is tonight which means we’re halfway through the summer!

Have you ever heard of Anglican 4th Day? If not A4D, then maybe Cursillo, Tres Dias, or Walk to Emmaus? If so, have you ever been curious as to what it is? This A4D Explainer can answer a lot of those questions for you, or you can come with me on Saturday, July 12th at 11am to find out! I’ll be attending National Ultreya Day at St. Peter and St. Paul in Arlington along with other members of our diocese, as we meet via Zoom with multiple dioceses in the province. The last Grand Ultreya I attended was so encouraging, and I’d love to have you join me for this one!If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email at saige.anglicangoodshepherd.com or call the church–I’m here Monday - Thursday. (Please note, that if you ride with me to the Grand Ultreya, we will be making a Kroger stop on the way home. I simply cannot travel all that way and not stop at my favorite grocery store.)

Children and Youth’s Ministry Update - June 2025

Tonight begins our first youth group meeting of the summer! (for 6th - 12th grade). We’re going to be reading C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe over the course of 12 weeks, meeting every other week for themed snacks and discussion. I’m excited to see what God does with our group this summer!

Sunday is Pentecost! We’re continuing our newly established tradition of meeting with St. John the Divine. The children from both churches are going to be actively involved in serving, and before the homily, Father Elmer will ask the children to come up for a brief children’s lesson about Pentecost.

After church, we’ll eat together--hopefully outside (if the rain holds off) on the picnic tables that the MOGS repaired! The church will be providing burgers and hot dogs, but please bring a side or dessert to share.

And don’t forget to wear red if you have it! It’s the color for Pentecost, and it’s always so pretty to see everyone decked out in church colors!

Two of our campers leave for Camp Crucis this Sunday. I can’t wait to hear about their experiences when they get back! Please pray for them this week.

Children and Youth’s Ministry Update - May 2025

Hi folks, this update is nowhere near as long as last time I wrote one, so it shouldn’t take but a minute to read! :)

During Lent, the children of Good Shepherd collected $60.47 with their mite boxes. We’ll be putting the money into the Centurion Fund for St. Mark’s in Malawi.

Sunday School has ended for the semester. We were planning to continue until the end of May, but with the rain changing our plans so often, we went ahead and finished a month early. But our Christian Education classes will be returning on Rally Day in September!

The families of Good Shepherd are invited to join the children and youth of St. John the Divine on May 31st, as we visit the Wichita Mountains for an Ascension Day liturgy. Bring a picnic lunch, a treat to share if you'd like, and plan to hike an easy trail afterward! An email with more details will be going out next week.

I’d like to ask you to be praying for a few specific things. Pray for wisdom as we plan the curriculum for the fall, for our rector and vestry and the decisions they have to make, and for our church that we would draw near to God during this season of changes.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but feel free to write me at saige@anglicangoodshepherd.com if you have any questions or updates you’d like to share with me!

Saige

Senior Warden’s Report - June 2025

While it appears nothing has been happening regarding our upcoming capital campaign, a lot has been happening. The vestry has had several meetings with people/organizations exploring ways to raise the necessary money for our capital campaign. One of our options is to sell bonds. This would require adding the repair of the parish house to the campaign, increasing the total cost to between $4 million and $5 million. This would saddle ACGS with a huge debt to repay each year and would require the Diocese to co-sign the loan which we do not know if they would do. We have also talked to a church that did this and learned that their focus became more debt focused than ministry and growth. Ministry and growth are what we truly want to do. It will be extremely difficult to do both.

The cost to fix the NE corner is thought to be $1.75 million. It is felt that our church family can raise approximately 1/3 of the required funds. A loan of $1 million, paid off over 10 years would increase our annual budget by $160,000, which we do not appear have! While we can pay our expenses each month, we do not have any extra funds to pay this type of debt. We are looking into grants that might help; however, we need to decide definitely the scope of our project before we can apply for grants.

If we simply fix the NE corner of the church, we know that we have more repairs that will need to be done as soon as that is fixed. Another capital campaign, or several more. The SE corner, the South side of the church, the ramp, and the office wing all need serious repairs, not to mention the parish house.

Other options include:

Move our church to another location downtown, converting an existing building into a church
Demolish the parish hall and build a chapel/small church
Share a facility with another church
Buy an empty church
Buy the Burns Chapel from MSU

We have learned that even though we have the historical marker, we can ask to be removed from the registry allowing us to move.

Be assured, none of these options, or any other option, will be undertaken without you, the members of ACGS, being informed. As soon as we have determined approximate cost for these options, they will be presented to you for your input and preference.

It is my hope that the vestry will be able to come to a decision regarding our options at their meeting in July and we can present these to you sometime in August.

Please pray with your vestry for God’s guidance as we search for answers to the difficult question of how proceed and promote God’s purpose/ministry for the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd.

Senior Warden’s Report - April 2025

As we enter the joyous 40 day season of Eastertide, I am pleased to share several things with the parish. Firstly, it is indeed exciting report that our Sunday attendance numbers are slowly climbing! In January attendance was 40-45 and has gradually grown to 48-52, sometimes higher. Attendance at our Holy Week and Easter services were also higher ( about 20 %) than in 2024, in part due to addition of our brothers and sisters from St. John’s. On Palm Sunday and Easter, we needed to use 2 chalice bearers which we haven’t needed to do for some time!

Secondly, those who could attended our first official meeting with Norma Quinn of the Horizon’s Group to begin planning for our capital campaign. We will spend the summer learning how to conduct the campaign and selecting members of the parish for various positions within the campaign. The campaign will begin in the fall. More information will be forth coming as it becomes available.

The Women of Good Shepherd delivered 15 tied blankets to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Red River and 15 to the Children’s Home of Wichita Falls. The Staff at both facilities were happy to receive the blankets. Thank you to all who helped cut and tie the blankets! I told each group that while this was a Women’s group project, many dads and teens and children also helped with the tieing.

The Women of Good Shepherd will hold their Mother’s Day Hat and Glove tea on Saturday, May 3 from 1-3 pm in the parlor. All women, including teens and girls, are welcome to attend. Just wear your favorite hat or design one for the occasion! It’s fun to see all the different hats!

We continue to look for an organist for our church. I will send out emails again in about 3 weeks to the various colleges to inquire if they have new students enrolling in the summer semesters who might be interested in a position at Good Shepherd.

Respectfully submitted, Linda J. Waters, Senior Warden

Senior Warden’s Update - March 2025

At our vestry retreat in March, the vestry spent time getting to know each other as well as conducting our regular monthly business meeting. All the vestry members were present. Because we are about to undertake a capital campaign, it was decided that rather than having a thrift store running weekly, we would have one or two rummage sale days a year as we did last spring. It was pointed out that running a thrift store, open even one day a week, is a very labor-intensive undertaking and at the present time, no one has expressed interest in running it. We appreciate Debbie Crase’s work getting it started, but she is not interested in managing it.

I have been working on procuring a full-time organist for the church without any success to date. I have contacted the Dallas and Fort Worth chapters of the American Guild of Organists, and multiple university music departments from Oklahoma City to Dallas and points in between. I plan to contact the university music departments in late May hoping they have incoming students who will need positions. We are pleased to announce that we have an interim pianist, Ruth Jones, to play for and with us. She is a very accomplished musician, playing the piano, violin, and trombone.

The vestry also decided that we will hire Horizon’s … and Norma Quinn, our current consultant, to guide us through the capital campaign to raise the funds for the restoration of the church. In a presentation to us, she told us she felt that raising the necessary funds was very doable to our church. We have not set a date yet to begin the campaign. We will be looking for volunteers to undergo training regarding how to do various aspects of the campaign.

-Linda Waters, Senior Warden

Treasurer Update - June 2025

Total Revenue $21,693.12

Tithes, Gifts, & Offerings $19,959.00

Royalty Payments $1734.12

Total Expenses $31,868.89

FICA $192.42

Professional Fees $510.00 (2 months Bookkeeping Fees)

Insurance $3461.28 (Medical & Dental)

Insurance $6882.81 (Quarterly property insurance due July 1)

Occupancy $4182.33

Gas $232.09

Water $410.54

Cleaning $500

Grounds Maintenance $700

Alarms $261

Electric $1852.88

Phone & Internet $225.82

Admin & Office $7112.29

Diocese $2185.95 Assessment

Printer Lease $4526.34 (2 months)

Software & Apps $400.00 Ministry Safe (yearly subscription)

Payroll Expenses $9290.56

Retirement $1095

Salaries & wages $8195.56

Travel $55.20

Treasurer Update - May 2025

May 2025

Total Revenue $12,938.83

Tithes, Gifts, & Offerings $11,549.20

Royalty Payments $1264.63

Total Expenses $28,563.27

FICA $288.64

Professional Fees $3325 (Horizon & Bookkeeping Fees)

Insurance $3466.28

Occupancy $2182.89

Gas $389.37

Water $427.70 (incl partial April payment)

Cleaning $500

Grounds Maintenance $500

Inspections $140 (backflow testing)

Phone & Internet $225.82

Admin & Office $5816.01

Diocese $4371.90 (2 months assessment)

Printing $7.57

Software & Apps $1436.54 (yearly renewal)

Payroll Expenses $13,379.34

Retirement $1095

Salaries & wages $12,284.34

Supplies $67.59

Travel $37.52

Treasurer Update - April 2025

April 2025

Revenue

Total $13,852.69

Tithes, Gifts, Offerings $13,386.47

Restricted Fun Donation $275

(Centurion, Education, etc.)

Royalties $191.22

Expense

Total $21,310.65

Occupancy $2,878.34

Utilities $1,567.47

Grounds $575

Flowers $735.87

Music $1,315

Insurance $5,475.32

Payroll Expenses $192.44

Bookkeeping Fees $722.50

Office $506.02

Equipment Lease

& Maintenance $263.17

Memberships &

Subscriptions $242.85

Wages & Salary $9,284.56

Repairs & Maintenance $522.10

Supplies $157.69

Travel $256.68

Rector’s Update - June 2025

This week, I heard Fr. Geoff Chapman say that his purpose in life was to help Christians grow into the image of Christ. I was really struck by this because it is the calling of all Christians: to grow into the image of Christ. Colossians 3.10 says, “And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” In this passage, St. Paul is encouraging and reminding a church in the city of Colossae, in modern day Turkey, that the Christian life is all about being transformed into the image of our creator! This is what we were discussing at the symposium which I attended this past week in Ambridge, PA, hosted by Trinity Anglican Seminary.

I attended a symposium on Anglican Formation, which was attended by various provincial leaders in a variety of dioceses. I had the opportunity to liaise with a number of theologians, laity, clergy, and academics who are interested, as I am, in the formation of Christians within the Anglican tradition. And when I say Christian formation, I am not meaning solely on preparation for baptism and confirmation. That is part of the problem, as is evident in the Anglican church: we think formation ends with our confirmation.

The fact of the matter is that, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3.2, many Anglicans are stuck still drinking milk when by now they should’ve grown up to eat solid food. There is a smorgasbord of strong meat and solid food for the Anglican to chew on for the entirety of their lives. The problem is that, in my experience, not many Anglicans are hungry for it. This was a problem in the early church and it persists today.

Leaders across our province are now beginning to address this issue, just as we are addressing it here at Good Shepherd. We cannot continue to drink milk, like babies. We must grow up in the Lord and eat strong meat. Hebrews 5.13 says, “For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.”

Let us not remain as children in our desire and knowledge of God’s Holy Word. Let us take up once again that which we put down years ago, our desire and longing to commune with God through his Holy Word.