It shouldn't come as a surprise for me to say that we are living in precarious times in the church. It seems that every week we read about another Episcopal congregation voting to leave the Episcopal Church. Just as often, we read about a diocese suing or threatening to sue to retain the property of a departing congregation. Slams and slurs about the character of priests and bishops fly across the ether in blogs, email chains and news clips. It is a time of great hurt, division and just plain meanness.

Yet, in this diocese there has, really, not been any of that. In 2003 we lost part of a congregation in Tampa, but that was really about the charismatic rector who got in some trouble. Later that year, a Sarasota priest took a few members and joined a group affiliated with Rwanda. But there have been no large scale departures or public battles. That's not to say that there aren't bitter divisions, but no one has picked up their ball and gone home.

The same is true here. There are members of this congregation who hold very deep beliefs and opinions about the direction the Episcopal Church is heading. Some for. Some against. Frankly, I've heard from more of the against folk than the for folks. Yet, we have lost very few people because of the decisions the national church or our diocese have made.

Why is that? Why are the issues that are tearing dioceses and congregations apart in places as close as Gainesville not doing the same here? There are some that would say that we have chosen to ignore the problems hoping that they would go away. Heads in the sand. Turning a blind eye. Cowardly fence sitting. I have tried to answer that, but the words don't seem to flow. Until today's epistle.

I think Paul, who's not my favorite biblical contributor, hits it on the head (no pun intended).

There are different ways to understand what church is. For some of the radical Protestant churches, church is a gathering of individuals sharing a faith. For some, church is a gathering of the saved with those outside the assembly being doomed. The signature of these churches is a personal salvation through your own relationship with Jesus.

Paul saw things differently. He saw the church as an organism. It has a pulse. It has a life on its own. It is the body of Christ. We who are a part of the church are members, not like being a member of the Rotary club, but like limbs, organs, hair and teeth. That's important.

No matter how well a person can function after losing an arm, the person is different. The loss of any part of one's body changes you, sometimes subtly, sometimes profoundly.

I think that may be why we're holding together. I know it is for me. I am not simply an individual working out my salvation. I am a part of a body, a living organism (I'll leave it to you to decide what part of the body I am). If any part of that body was to leave, I would be diminished. And if I were to leave, others would feel the pain of my departure.

Saint Cyprian, a third or fourth century bishop said that schism is worse than heresy because schism rips apart the very body of Christ. I like that. While the church does break the body of Christ only to give to the people in the Eucharist that by taking the body of Christ, we may become the Body of Christ. The gifts of God for the people of God.

Now don't hear Cyprian as saying that heresy is good. It's not. But heresies will prove themselves wrong. It's really hard to knit a broken Body together again.

"Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it." Thank you, Paul.

So what does it mean to be a part of this part of the Body of Christ we call St. Hilary's?

In my first sermon here, I referred to Epiphany as a journey of discovery and that our relationship would be very much like that. During the journey of Epiphany, we come to know Jesus in the fullness of his divinity. We come to know him deeply and intimately. And I can say with all sincerity that the same has been true of our relationship. The road hasn't always been straight or smooth, but it has led us all to a greater intimacy.

I think that we as a congregation have been on a journey to discover ourselves certainly over the last year, but probably over the last 2.

Journeys can be interesting, especially if you're traveling with your spouse and kids. "Are we there yet? I have to go to the bathroom. She's breathing on me." And the kids are just as bad.

And on our journey, we are not there yet. But we're making good time. We've learned a lot about ourselves. We had two really good opportunities to do some self reflection. We hired a firm to do a feasibility study on a capital funds project. While we ultimately decided to not go forward with the project, we learned some important things.

While a youth minister is needed, we were not ready to start an endowment to pay their salary. Operating expenses should be paid from current income. OK. Maybe if we had a large endowment that generated enough income to fund a position that would be different, but for now, we need to find current operating funds for that position .That decision impacted our search for a youth minister and laid the groundwork for some tough decisions down the road.

We found that most people were happy with the worship space as it is now and wanted only remedial work done. There were significant people that thought some updating was necessary. A few advocated a new building.

Some folks took the opportunity to express disagreement and concerns about the leadership of the congregation, especially in terms of financial stewardship. Points well taken, even if some were undeserved.

We then had an opportunity to work with George Martin from the Seabury Institute on setting vision and finding out what mattered most to us. I especially got a lot out of these meetings. Dreams were expressed. Ideas for growth and deepening spiritual life were discussed. But if there was one lesson I learned from George, it was about the "whys" of our life together.

George told me that we did a good job of identifying the "whats", the programs and events we do here. What we aren't real good at is answering the question of why we do things. It was like a light bulb going off. Why? I think our purpose should be Evangelism and Spiritual Formation. Strengthening the faith of the faithful and bringing the lost to Christ. Everything we do must impact these two pillars. With that template, we can assess all of our programs and the decisions we make.

I learned that not every decision, even looked at through the lens of our purpose, is a good decision. We all remember the announcement in May that starting in September we would be having contemporary music at the 11:00 service. I still believe that we need to add contemporary music for the congregation to sing. It helps charge the faith of a generation of our members and is an attractor to our younger guests who are searching for a place in which to raise their children.

However, I didn't respect the feelings of those who attend the 11:00 service. Even though we canceled that plan, we lost a couple of people. Nor did I consider the feelings of the choir. That decision hurt the goodwill that had been built up over several years and as a result we have a full choir only at 9:00. We are all connected and one person's actions impact the whole. And no matter how contrite one might be, the damage is done as the words are written.

We're still struggling with how to provide the worship experience for the generations which have been raised around people who worship differently than we do here. That has to be addressed early in 2007.

Again, identifying how decisions cast a wide net, our decision not to fund 2 years of a youth minister out of capital funds and our self-conscious struggling with what we needed in terms of staffing for the future led to a difficult end. After consultation with the diocese and with members of the vestry, I asked Richard Grady to step down. Our needs for the future require skills and interest in areas that he did not have. He was given time to finish up his work here and financial resources to find a call. As it turns out, he and Ella have stayed in Fort Myers and he is working at St. Luke's.

Of course, another frustration last year was the on again off again renovation project. We thought we had a plan to waterproof the church, but only after extensive testing did we discover that it wasn't worth the cost for that particular solution so we've found a solution that will require yearly maintenance, but not anywhere the $200,000 the first plan would cost.

Karin and Kevin Winter are chairing the renovations committee. I believe there will be a brief presentation at the business meeting. Bottom line, we're moving into Browning Hall on March 19. Renovation and repair will be done by winter. We will borrow the money from the diocese and start a capital funds drive perhaps this summer.

Which leads me to my biggest frustration. Communications. We learned from the feasibility study, George Martin's work and individual conversation that we (the staff and leadership) do not communicate well with the congregation. The same studies also showed us that staff and leadership think we communicate very well with the congregation. I guess we forgot to tell the congregation how well we communicate.

We'll do better. But, you have to do better as well. We spend a lot of time and money on the Circular and the weekly announcements. Read them. If you don't get the Circular, it means we don't have you in our system. Give your name and address to the office, even if you are not a member here. We'd love to keep you informed.

Aggie Mai has been working on updating our web site. It is wonderful and is getting new stuff all the time. Visit it at sainthilarys.org.

That's not the only good thing to happen this year. The spiritual formation side of our purpose is growing very well. There are 2 study groups for men. We have a bible study for younger women. Many of our women attended "Expect a Miracle" last year, a spiritual growth event for women in the diocese. Several men continue to attend evangelism events. I'm very proud to see this wonderful spirit.

Out of something troubling came a great beacon of hope. (Kind of a biblical theme, don't you know). The vestry presented a very ambitious budget for 2006. We did not come close to what we budgeted for income. So, we held a "Bridge the Gap Campaign" to cover our projected shortfall. I don't have the exact numbers, but we asked for an additional $45,000 to balance the budget. We received over $52,000, and ended the year with a $18,000 surplus. That tells me that there is something going very well here. We may be smaller, but we're dedicated.

And it is true that we are smaller. Our attendance was down 10% from 2005. Some has to do with the struggles at the national church. Some were people moving on. That's our 3rd year of decline. That has to turn around.

And, I think it will. Out of the disappointments of last year, there is a new energy, a new sense of urgency among the leadership of the congregation. I'm excited about a several things that come out of the reevaluations we made during 2006.

I have asked our Rector Emeritus to take on a ministry that I think suits his quiet reserved manner (a huge joke). He is going to visit with people in the congregation that may have slipped through the cracks. He'll also visit new folks that are ready to take on ministry. We're still working it out, but we are both excited about it.

I have also added the Rev. Jackie Means, (she prefers to be called Jackie) as our Associate for Evangelism and Guest Ministries. She'll be working with our great Newcomers committee and others to make sure we welcome guests in such a way that they want to come back, and then put in place programs to ensure that they do. She will keep office hours, most likely on my day off. Jackie was ordained a priest in 1976 right after it became legal to do so. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience with her. While officially on staff, she has offered her time with only a token stipend. I think you'll love Jackie.

That doesn't replace our need for an ordained youth minister. We are still working on that. We have options now that we didn't have before Jackie. It will be my top priority for 2007.

I haven't had a chance to talk to Fr. Ed Winsor yet, but I've got some things in mind for him as well.

As I'm sure we all know, the diocese is getting a new bishop, Dabny Smith. He will be consecrated March 10 as our bishop coadjutor, meaning he works for bishop Lipscomb until his retirement when Bishop Smith will take over as diocesan bishop. It is a time of transition with all the attendant excitement and anxiety. I am really looking forward to working with him.

Speaking of excitement, we are now in our 50th year as a congregation. On St. Hilary's Day, January 13, 2008, we will celebrate our 50 year anniversary. I already have both bishops lined up for that celebration. Kari will be chairing the celebration and I'm sure there are great things in store.

I feel really positive about St. Hilary's for the next year. Sure, I'm concerned with the ongoing problems of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. There is no way to know what will happen.

What I do know is that we are the body of Christ and individually members of it. I know that our actions here, at Saint Hilary's will impact the world just as what happens in Africa or Canterbury affects us. How we respond to those external forces will come from our sense of who we are and whose we are.

I think we are on a journey of discovery. We may have taken a side trip last year, but we learned a lot. So now, we need to be after doing it. Take what we know about our selves and what we are still learning and turn it into energy to drive the engines of Spiritual Formation and Evangelism.

With that as our purpose and Christ as our Goal, we will take this journey and be, I really feel, a model for all of Anglicanism to see. We are a body of many parts, not all wanting to go the same way. We need each other to be the Body Christ calls us to be. If we remember that, at our journeys' end we will hear the King say, well done, good and faithful servant.