Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you,

I just though I’d take this opportunity to celebrate how 2015 has been a great and exciting year at St. George’s.

Our “Messy Church” monthly gathering continues to be a great experience for families. It a great time to be together and reflect on our faith. It is different, casual, creative, friendly, and even includes supper! At the 11:15 church school our children and their parents continue to integrate learning, crafts, and worship within our contemporary worship. And our summer Kid’s Camp VBS, was full with great kid’s, super adult leaders and amazing youth as jr. leaders.

We had some great opportunities for learning this past year. We had a great confirmation class. We held a “Blanket Exercise” with the leadership of Henriette Thompson who participated in our country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work. We hosted a guest speaker from the Credit Valley Conservation who spoke about the importance of our local watershed, arranged by our parish “green team”.

St. George’s also is a bigger supporter of the annual “Walk For ALS” and on a Sunday in April, we welcomed Dr. Jeff Sutherland as our guest preacher. His message to us was powerful, witty, and meaningful.

We hosted some big and fun events, like our annual Bazaar, which we are told is the best bazaar in town and the Pancake Supper. And we even had a very successful fundraiser to replace our broken heating system.

We continue to be host and support the Open Door Youth Centre through the year. We have a great team of volunteers that help folk eat health food and support local farmers by packing and distributing almost 200 Halton “Fresh Food” Boxes in our area.

St. George’s also has great volunteers which make all our ministry possible. At our three Sunday morning services and Thursday midweek service, volunteers help with bible readings, decorating the church, setting the communion table, leading prayers, singing, serving communion, serving at the altar, teaching Sunday school, greeting, serving coffee, and behind the scenes, volunteers help organize the rosters, and clean the church. That’s just to make Sunday worship a great and valuable experience.

All tolled, we estimate that the good folk of St. George’s contribute around 11,000 hours of volunteering a year to support the ministry of St. George’s inside the church and in our neighbourhoods. Wow!

St. George’s is a great church to be part of and a great ministry to support as we do good work in the community were we live.

Thanks for your continued support of all the things we do in Christ’s Name.

Peace,

The Rev’d Canon Rob Park