Saint Nicholas Notes
"An Open Letter To The Parish Family"
"MYRA PORT" By Fr. Bernard Kinnick
We have embarked on many new projects in the parish to make it presentable to the
community that we serve. Everything from a “new” lift that will allow our elderly
and physically challenged access to both floors of our church to providing it with a
“new” facelift on the outside, protecting the exterior of the church in lifetime vinyl
siding. All of this is good for us and for out neighbors but what are we doing individually
to attract “new” members, families, catechumens, and the "longevity" for the parish we
are “fixing” up?
Let’s look at the numbers. If we look at the Parish Telephone Directory we will see that
we are down to thirty-one families and only nine of those have a living spouse. That makes
us forty strong if everybody attended every Sunday. It is inevitable that death will over
the course of time diminish our ranks. What is not inevitable and remains in our hands and
under our control is parish growth. We ourselves must live out the Gospel of our Lord,
Jesus Christ. We must beg God to purify us through confession and ascetic practices that
bring saving humility into our lives. Only then can we be a parent, a brother or sister,
or even a friend to those in search of God. We must begin now to practice what we preach:
mercy and love, peace and joy.
Mercy and love, peace and joy. One must wonder how these four small words can have such a
tremendous impact on the growth of our parish and our future in the new Antioch of this
world. But without them we are doomed just as the brilliance of a new day is lost to the
enveloping darkness of night. Bishop Joseph once said; “Whereas the ancient city of Antioch
was a place where many races coexisted in peace, so we called to build a new Antioch here in
America, embracing all who desire to find the Way to God.” We must embrace these four small
words, and being committed to planting new seedlings in God’s vineyard, work together as master
gardeners to insure the future of our parish and our Western Rite Faith here in Spokane.
We are all opposed to the word or thought of evangelism; we dread seeing the Jehovah Witness
walking toward our front door with their pamphlets and we abhor the approach of the two
Mormon Missionaries parking their bicycles in our driveway but they in their own way are
doing God’s work. They are spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth and making disciples
of all nations. We do not have to go door to door; most of us would be appalled and hard
put to “sell” God to our neighbor. It is not our custom. If it is not our custom them we
need to find other ways in which to bring the beauty and truth of the Word found in Western
Rite Orthodoxy to the people in the community we live in and serve.
I was once told, and many times thereafter, that the reason someone from the Continuing
Anglican Church or the Episcopal Chruch or the Roman Catholic Church would not stay at our
parish was because it looked and sounded too much like what they were leaving, hence, they
didn’t feel like they were making any changes in their spiritual life, their Faith relationships
with God and His Church. The music was too similar and the choreography of the Mass was too
similar, therefore they needed to make a radical change and go Eastern Rite if they were going
to make any change at all. The Church was not built on the sounds and the practices of a particular
parish but on the dogmas and the Faith handed down by the Apostolic Church, unadulterated and
unchanged by man over time. You and I represent that Church and you and I have the responsibility
to make sure that it continues to be passed on from generation to generation.
How then do we as master-gardeners proceed with planting “new” seeds in our Lord’s garden?
Just as the bee is attracted by the fragrance of the flower, people will be attracted to a
church community by its spiritual beauty and fresh growth. We must allow God to prosper in
our community by His grace. We must be open to the inquirer and minister to the suffering.
Our Lord said that we must love one another as He loves us. In loving others, you allow
God to love you all the more. We need to share the spiritual beauty of our parish community
and in so doing we will be blessed with fresh growth.
Therefore, our growth is in direct relationship to our planting the seeds of grace among
those we come in contact with in the rounds of our daily lives. If you do not talk about
your faith or the internal beauty of your parish you have put a lighted candle under a bushel
basket and it cannot be seen by anyone but you. The light of God's grace is His love for us.
We must make the sharing of our faith our number one priority. Then “As more and more people
come to us in search of God, we who are of the Orthodox Faith and stewards of His Vineyard, must
also accept the responsibility to feed and care for those who come to us. We must prepare the
hearts and minds of our catechumens and our children, so that the fullness of the Faith may enter
into them and perfect them.” Only then will we begin to fulfill the Gospel when it says that
“You are the light of the world. A city set upon the side of a hill cannot be hidden.” We are
that city and we have been bidden to let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good
works and glorify our Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-18)
Let us go forth and spread the Word of God, the Faith of Western Rite Orthodox Church to everyone
that will listen. Let us evangelize and build upon the Faith we have been entrusted with.
We are a Faith that is born of the water and of the Spirit. For it is through Baptism
and Chrismation that we are all able to receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit that unites us
together as a parish family in communion with one another. Share the Faith, share the glory
and build our parish into a lasting community, a light upon a hill that will never be hidden.
May God continue to bless our work in His Vineyard. Fr. Bernard
Construction and Remodel Updates
The General construction work that we contracted to do in May has been completed. We have installed
a new ADA Lift (elevator) between the ground floor and the basement where our Parish Hall is located
that will allow our elderly access to all parish activities. In providing space for the elevator we were
required to do some ground floor remodel work (getting rid of the priest's office) by subdividing the
pastor's office into a work room (copy room) and the elevator room. We removed all the vertical windows
windows across the front of the church building and on both side of the Nave (all targets of vandalism
and replacing them with operable horizontal windows allowing more light and better air circulation in
an older building that does not have air conditioning for the warm summer months. The electrical was
upgraded, providing more light and chasing the shadows away. New Bathrooms and water closets on both
floors round out the remodel work done to the interior of our House of Prayer. Outside, we removed trees
and shrubs that had long since lost there shape, having been mispruned over the years to the point that
they were no longer esthetically pleasing. New horizontal vinyl siding repalce the old vertical look that
had been provided by the T-111 siding that we replaced. The new gray look of the vinyl along with the
outside lighting around the sides and on the beautiful gold-leaf Cross on the roof gives us a twenty-four
hour presence to the community surrounding us. one thing that was not contracted for but done along with
the work while in progress was the installation of the three domed windows in the choir loft of the church
that were a memorial in memory of a passing parishioner. These windows replaced a single 4'x4' square
window that existed since the purchase of our church building and really goes a long way to enhance the
structural beauty both inside and out.
See Pictures Of Our Building Remodel Below
Our "new" look from the front of the Church!
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