2007 Rector’s Annual Report        

       It is hard to imagine how 2007 could have been more eventful. Six years ago I asked Winifred Cocke and Conrad Netting to coordinate our Centennial year. No one loves this church more than they do. Under their leadership and with the help of hundreds of parishioners giving thousands of hours, this has been a spectacular year of celebrations. It began with a great Rally Day Picnic, and included the Centennial Evensong and Banquet, the Monte Vista Home Tour, and many provocative guest preachers and teachers. In Lent we hosted five different bishops who spoke about how to find God in the midst of the ongoing realignment in the Episcopal Church. All three of our previous rectors returned to preach in October, along with Phoebe Orombi from Uganda and Bishop N.T. Wright from Durham England. We finished our fifth Habitat house in five years as the Centennial outreach project, and sent short-term missionaries to various parts of the world. Our goal was to honor the amazing contributions of our forefathers and mothers, and to begin a new century with renewed enthusiasm for what God has in store for us. Thank you Conrad and Winifred for helping us accomplish this and more!

       God continues to bless our church family in every way, and especially with lots of new individuals and families. People who are looking for a church that is completely committed to Holy Scripture and the Anglican heritage, and serious about discipleship and mission, are finding their way to Christ Church. We had 20 baptisms, 32 transfers-in, 44 confirmations, 12 weddings and 24 funerals. All of this represents an extremely active church life and, more importantly, many people coming to know and love Jesus Christ.

       This coming year looks equally full and exciting. Linda Camp and Leslie Kingman are extremely busy co-chairs for our upcoming Diocesan Council as part of the extended Centennial year celebration (February 2008). We have invited Baroness Caroline Cox to come as the Council’s main speaker and to be our guest preacher at Christ Church. And the Outreach and Missions Committees have declared El Buen Pastor (Church of the Good Shepherd) in Piedras Negras as our big, all-parish outreach project for 2008.

       I continue to be very thankful to share ministry with an outstanding church staff that deserves most of the credit for our ministry. They are the most talented and committed staff I have ever worked with. This past year we added Kern Huff (assisting priest), Laura Shaver (communications), Sharon Gee (administrative assistant), and Brian Cannaday (student ministries). I am also currently searching for a new assistant rector to replace Dan Lauer. You might know that Christ Church in the Hill Country (Bulverde) has spun off into an independent preaching station under diocesan authority, and Eric Fenton continues with them as their full-time priest.

       It has been a joy working with Tom Kingman and Brad Camp, our Senior and Junior Wardens. They have been totally “hands on,” picking up the tab for quite a few beers over the past year, and always available and supportive. They have also been very instrumental in helping to build a strong and helpful relationship with Bishop Lillibridge. David Wallace has also served us very well for three years as our Treasurer, a big job that he will be turning over to John Harrison in 2008. My thanks to those who are rotating off our vestry after serving for three (interesting and eventful) years: Tom Kingman, Brad Camp, Pamela Lancaster-Elzinga, Jaimie Hayne, Tom LaNoue and Tricia Tobin.

       As we begin 2008 I wish I could tell you the Episcopal Church is showing signs of turning around. In fact, everything I see indicates that it is more entrenched than ever in a revisionist theology that will not be turning around. I know that most of us are sick and tired of hearing about the crisis, and many days I wish I could just tune it out. But it is not going away, and it’s becoming more serious every day. The Episcopal Church (including our Presiding Bishop, House of Bishops and General Convention) has repeatedly rejected the pleadings of the leaders of the Anglican Communion to return to the family, while becoming fixated on suing churches that want to leave with their properties. After the 2003 General Convention, Christ Church vestry unanimously supported a motion to disassociate from the Episcopal Church “when the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates offer us an acceptable option.” We have worked closely with Bishop Lillibridge to figure out what this means. I’m happy to say that I see a lot of loose ends coming together almost every day and I believe we will see some real solutions offered in 2008. Christ Church remains connected to the wider Communion through our associations with the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Communion Network. We have strongly and thoughtfully responded to the various crises over the past few years and I have every confidence that we will continue to do so in the future. We continue to work closely with our bishop who has shown that he is a friend of Christ Church and supporter of traditional Christian values. Christ Church hasn’t moved and won’t be moved from the values that are core to who we are.

       “To fully enjoy God and believe him for great things, so that it evokes interest in my children and others about the abounding love of God.” After fifty-four years, and reading several of Stephen Covey’s books, I recently got around to putting into words what I want my life to mean. After God, my family is my priority. Ellen and I have entering a brand new phase in our family as we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary and married off two daughters, Alison and Hope, to great guys (and our oldest, Noel, is engaged to marry another great guy in Chicago in September 2008!). That’s three daughters married in a little over one year – pray for us! In addition, we are very young first-time grandparents: Ethan Michael was born to Alison and Mike in December. Not connected to these developments, but very timely, the vestry has approved me taking time some time in the next year or two for a sabbatical in order to finish writing a book I’ve been working on (My Favorite Episcopal Heresies). I like to write and it’s a huge creative outlet for me. When you hear that Chuck is away for a few weeks, it is not because he is having a nervous breakdown or getting a hemorrhoidectomy (I did that two years ago!), he is just trying to write a book.

       Thank you if you’ve had the patience to read this long report, and thank you for the privilege of serving with you in the ministry of this great church.

Respectfully,

Chuck Collins