Reminder:  Jesus is the Reason for the Season…only 11 more preparation days until Christmas!

Administrative items:

• Diocesan staff time away: Susan Altig will be on vacation next week. Also, please make a note that the diocesan office will be closed the week between Christmas and New Years (Dec 24th through January 1st). We will all be back in the office on January 2nd.
• Along the King’s Highway – Please submit articles or comments for future editions to Edy Unthank at: editor[atecr]edecr.org
• Deployment/Position Postings – Detailed postings for jobs can be seen by clicking on the following link: http://www.edecr.org/jobs.htm .
  • Youth Director, St. Paul’s Salinas
  • Chaplain, Santa Cruz County Jail
  • Youth Coordinator, All Saints’ Episcopal Church of Palo Alto
• Just a reminder that if you have not performed your annual financial church audit per canons (ECR canon 19 section 11), please make arrangements to have it completed by the December 31st deadline. Also, once your audit is completed, please send a copy to the diocesan officer per canon requirement. As a reminder, for visibility and transparency, the annual Diocesan audit is posted to the website in it’s entirely for everyone to have access to. I would encourage vestries and bishop’s committees to share their audit information with their congregations, too.
• The El Camino Real Foundation has a new website with great information on planned giving, wills awareness, and links to the Episcopal Church Foundation. You can send questions or requests via e-mail, and one of the Foundation members will contact you with a reply. Check it out at: http://www.edecr.org/foundation/ .
• Treasurers/Vestries: Please don’t forget to pass a housing resolution for clergy on your payroll before December 31, 2007 for next year. You can find an example of this in the Manual for Business Methods in Church Affairs that can be downloaded at: http://episcopalchurch.org/finance_58218_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=877
• Treasurers: It is time to make any adjustments up or down to your church’s fairshare payment to reflect actual income for year to date – in your November/December payments. Please notify the diocesan office as soon as you have those numbers available for budgeting/cash flow purposes. Also, you will need to make a final adjustment to your fairshare payments for 2007 in 2008 once you close your books.
• Parochial report booklets for 2007 vital and financial statistics have (or will shortly) been mailed to each congregation directly from the National Church Office. If you have not received it by the end of December, you can download it online in both English and Spanish at: http://episcopalchurch.org/research_62344_ENG_HTM.htm
• Are you looking for Lenten and springtime programs? Check out the attached Resource Center News.

Announcements:

• Congratulations goes to the Rev. Jon Perez for his appointment to the Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee. This committee is the oversight committee between the ELCA and Episcopal Church for joint ministry.
• From Bev Anderson, UTO Coordinator - United Thank Offering Grant request forms are now available. Please contact Bev Anderson at bev.larry[atecr]comcast.net or call 831-899-3345. Requests must be completed by January 10, 2008 so for those interested please submit your request soon.
• Religion & Violence; untangling the roots of conflict – January 22-23, 2008, a live webcast from Trinity Institute with theological reflection at St. Timothy’s Church in Mountain View. Explore with a panel of leading theologians how religion becomes entangled with violence and what are the resources within each tradition for living together in peace, without losing unique identities. The keynote speakers are James Carroll, James H. Cone, Susannah Heschel, and Tariq Ramadan with Katharine Jefferts Schori as preacher. Registration: http://www.sttims.org/events/dialogue.shtml . Program details: www.trinitywallstreet.org/institute
• Trip to Camp Coast Care in Mississippi - A group (adults) from the Diocese will be going to Mississippi April 5 – 12, 2008 to continue with the relief work that is going on from Hurricane Katrina. This trip will change your life! Contact Sheila Vossler: mabear2[atecr]sbcglobal.net .
• Youth ministry:
  • There will be an initial meeting of planning for 2008 youth events/activities led by Bishop Mary in early December. Many of you who have already contacted the diocesan office will be asked to participate. The Diocese is still looking for more leaders with a passion for youth ministry who would like to become involved in future planning, and joining the Diocesan Commission for Youth Ministry. Please contact me at - brian[atecr]edecr.org so I can put you on the list for future planning.
  • Diocesan Youth Mission Trips for 2008: Next summer our youth will have the opportunity to serve Native American populations in Nevada through Sierra Service Project. http://www.sierraserviceproject.org . Our diocese has a 5-year history of teaming with SSP for our mission trips. This year we plan to send two groups to the Walker River Paiute reservation in early summer, coordinated by Leann Brooks and Robin Denney. The first trip, June 29-July 5, is for high school youth who will be entering 9th grade in the fall of 2008 through those graduating in the summer of 2008. Experienced counselors from ECR (including Bishop Mary) will accompany our youth and other church youth groups will join us at the reservation. The second trip, July 14-19, is a brand new opportunity for Middle School students and is for youth entering 6th through 8th grades in the fall. This will be a smaller group and the program is being specially crafted for the younger audience. Please begin discussing these opportunities with your youth and youth leaders.
  • Youth Katrina Relief Summer Mission Trip: June 14-20, 2008: Open to all Junior High and High School Students. Spend a week working to provide better housing for our gulf coast neighbors with Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi. There is a wide variety of jobs we might due gut a damaged home, work in the kitchen, dig a foundation, paint, clean the dorm, frame, install sheet-rock, remove debris from a home, or finish out a home. Everyone will have the opportunity to do meaningful work in restoring the beauty and dignity to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. For more information contact Katie Machemer at 408 867-3493.
  • One of the great opportunities The Episcopal Church offers is the Young Adult Service Corps, which allows young adults (age 20-30) to live and work around the Anglican Communion for a year. To get an idea of what life is like as a YASC missionary, check out the blogs of current YASCers at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79705_88430_ENG_HTM.htm . The ad with contact information is at www.e4gr.org/doc/YASC_Ad  ... please note the application deadline is early January! Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. Applications can be downloaded at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/30703_77666_ENG_HTM.htm .

Important Training / Dates to mark on your calendars:

• All ECR Clergy: December 4 ECCO sponsored Advent Quiet Day with Bishop Mary... It will be held at the St. Francis Retreat Center. Please bring the Book of Common Prayer if possible. RSVP to Mary Blessing at pastor[atecr]stphilip-sv.org 
• Mark your calendars now for these important Deanery Visioning Meetings (9AM-3PM) in January. (Bishop Mary will be leading all three sessions). These meetings are open for all members of El Camino Real. Please plan to attend one of the following:
  • Saturday, January 5 – Good Shepherd, Salinas
  • Saturday, January 12 – Trinity Cathedral, San Jose, followed by the Welcoming and Seating in the Cathedral of Bishop Mary at 4PM
  • Saturday, January 19 – St. James’, Paso Robles
• The Foundation Academy will be held at St. Mary’s in Pacific Grove on February 1-2, 2008. Bishop (elect) Mary Gray-Reeves will be the keynote speaker at Friday night’s banquet. More information to follow on the learning tracks of planned giving, capital campaigns, and annual giving.
• THE COMMISSION ON MINISTRY is preparing a “Day of Discovery” on Saturday, February 9, 2008 at St. Paul’s, Salinas. This is the third time we have offered this program which has the purpose of offering individuals a way to further explore how they might respond to their calls to ministry in our churches. The COM cordially invites members of your parish to attend this Day of Discovery. It offers the opportunity for those already doing active ministry to renew their call to a particular ministry or to explore new ways of responding to God’s call. Although this Day of Discovery is a required first step for those individuals who are discerning a call to ordained ministry, its focus is not in any way limited to these individuals. All lay persons would benefit from participating in this process. Experience has shown that participants in our “Day of Discovery” come away having shared in a process of discernment which is rejuvenating, validating, and transforming. Pre-registration (by February 1st) to Susan Altig (susan[atecr]edecr.org ) will help us in preparing enough materials and order enough lunches for the participants. Thank you.
• Epiphany West Interfaith Conference - Sacred Text as Window: Seeing one’s self through the eyes of another. Conference classes: January 28 – 30, 2008 Conference presentations: January 30 – February 1, 2008 CDSP campus, Berkeley. Religiously-fueled conflicts around the world are intensifying. We must push beyond "tolerance" to deeper, more enduring inter-religious understanding and cooperation. This conference takes inter-religious dialogue to a new level of engagement, by meeting one another through our sacred texts. Classes offered include: Beit Midrash (House of Study); FAQs About Islam; FAQs About Christianity; FAQs About Judaism; Principles of Dialogue; Dialogue for the Common Good; Youth as Catalysts for Interfaith Action; Ultimate Values in Our Different Religions; Faithful Renderings: Translation as Window; Sacred Text in Worship; Women in Jewish and Muslim Law; Redemption and Revelation. For more information and to register, visit www.cdsp.edu/center_epiphany.php 
• CLERGY CONFERENCE – April 21-23, 2008 at St. Francis, San Juan Bautista. More info to follow.
• MAGNETIC CHURCH CONFERENCE – May 16-17, 2008. This event is led by an Episcopalian, is fun, has some great practical ideas and will stimulate lots of thought about how to effectively be hospitable and welcoming to those not yet with us. It will be very accessible to all and a good way to begin our collective work of empowering our diocese for evangelism.
• Breaking Barriers Conference – Sometime in September/October 2008. Details to follow.
• 2008 Diocesan Convention – November 7-8 – Sherwood Hall in Salinas

Diocesan Office Meetings:

• Next Week:  Foundation on Tuesday the 18th in the morning followed by the Finance Committee in the afternoon. The Board of Trustees meets on Thursday the 20th. All meetings are in Seaside.
   

God, you called John the Baptist to give witness to the coming of your Son, and to prepare his way. Grant us, your servants, the wisdom to see your purpose today and the open minds and hearts to hear your will, that we might bear witness to Christ’s coming and so prepare the way. In Jesus’ name…AMEN