St. Marks, Haines City, is revitalized in the Spirit
Posted January 5th, 2012
Central Florida Episcopalian:
Around the Diocese
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Haines City, is alive with people, programs and progress.
“So, how are things at Saint Mark’s?” my friend asked me.
“Better than I had ever dared to dream!” was my immediate response.
My friend knew some of what our little parish had been through and how much hope we had pinned on calling a new priest. All things considered, we were doing okay, but we were in serious need of revitalization.
We had an excellent field of candidates to choose from, to be sure. No doubt any one of them would have made a fine priest-in-charge (some day rector, we hoped). But clearly God’s hand was in the process when Canon Ernie Bennett sent us Fr. Christopher Brathwaite’s name for our consideration.
As with any selection process, some members had other candidates in mind. As senior warden, I did wonder what all might come of our choosing Fr. Chris. Oh me of little faith.
I am here to tell you that love is in the air at Saint Mark’s. You can hear it from the pulpit. You can feel it when the peace is passed with more hugs than handshakes. You can taste it in the plates of lunch after the Wednesday healing service.
A few weeks ago a man stood up at that service to offer his witness to the healing power of prayer. He had been struggling with cancer when he had received the gift of one of the Holy Bibles we passed out at Haines City’s Glitter and Glisten Festival last December. Our eyes and hearts welled up joy and relief when he announced his new test results are now excellent!
At another Wednesday service, Brother Bert stood to express how he had wondered at how he would be received. We could hear the emotion through his Guyanese accent as he voiced his thanks for the easy feeling of love and acceptance he and other “newcomers” felt they had received in joining the parish. I thought my heart would melt, remembering how I had once wondered myself.
In September we had a little celebration honoring Fr. Chris’s first year here. When I asked around the same question posed by my friend, over and over again there was the one word: love. Love of God, love of Christ, love of each other. Another striking aspect of that lunch after the 10 a.m. service was that several of the 8 a.m. worshippers had gone home after mass and then came back for lunch.
It is that kind of love that has changed our coffee hour from a few minutes of quiet pleasantries to now stretch to over an hour of laughter and cheerful fellowship. It is that kind of love that takes us beyond tolerating diversity and into celebrating it, that has us enjoying growth of 33 percent.
For the first time in a long time, we have an active Sunday School program for the growing number of youth. You can sense their enhanced self-esteem now that they are also included in the rotation of lay readers in the Mass. It is still a small group, so we have joined forces with another small group in reaching out to the Lutheran church down the street.
Fr. Chris reminded me that in the book of Acts, we are told that the” disciples were of one accord,” and that is equally good as describing our parish. Truly a microcosm of the church at large, we come from South America, from all across the Caribbean, from England and Canada, from all over the eastern U.S., and happily share the same chalice at the same rail with Florida crackers (and those who wish they were).
After communion we join in heartily singing the recessional hymn and then we “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
