Celebrate with us!
Join us for Sunday Services which are normally held at 8 & 10 am.
Feel free to join some folks for breakfast at the Rochester Grill after the 8 am service.
or
Join us for coffee hour after the 10 am service.
the Twenty-fifth Sunday
after Pentecost
November 19, 2023
8:00am Worship Service (said)
10:00am Worship Service (with choir)
This week, we welcome
The Rev. Stacy Salles*
as our celebrant.
*I was once asked if I could give a description of my role as a priest in one sentence. Here it is – I’m the waiter at God’s party who makes sure everyone’s wine glass is full.
I grew up in the Episcopal Church. My father was a priest in Detroit at the same church for over 20 years. The Church, and by that I mean the community of faithful, has always been the air that I breathe. Sometimes that can be painful, but mostly it is heavenly. My faith journey involves a call when I was walking home from high school. Interrupting my train of thought I heard God clearly say to me, “I am going to use you.” I had paused in my walk and waited. I thought someone was playing a joke on me. I finally said, “I know who you are. I don’t know what you want to use me for, but Okay.” It hadn’t occurred to me to be a priest as that is not what women did when I was in high school. In 1984 I became a Corrections Officer for the State of MI at Huron Valley Women’s Facility. Before I entered that service God advised me not to see people the way the world judged them, but to see them as his children. It was a simple matter of treating everyone with dignity and respect even when I had to say “No”. I am so grateful for the officers and prisoners who taught me things I needed to know about myself and humanity. I would have retired from there, but God stirred up the waters by closing that facility. That forced me to re-think my college day thoughts about becoming a priest. I began attending seminary part-time while working full-time and raising a daughter as a single parent. All together I served in Corrections fourteen years with three of those as a probation officer. I was ordained as a transitional deacon on Dec. of 2002 and priest in June of 2003. In 2006 I took a position as Rector of Saint Paul’s in Romeo, MI until August 2015. While in Romeo I also served as Dean of the Oakland Deanery for the last five years of my time at Saint Paul’s (It may have been a little more). In September of 2015 I was called by the Diocese of Southern Ohio to serve a church that had suffered some trauma over a generation or so and to help them discover a new way of ministering to the neighborhood as it began to gentrify while still maintaining an economically poor population.
I do not believe that the literal Eucharist table is where I find my identity as a priest. All of us should be carrying the Eucharist with us where-ever we go. As I drew closer to retirement, I wanted to discover a new ministry that would serve that eucharistic sensibility. I am currently a Music Practitioner for Healing and Transition student. My musical instrument is the folk harp. I have one more class to complete and then a year practicum of playing in a medical facility before becoming certified. I am hoping to offer that ministry to those suffering from mental health and/or post trauma issues, but I am always open to where God will lead me.
Be sure to stay and visit with us at the coffee hour following the 10am service.
Everyone is welcome!
Click Here for our Live-stream
View the Sunday service for November 12, 2023
Or Enjoy the Sermon Only
View the bulletin for November 12, 2023