Skip to main content

March 2025

 Friends of Shalom,

Have you ever had a moment where you feel and see the kindness of God in a profound way? Most of life is a grind. But sometimes in small and big ways we get to experience God's kindness in a way we aren't soon to forget. 

This last July, Beth and I celebrated our 25th anniversary! Around this time some friends of ours who

Placencia, Belize!

own a home in Belize offered it to us as a free place to stay and we decided to take them up on the offer. They encouraged us to wait until March 2025 and so we began planning. A few weeks ago we flew out to Placencia, Belize for a 10 day trip! We had never done anything like this before nor for this length of time. Everyday we would share memories from 25 years together. Taking time away to reflect as well as enjoy the sunshine, beaches, food, and rich culture of Belize was a true gift! 

These past few weeks I've seen and felt the kindness of God in a profound way.

Updates:

  • We got to visit a small Anglican Church..
    There may be opportunities for future partnership!
    We had our second baptism! This time a young adult got baptized. 
  • We had our first "after church" potluck. We basically had 100% participation and lots of amazing food. It continues to bring me great encouragement to see the community being formed. We were able to host our Canon for Church Planting Fr Ryan Brotherton who came and preached as well.
  • While we were in Belize our team of leaders and our lay preacher led morning prayer.
  • Recently I heard of a young middle schooler tell someone how much they love our church! This came about as she is meeting with a young woman in a new mentoring relationship.
  • We have a new family coming who came through an invitation by another one of our core members and we had a two new women come on Sunday one of whom was also through a personal invite! 
  • We have a new young man who's been coming consistently for the past month.
  • We made budget in February!
  • We had a good turn out for our first Ash Wednesday service. 
  • I began participating in a monthly zoom call with about 8 other priests/church planters in our diocese that has been an encouragement to me. 

Prayer Requests:

  • Please pray for our Lenten season. May this be a time of deep repentance and drawing near to Jesus. 
  • Pray for wisdom in regards to our next steps as a new church. I have several ideas, but just want God's wisdom! 
  • Pray that we would continue to build for the Kingdom of God in Kitsap! 

Thanks again for your support and prayers!

For the Shalom of Kitsap,

Fr Rob Steinbach

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

December Newsletter - Year End Report and Year End Giving

Friends of Shalom,  As we come to the end of 2025, I am truly amazed and so grateful for all that our Lord has done and continues to do in our church. The best way to describe this year for me would be “holistic growth.” We’ve seen this in terms of new folks checking out Shalom (many new to faith), we’ve grown deeper in Christ as a church, and we’ve grown as a community in our relationships with one another.  Merry Christmas! Here are some highlights from 2025. Three adult baptisms. We regularly have people new to Christianity or who haven't been to church in years join us on Sunday. Two catechism classes with a total of twelve adults. Inside giving growth by almost $2,000 a month. Our average Sunday Attendance has grown from 30 to 45.  We collectively gave $1,500 for our lenten offering to Scarlet Road (a local non-profit that works with survivors of sexual exploitation). And we volunteered to help with several projects as well. Two weddings and Two engagements! W...
Post a Comment
Read more

November Newsletter

Young Adults The church we rent was recently painted. We're so grateful to be able to partner with All Saints Academy!  One of the exciting things about church planting is that as we open our doors for Sunday Eucharist and scatter gospel seeds in our community we don't always know which ones will grow up. We don't always know who God will allow us to reach. In many ways this reminds me of my wife's garden. Last spring she planted a bunch of different veggies some took and some didn't. It was a surprise to see as we moved through the growing season. One of the surprises in planting Shalom has been the number of young adults we have seen find a home at Shalom. I wasn't expecting that and it has been a true joy! We've already had two weddings with a third one this summer. We've had three babies born and one more coming in a month. We also have several single young adults in their 20's and 30's who are a part of our church. Please continue to pray fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

September Newsletter

 Friends of Shalom, Just like life has many phases, so does church planting. Recently I was reflecting on this for Shalom as I believe we are heading into a new phase. Here's where we've been and what's next. Phase 1: Is anyone going to come? When we began at the end of October of 2023 this was the question we were asking. We wondered if this new church plant would even work. This was evident in the fact that we only reserved the church we were meeting in for 1-2 months. We started with Evening Prayer on Saturday night and began slowly seeing folks join with us and begin to explore Anglicanism and starting a new church in Kitsap. This phase lasted through the end of March. Phase 2: What will happen when we actually start the church? As we began Sunday morning services this past Easter followed by my ordination to the priesthood, this was our next question. It was interesting to see how some folks dropped out once we began Sunday morning and others joined us. Overall beginn...
Post a Comment
Read more