Skip to main content

August Newsletter

 Grieving but grateful... 

Robert Michael Steinbach Sr. 9/7/1946 - 7/28/2025
This is has been my response to people as they've asked me how I'm doing. 

On July 28th my Dad's spirit left his failing body into the presence of the Trinity. My heart is heavy because of the finality of death. I can no longer see him or talk to him. Now I wait to go to him. 

But I'm also grateful for his life. He had an amazing testimony which I shared about briefly at his memorial service. He was a gift to all who knew him. He was my Dad and I loved him dearly. 

Needless to say July was a blur. I made two trips back to Maryland. The first was to see him and support my mom in his final days. The second was a week long trip after he passed for his memorial and committal service. I'm settling back into work and processing my grief as well as looking forward to the end of summer and some fall planning.

Updates:

  • While I was gone our church stepped up and handled the Sunday service. I'm grateful for our team.
  • We had a great group of folks discussing, "Word and Sacrament," which is a book on church planting within the Anglican tradition. It was encouraging to hear how excited people are to be a part of our church and hopeful for future growth.
  • I had a wonderful meeting with a young woman who is excited to be a part of Shalom and preparing to join our fall catechism class. 
  • We've seen new visitors and a few who have returned. This is a big praise! One was clearly moved emotionaly by the preaching of the gospel. 
  • We had a small work team make an improvement to our worship space by tearing out an old sound booth and tightening up our sound system. 
  • I had the chance to visit and pray with one of our core members who is holding morning prayer at his job. He's been using this as an outreach to his employees. 
  • We had a visitor give us a generous financial gift. I praise God for his continued provisions! 
Prayer:
  • Please pray for our family in our grief especially my mom Laura, twin sister Liz, and my nephews Lincoln and Benny.
  • Please pray for our fall Catechism class. Pray for our new folks to sign up!
  • Pray for some new initiatives we hope to begin this fall to build community and continue reaching new folks. 
  • We've seen a few new givers! 
Thanks again!

Shalom,

Father Rob and Beth 

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