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 for all the young adults of Shalom!

Updates

We had our second wedding at Shalom this past Saturday.
A young family has recently decided to commit to our church.
A young couple has been coming 3 weeks in a row and even brought a friend this last week.
We have 10 ladies signed up for an Advent Craft night this Friday. These kinds of events build community and are an encouragement to many.
A young man in our church recently began taking the left over food from our coffee fellowship time and delivering it to some of our unhoused neighbors.

Prayer

For a young man in our church who recently lost his father to cancer.
For a couple's first child born a few weeks ago! Recovery for mom and God's strength for the new parents!
For Advent and the opportunity to reach new folks.
For wisdom and clarity in what God might be calling us to as we head into a new year!
For finances and budget decisions in 2026.
For Rob as he's recently had some health challenges.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. As always I'm grateful for your time in reading this letter and for your prayers!

For the Shalom of Kitsap,

Father Rob

Comments

June Newsletter

My wife and I have been building a garden… well, mostly my wife ;) I underestimated how much work it would be. We had to get stones out of the soil, lay down Beth's Garden mulch, then build a fence to keep the deer out. After that there was ordering dirt, wheelbarrowing the dirt, building planters, filling the boxes, and finally planting. This got me thinking about the work of ministry and specifically the balance between working hard, but then trusting God with the growth. In our garden we are working hard, but after we do our work we can’t make the plants grow. That’s outside of our realm. This partnership we have with God that began in Eden is a hard one. It seems like we’d rather just work hard and make it all up to us… or throw our hands up and just “let go and let God” to do it all. But neither is how it all works. We do work hard. We do build. At the same time, only God brings the growth! We see this in a wonderful text in Paul’s first letter to Corinth. T...

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Friends of Shalom, As we are in the midst of Advent, I'm reminded of how it's a season of tension. On the one hand we are looking forward to Christmas, to remembering our Lord's birth and all the beauty of the story. But on the other hand we are longing for his final coming when he will make all wrongs right. In Advent we're invited to be honest about our longings for freedom from cancer, oppression, sin, war, depression, and all the brokenness of the world while at the same time putting our hope in Jesus the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1-11). But this is how we always live isn't it? We live in the in-between and in a perpetual Advent of sorts! As Karl Barth said, " What other time or season can or will the Church ever have but that of Advent?" So we live in the tension. And as a church planter I also live in the tension. I live with a heart of gratitude for all that God has done and is doing in our church while at the same time longing fo...

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