October 2025 Vestry Meeting Highlights
Vestry Highlights – October 26 2025
The Vestry is our church’s governing board and is made up of elected members from our congregation. The vestry is responsible for everything that happens at St. Stephen’s - the finances, the worship, the care of the community, the repairs to the building — everything. If it involves St. Stephen’s, the Vesty must deal with it. The Vestry usually meets after church on the third Sunday of the month, unless schedules require that we meet on a different day or time, which we did this month.
Each month, I will identify 3 or more things the Vestry accomplished; during our October meeting, the Vestry…
1. We decided to actively search out and hire an expert to assess the church’s sound system which has long been unreliable and which has recently stopped working altogether. The fact that we have no functional sound system at this point makes this a very top priority. Fr. Ernie was given the task of locating a qualified professional to come in and assess the situation and make a proposal for the changes needed.
2. The Stewardship and Pledge drive begins this month. Gail Paul will lead this important effort, and we will have speakers at two upcoming Sunday services and a letter from Fr. Ernie later this month.
3. We made plans for updating the member directory to include the many new names of people who have begun attending the church since the last directory. Holly will oversee this project.
4. Mary Ludwick and JoAnne Markowska proposed restarting our monthly Living Stones Newsletter to be distributed both by email and as hardcopies. The hope to have the first one done by the first of November.
5. Fr. Ernie said he believes it was time to return to distributing communion at the altar rail as we did before Covid. (Communion will still be brought to those who have trouble walking.) We decided to begin this on Sunday November 2. There was also discussion about returning to the common cup, but for now, we will continue using individual glasses.