The Rev. Jedediah Fox delivered this address to the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer on January 26, 2025. The text following is primarily AI speech-to-text with light editing. There are probably some transcription errors.
Fr. Jed Fox: And I would think, I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for it with bated breath, which is the Rector’s Address. Which I will try not to make a second sermon. Though that’s always the trick.
I want to start this address by with a word of thanks. Earlier this year you gave me a wonderful series of gifts to acknowledge for my ten years of work here in the church. I’m very grateful to every one of you, not just for giving me a gift, because I was here today I’m old, but for calling me ten years ago to be to journey alongside you in this journey toward the Kingdom of Heaven that we’ve built. It’s been a wild ten years in a lot of ways but a wonderful ten years that I’ve had the opportunity to think about it.
Ten years ago, when I gave my first Rector’s Address, I had on my mind the Christmas readings, particularly a phrase that was used in the letter to Titus, where Titus describes the followers of Jesus, the people of God, as a peculiar people, zealous for good works. And sometimes we hear that phrase peculiar, and we tend to think of quirky.
But I think that what Titus meant is not just quirky, but people who know themselves and God in Jesus Christ. And that is certainly, I think, who Redeemer is. In the voice of peculiar people who know themselves and who they are in God and Jesus Christ. And what is as true today as it was ten years ago when I gave that first rector’s address is that Church of the Redeemer is a people of worship, of sacrament, of community, and of outreach.
And we were able to live into those values in 2024 in wonderful ways. And one of the things we did is expand our community by welcoming in a new priest of the church. We got to journey alongside Teresa as she completed her transitional diaconate and see her get ordained and begin a new life of ministry as a priest in God’s holy church.
We continued our work with Hopelink and continued learning new ways in which we can be a blessing to them and others in our community. And we’ve begun work with the Kenmore Senior Women’s Shelter. All things that are, we said and we feel, are essential to our mission. You also got a new bishop, and the eagle-eyed ones, you might notice that his portrait finally came out.
So, it’s hanging out there in the narthex. If you want to go and look at it on your way downstairs to chili and pie, you can see Phil, our new bishop watching over us here at the Church of the Redeemer. It was a big process to get our new bishop. There were meetings and interviews and then an ordina…an election, and then an ordination, all of which were joyful and life giving.
And some of you joined with the rest of the diocese, the main family unit of the Episcopal Church, in doing that work of calling Phil to be on the mission. And there was a General Convention and you all, in your grace, lent me to the diocese to be a part of that General Convention, gathering on a larger Episcopal Church, not just a national church, but an international church, with people from Europe and Colombia and Guam and Ecuador and other places, and Taiwan and other places that are a part of this larger Episcopal Church, so that we can discern our way forward, how do we better be a church in a changing the world. How can we better be the body of Christ in a world that keeps changing more rapidly than anything we’d like?
For those of you who like numbers, here are a few numbers that tell us some things about the Church of the Redeemer in 2024. Our average Sunday attendance remained the same at 49 people on a Sunday.
That means that 49 people on any given Sunday will walk through the doors of the Church of try to find God in Jesus Christ, here among us. We had over 200 worship services in the church. of all sorts and kinds, most for Eucharist, but morning prayer as well.
And we continue to learn new ways of worshiping God. We’ve incorporated more of the new expanded language you’ve heard since the way we worship on Sunday morning at 10:30.
And we continue to grow in our ability to sing God’s praises in ways through the efforts of our volunteer organists and all of your efforts to be brave and sing boldly.
Sing boldly.
That breaks the AI to poorly paraphrase Martin Luther.
And I think the question that maybe had been with us subconsciously for the last several years particularly the last two years that we’ve been back in this building. I know it seems hard to imagine we’ve only been back in our building, in this space, for two years. Two years ago, almost to the day, the question that’s maybe been with us the last couple years is there life or would we learn how to cope? Is there a future for the church or would we have to deal with those headwinds?
It’s a question that’s not unique to us. It’s a question that I think every congregation of the Church of Christ, writ large, is honestly asking itself. Is there life after the pandemic? I think that in 2024 we have answered the question definitively, yes, there is. And as we move into a new year of life, worship, and community, and outreach together as the Church of the Redeemer, a peculiar people, zealous for good works.
You’ re faced with a new question. If there is life after COVID, what is it? What does it look like? What does it look like for us to be the Church of the Redeemer, to live into the values that we have in worship and sacrament, and be given an outreach in this new normal that has so firmly planted its better, for the better, in a few ways, but maybe not for the better in a lot of ways.
How do we preach the gospel?
How do we preach Christ crucified and risen?
That’s the work that we have to carry out. To figure that out, then to begin to go do this. It’s a work that I’m looking forward to, in this year, to carrying out with all of you, in many and various ways, to continue ministry with Hopelink, to continue to administration of the sacraments on Sunday, to feed us in our life, so that we may go out and proclaim the Gospel, to have community gathering together.
Hopefully in small groups on weeknights, hopefully in large gatherings around food, which I know is one of the favorite things of Redeemer. And it’s coming soon, I promise. I look forward to doing more of that with you.
And now, with the budget we have approved today, it feels like we’re taking a step back, having a priest who’s only three quarters time, for the first time in decades. I looked it up actually this week, just because I was curious. And the Redeemer has had a, when we had a full time non included priest, a full time priest since the 1950s.
And it might feel like being a three-quarter time priest, having a three-quarter time rector is taking a step backwards, but it’s not. It’s different. It’s a different type of ministry for a different moment of ministry, a moment that I guarantee will change in the next twelve months is the right way for us.
Be discerned, do in this moment to preach the gospel in this moment, in this dear these next 12 months as we discern how God is calling us beyond a COVID soldier into the new life. And I am excited and interested and curious to see what God will do with this new Church of the Redeemer, and I hope that you are as well.
And seeing as one of the principles of this congregation is eating together with Gusto…
Let us pray.
Almighty and ever living God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. Strengthen the faith, arouse the careless, and restore the penitent. Grant us all things necessary for our common life. And bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy church. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Before I declare this Annual Meeting of the Church of the Redeemer in the year 2025 completed. I would ask that those who have been newly elected to the vestry and those who are continuing on the Vestry, if you would please come up here for a very brief meeting before I release you to go enjoy the chili and the pie.
With that, I declare this 2025 Annual Meeting of the Church of the Redeemer ended.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6210 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The Episcopal Church welcomes you.
