The past four months have been very busy. There has been the usual seasonal activities revolving around the closing days of Lent, Holy week, the Great Fifty Days of Easter and beyond. Within the diocese we’ve held three ordination services, ordaining two transitional deacons, and five new priests. There have been three area confirmation services, at which (if my math is correct) we confirmed 63 people, received 12, and three people were reaffirmed. Two churches: Grace, Carthage, and Christ Church, Lexington have celebrated major anniversaries of 150 and 175 years respectively.

That all mounts up to a packed edition of Spirit. I counted 0ver 180 pictures, not to mention the usual round of feature articles too.

Full resolution copies of all the pictures (where we have them) are available for downloading and printing from our Flickr pages, and don’t forget if you click or tap on a picture in the Spirit you get to see a bigger version too.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the volunteer photographers: Donna Field, Chris Morrison, and Mary Ann Teschan who have helped me get pictures of all the events. Not only have they taken some wonderful pictures, but between them they’ve saved me some untold miles and 18+ hours of travel time.

I’ve not been idle either, besides presenting a workshop at Bishop’s Days and documenting several of the above events, I attended the annual Episcopal Communicators’ Conference in April, and co-presented a workshop on cybersecurity. In May I popped over to Louisville, Kentucky, for a three-day strategic planning meeting and office dedication with the Brotherhood of St. Andrew.

Speaking of the Brotherhood, the diocese has just installed a new Brotherhood chapter at St. Peter & All Saints, Kansas City. Watch out for a link to some pictures in the eSpirit, and an article in the September issue of Spirit. If you have a men’s group at your church, please consider looking at what the Brotherhood has to offer. If you want to know more contact Mike McDonnell (St. George, Camdenton), the Diocesan Coordinator for the Brotherhood.

Finally, if you’d like to volunteer to help share the news of the diocese by taking pictures of events, or submitting articles, don’t be shy, send me an email! Communications@diowestmo.org.

Gary Allman is Communications Director with The Diocese of West Missouri, and 1^stVP Communications and Public Relations for the Brotherhood of St. Andrew.