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St. Luke’s is a parish with a strong sense of community and family. Our parishioners are infants, octogenarians and everyone in between. This welcoming and inviting community admires the beauty of the Episcopal liturgy.

The outstanding music and graceful liturgy are central to the life of St. Luke’s. Our worship is greatly enhanced by the beautiful sanctuary with stained glass windows.

St. Luke’s is a peaceful, comfortable, welcoming place to worship. We have a long tradition of high-quality preaching, based on sound theology and its applications to daily life.

OUR RECTOR

Dear Friends of St. Luke’s,

I greet you as having been your rector for five and a half months. What a wonderful ride it has been. I am certain that God called me to St. Luke’s—there is no doubt about it. We were meant for each other!  Your commitment to this parish is commendable and inspiring.  Your hopes for its future inspire me to think creatively and to pursue the Gospel in all our works. 

Allow me to begin by thanking our Senior Warden, Diane Crawford, for her unwavering support.  With Diane’s leadership, the vestry has steered the parish through months of transition and uncertainty and the result has been a healthy and thriving parish.  I want to thank Diane, the vestry, and the search committee for their care of me and my family.   I also look forward to working with Dr. Ted Miller as our new senior warden for 2010.

One of the reasons I was called to St. Luke’s was my ability and vision to rebuild the parish and grow it so that it can be the beacon of light that Christ calls it to be. Its light has never been extinguished; but for too many years the pilot light flickered under a bushel basket and now we need to crank it up!  You may have noticed that our Sunday attendance numbers are climbing as are our pledge units—especially the new ones.  Obviously we are all encouraged by these developments. But the truth is the nurture and growth of a healthy congregation is more than its average Sunday attendance.

We have to think outside of ourselves and pursue Jesus’ mission as it was written in the Gospel of Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (4: 18).  As far as I’m concerned the fulfillment of this prophesy from Isaiah is as good a mission statement as any. To this end, we will expand our outreach ministries.  I am grateful that we support the Soldiers’ Angel project, the San Francisco Food Bank, The Welcome Center, and the Homeless Prenatal Program (our Thanksgiving Day turkey drive), and for the leadership of these ministries. This December we were also asked by Episcopal Community Services to fill their barrel with winter supplies for their clients. Do you know how the Spirit responded? Our own Dr. Carolyn Brown, the dental director of the Native American Health Center gave 500 “toothbrush kits” to the residents of ECS’s Next Door and Sanctuary Shelters.  The ECS folks were overjoyed with our gift. 

I pray that in the New Year we can continue to support ECS as it tries to provide brown-bag lunches to homeless senior citizens.  I am also exploring outreach opportunities with the Hamilton Family Center which provides emergency shelter and stabilization to homeless families. If you have any interest or passion toward these projects please let me know—we need your leadership.    
Allow me to get back to our task of church growth.  I these short months, I have attempted to renew the spirit of our parish and create programs that would attract new members and recommit current parishioners.  Our opening our church doors to the neighborhood through our “Lunchtime with God” has been incredibly gratifying.  A mother from St. Luke’s School mentioned to me that when she dropped her children off she was left with the impression that our parish was now literally and figuratively open to the world. We now average 25 visitors a week in our sanctuary to pray.

I have also made a concerted effort to be on good terms with the preschool and enjoy a healthy working relationship.  The director of the school has allowed me to send announcements home with the children (Blessing of the Animals, Christmas Pageant) and we had one family join our Christmas pageant with their three boys and now they are coming to Sunday worship on a regular basis.  Baby steps! I also advertised our Christmas worship services in a few local newspapers just to get our name out in the community.  And I have started a Bible study for younger women and their friends in hopes of raising up a new generation of leaders.

And now as we approach February we anxiously await the beautiful organ recital and reception that will welcome Elodie Raimond a French organist who is having her U.S. debut at St. Luke’s. Our thanks go to parishioner Dennis Henkelman (and his partner Kevin Travis) who along with his team, Peter DeLuca and Mary Ambrose, have outdone themselves with creativity, elegance and a Valentine’s Day extravaganza. I know it will be a lovely evening—one that will showcase our renowned organ but the new spirit that has taken hold of St. Luke’s.           

And finally, you should know that one of my larger goals for 2010 is to begin an alternative worship service on Sunday evenings that will attract a broad demographic—skewed more toward the unchurched and those in our surrounding neighborhood.  I am working with the Rev. Bertie Pearson and newcomer, Linda Chavez to create a Jazz Eucharist.  Pray that we can find our jazz musicians! Our vision for the liturgy is accessible and non-threatening worship, lots of candles, and a beautiful Eucharist.  Of course we hope the music will move and uplift us.   

Let me end by thanking you for being open to my ideas and my vision. I can’t do this without you.  It will take all of our efforts to grow St. Luke’s into the parish we know that will feed us and the world.  Do this for me: Pray for St. Luke’s and come to church. I imagine what it would feel like if every parishioner of St. Luke’s showed up on the same Sunday. The church would be full!  That would be a dream come true!

My cup runneth over,  Dana+       

OUR LITURGY

Our Sunday services have been described as beautiful, uplifting, contemplative, and dignified. While St. Luke’s parishioners prefer the traditional Rite I and Rite II liturgies, augmented on occasion by liturgies from other traditions, there is also a growing interest in inclusive language. Beautiful choral and organ music are central to the worship experience at our 10:00 am service. We offer open communion and invite all to participate, including children who have been baptized. We also offer special services on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Thanksgiving Eve. Other holy days are celebrated on the Sunday closest to the date. On Christmas Eve, we have a popular children’s Nativity pageant and family Eucharist that draws a large number of friends and family.