What's up this week: Pentecost, 2013

Pentecost -- 50 days after Easter -- is the great celebration of the Holy Spirit -- God who enters into our lives and souls, God who strengthens and sustains us, God who teaches us and prays when we don't know how (or what) to pray.

The account in Acts is full of wind and flame -- the power of God swirling as it was experienced by the friends of Jesus gathered.  But God can (and does) come at any time,  in a variety of ways,  with a variety of gifts.

At St. Agnes'  we celebrate Pentecost as a new beginning, with Fairbairn's retirement and the beginning of Archdeacon Deborah's time as Pastoral Associate.  This begins a transition period in which we hope to find one or more partner churches with whom to share clergy and mission.

Do we have all the answers?   No.
Do we know exactly how it will work out?  No.
Is it a bit scary?  Yes.
Do we have some models?  Yes.

In this sense, Pentecost is OUR FEAST!!!

The disciples didn't have all the answers about their future, either.
The disciples didn't know exactly how it would pan out, either.
The disciples were a little scared, too.
The disciples had Jesus as a model -- AND the gift and power of the Holy Spirit to lead them.

... and so do we.

COMING UP THIS WEEK: 
   WEDNESDAY,  TAIZE SERVICE, 7:00 PM
   THURSDAY, VESTRY MEETING, 8:00 PM
   SUNDAY, WORSHIP SERVICE (COMMUNION), WITH CHILDREN'S CHAPEL 10 AM

Holy Week at St. Agnes'

Sunday, March 24: 10 AM: Blessing of palms and procession, first reading of the passion story, communion service.  Children will process, then go to Children's Chapel and work on a project; Communion for children will be brought to them.

Thursday, March 28: Maudy Thursday (Maundy refers to Jesus' commandment to love): Communion services at 12 Noon and 7:00 PM.

Friday, March 29: Good Friday  Services at 12Noon and 7:00 PM.  Children's Stations of the Cross at 2 PM

Sunday, March 31: EASTER SUNDAY:  Festival Communion Service at 10 AM.  What does "New Life" mean to you?

What do we do with Lent?

Lent is the season of the church year when we prepare for Easter (which is THE big feast of the year -- forget the bunnies and jelly beans:  at Easter, Jesus' friends realized that he was still present to them beyond death, triumphant over death, and that realization changed their lives.  If we truly got it, that realization would change our lives as well.)

So as the fellowship of the followers of the Risen Christ grew, Easter became the time to baptize new members.  It was also the time to reconcile with those who had sinned notoriously and wanted to return to the church.  As these two groups prayed and fasted and prepared for Easter, others joined them in solidarity, and - lo - we had a lenten time of prayer and fasting.

Any Lenten practice which connects us with God and others is a good Lenten practice.

In my experience, fasting hasn't worked.  I remember young adulthood, when we watched the clock on Saturday nights and then lit up cigarettes at midnight, cheerily exclaiming, "Sunday isn't Lent." I also think that I can turn Lent into a New Years' resolution do-over way too easily, or focus on myself too much. (Hey, God, how am I doing?)

So this year, we're suggesting what Archdeacon Deborah called "Just do it!"  Can we reach out to others this Lent?  Can we offer our time, talents, treasure for others?  Can we learn a little more about what God is doing in our neighborhood, and who our neighbors are?  Can we lay down old family battle lines and do some forgiving, some asking for forgiveness?  Just as our Food Bank has been transformative for St. Agnes' we may find that this kind of reaching out will be transformative for our Lent.


This week:

Tuesday, February 19:   1:00 PM   Needlecrafters, Library
Thursday, February 21: 7:30  PM   Drupal Website group, at Fairbairn's
Sunday, February 24:   10:00 AM  Sunday Eucharist (Communion)
                                                        Children's Chapel
                                      11:15 AM  Coffee hour and Forum on Partnership

Marilyn McCord Adams on Sandy Hook

This new today (Monday 12/17) from Marilyn McCord Adams, posted by Susan Russell in her splendid blog, "An Inch at a Time"

Marilyn McCord Adams on Sandy Hook

With thanks this morning to Episcopal Cafe's Daily Episcopalian for "The slaughter of the innocents" -- reflections on the unspeakable tragedy of the Sandy Hook shootings by the inimitable Marilyn McCord Adams. She concludes:

"We can’t make Sandy Hook meaningful

by looking backward,

but only by moving forward,

by working alongside

a God Who is for us,

resourceful

to make good on the very worst

that we can suffer, be, or do.

God knows,

God has created us

in a world where ghastly evil interrupts,

despite our best efforts to control.

God not only creates;

God resurrects.

God makes the worst count for good

by bringing life out of death.

To be on God’s side,

we must bend ourself

to efforts that foster life,

inclusive community,

and creativity.

Collaboration revives hope

because it convinces us: 

we are safe because,

and only because,

we are loved by God!"

The Presiding Bishop calls for prayer

Presiding bishop calls for prayer following the Connecticut tragedy

'Will you pray and work toward a different future…'

| December 15, 2012 

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs] Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calls for prayer following the tragedy in Connecticut:

We grieve with the many families and friends touched by this shooting in Connecticut.  We mourn the loss of lives so young and innocent.  We grieve that the means of death are so readily available to people who lack the present capacity to find other ways of responding to their own anger and grief.  We know that God’s heart is broken over this tragedy, and the tragedies that unfold each and every day across this nation.  And we pray that this latest concentration of shooting deaths in one event will awaken us to the unnoticed number of children and young people who die senselessly across this land every day.  More than 2000 children and youth die from guns each year, more than the soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Will you pray and work toward a different future, the one the Bible’s prophets dreamed of, where city streets are filled with children playing in safety (Zechariah 8:5)?

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Will we pray and work toward a different future?  This is not only the message of the prophets (including John the Baptist) but the message of Jesus.

---------------------

This week: 

    Sunday,  December 16th:  Eucharist (Communion) and Children's Chapel at 10:00

        Nursery Care available
        FORUM:  Michelle Borden, Pat Keating, and Deborah Drake on Partnership

    Tuesday, December 18th:  Women's Group, 1:00 PM

    Wednesday, December 19th:  Missional Church (quick) study, 7:00 PM

                                                    Taize service, 7:30 PM

     Saturday, December 22nd:  The Food Pantry open, 9:00 - 1:00 PM
     Sunday, December 23rd:  Eucharist (Communion) and Children's Chapel at 10:00

        Nursery Care available
        ADVENT BRUNCH AND GREENING OF THE CHURCH following

What can Partnerships do for our Congregations?

Three Bonus Advantages to Partnerships...

CRITICAL MASS                                  

We feel called to mission: to make a difference in our communities, and to worship, growing in our connection to God.  But many of us are experiencing the greying of our churches:  Bob, who used to lead Buildings and Grounds, is unsteady on a ladder;  Mary, once the whirlwind of a Thrift Shop which benefitted a neighborhood, walks with a cane.  Our middle-aged members are juggling full-time jobs, commutes and time for families.  Even as we redesign our parish life, we feel short of the people we feel we need.   We don’t have enough youth for a youth group, enough singers for a choir, enough children for a robust Sunday School.  If we partnered with other congregations, we might return to critical mass.

BETTER STEWARDSHIP OF OUR RESOURCES

Our parish, which once had a Sunday attendance near 100, struggles to reach an average Sunday attendance of 40.   We have gone to part-time clergy.  But following on the June Diocesan Convention, churches with part-time clergy pay the full cost of housing and health insurance.  If we partnered with other churches, we would pay a only a share of these costs.  

For the truly brave-hearted, this question:  What could we be doing in mission and ministry if we didn’t have to carry a building that is over twice the size we need?

The strain of the struggle shows across our diocese:

·      Over forty of our congregations have clergy who are less than full-time.

·      Over forty of our congregations drew more than 5% from their invested funds and/or ran a deficit greater than 15% of their invested funds in 2011.

·      The June Convention showed the level of financial anxiety in the Diocese, with clergy and church treasurers sounding their concerns.

·      What we have been doing isn’t working.

There isn’t anywhere in the Baptismal Covenant that we promise to wither and worry and finally fail.  We need to think of other ways to be church together so that we preserve what we most treasure and move from mission rather than anxiety.

Excitement and synergy

What if it weren’t such a struggle?  What if we felt the energy of the Holy Spirit moving among us much more often than we worried about what Bishop Mark calls “the killer B’s” (budgets, buildings and boilers. Some congregations have rearranged Vestry agendas so that budgets and B&G reports come late in the meetings rather than dominating them.)  According to Jim and Steve Kelsey, dreamers of mission and ministry by teams of the baptized, “The Holy Spirit gives the gifts needed to do the ministry we are called to do.”  Notice that the synergy includes lay leaders and trainers.

HOW, in other words, can we reconfigure our lives together so that we can focus on what matters?  How do we find zest and God and ministry again?  One of the advantages of Partnerships is that we have  partners in mission with us, so we don’t have to do it all alone,  and so that, together, we can find joy again.  Lay and clergy can be learners together, as we re-tool for missional life in this century.

And we can, generally, move into this gradually, testing the waters with small collaborations, trying things together for a defined period of time, learning from what works and what doesn’t.

FINE-PRINT DISCLAIMER

Change is scary;  change feels weird; some times we have to act and let our feelings catch up with our new reality.  New ways and new partnerships require effort, more time spent in listening and figuring out how to work together.  They also require us to give up some power and “the way we’ve always done it.”  
But they give us a chance of new life – even new life abundant… resurrection life. 

________________________________________________________________
This week: 

Sunday, November 11th: Eucharist, Children's Chapel, Nursery Care: 10 AM

Tuesday, November 13th: Women's Group, 1 PM, Library
                              Vestry, 7:45 PM, Library

Wednesday, November 14th: Missional Church Study, 7 PM, Library
                                  Taize Service, 7:30 PM, Sanctuary

Saturday, November 17th: Mid-Central Churches in Conversation, 9AM
                                at St. Luke's, Montclair
                                START Holiday Fundraiser, 11 AM - 4 PM, Hall

So What's a Regional Ministry, and why should we want to be part of one?

A Regional Ministry, or “cluster” represents an approach to Episcopal ministry with at least four differences from what most of us have experienced.  (Think TEAM).

·      Generally, there is a leadership TEAM of lay and ordained persons who share their gifts for ministry across a number of congregations who have joined in partnership.  When people are hired, they are hired for the team; as gifts for ministry are discerned, they are shared through the team.  Two examples may help:

o   The Rev. Diana Wilcox, a transitional deacon, is currently working as Assistant to the Rector at St. Luke’s Montclair, as Chaplain at Montclair State University, and with Holy Trinity, West Orange.  She represents the vital initiatives that become possible when we move from the one-building-one-priest model to regional partnerships.

o    Imagine a lay leader absolutely gifted at working with youth and young adults.  At family gatherings, he is trailed by the children; teens find that “he gets it.”  But as he lives in a rural area, there are only two teens and one elementary school child in his parish.  In a Regional Ministry, he could share gifts (and live out this vocation) leading a regional Youth Group.  Everyone wins.

·      There is an EXCITEMENT and vitality in the richness that comes with critical mass, in the sharing  of ministry, in focus on possibilities, gifts and call rather than on the “killer Bs” (budgets, buildings, boilers).   Those of us who have been part of regional ministries find that being part of a team, rather than lone rangers, gives a whole new perspective.

·      Instead of stand-alone congregations straining to do everything, ministry is done across the regional AREA, with strengths contributed by each congregation and shared.  Youth Ministry might be coordinated at one congregation, a fine Sunday School supported at another, adult education programs provided collaboratively, all enhancing the capacity of the baptized for ministry.  

Outreach and involvement in local communities can both be shared and locally done.

Further,  we understand that ALL the baptized are gifted for and called to ministry, and that we do it in every place we are, not just within the four walls of a parish church.

·      No kidding, let’s also talk about MOVING from worrying about MONEY to focusing on MINISTRY.  Because of efficiency in staffing and honoring the gifts of the laity, there is a richness available in a regional collaborative not possible in what we have been doing.  Clergy aren’t frantic about how to live on half-time salaries.  Treasurers aren’t wondering which bill to pay.  Laity don’t feel like second class communicants.

How do we get from here to there?  We learn about Regional Ministry, and we learn with, from, and about one another, and we do some sharing.  Then, in a leap of faith, we covenant to work together for a period of time.  Generally, common expenses are shared pro-rata by the cooperative congregations; local expenses continue to be managed locally.  A Regional Ministry Steering Committee (generally with one Warden, one representative from each congregation, and the clergy team) resembles a “vestry” for the collaborative. 

Training is key:  we are talking about a culture shift, a change from “how we’ve always done it.”  For this reason, training and ongoing consultative coaching are vitally important, and also because we all need to grow in our capacity to do ministry.

On Sunday, October 21st, the people of St. Agnes' Church will be on the road, visiting neighboring Episcopal Churches as we seek to know our neighbors better.  Sign-ups for the visits will be on Sunday the 14th or by calls to the office.  On the 28th, we'll debrief the visits, with a leading question being "What did you see/experience that was really good?"

This week:    Tuesday,       1PM,  Library:  Women's Spirituality Group

                       Wednesday, 7PM, Library:  Missional Church Study Group