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

Pet Blessings and Partnership

We celebrated St. Francis' Day with the blessing of pets.  

These photos -- credits to Archdeacon Deborah Rucki Drake -- are about beloved pets:  

Patty and Pat with Hornet, recently
back from the vet                                                   

Brad With Allie

Michelle with Rags

Tom with Dexter

Their faces struck me -- the animals, and the people -- and the partnerships they provide for each other. 


We're going to be looking for partner parishes for St. Agnes' -- for other churches with whom we can be in partnership, sharing strengths and gifts and a lay and clergy leadership team. It's about a broader, richer ministry to an area. 


Is it about diminishing St. Agnes'?  LOOK at these pictures!  Good partnerships give life.

Good partnerships give life abundant, which spills over into more life: these were some of our parishioners who visioned that The Food Pantry, when opened, should provide pet food as well as people food.  











                                     

So what's really going on in this Service?

Sunday after Sunday, Christians join in services where we take, bless, and share bread and wine.  Some call it "the Mass,"  some call it "Communion," and with many others, we call it "the Eucharist," from the Greek word for thanksgiving, because the prayer of blessing begins with a huge thanksgiving for all that God is and for all that God has done.

This week (August 5th) we will do an instructed Eucharist, skipping the sermon and inserting "here's what we're up to at this point" stage notes into the service.
 and we see it as one of two fundamental Christian sacraments.  

Two of our wisest women were talking about the Eucharist:

"Something takes place... both the bread and wine are changed in some way that they bear a Presence... that they become holy, not just wafers and wine."

"Every day I invite God into my house, and on Sundays I go to God's house and share the bread and wine with him."

I remember Rachel Hosmer talking about the Eucharist:  "at the Sanctus, the part where we say that we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, it's as if the roof of the church opens and we are with all of them, and with our loved ones, praising God."


Sunday:    10AM:   Instructed Eucharist, Children's Chapel, followed by Coffee Hour
Tuesday:    1 PM:   Needlecrafters
                 7:30PM: Vestry meets

What's up this week

The opening of The Food Pantry is what's up this week.  Born of prayer and a sense of the importance of helping those with food insecurity, particularly at the end of the month, The Food Pantry opens Wednesday afternoon/early evening and Saturday morning.  Part of the initial vision was a sense that families shouldn't have to choose between feeding themselves and the pets who mean so much to them, so pet food will be available on request.

People we've never met are part of this -- with donations to the drop boxes on the portico.  Members and friends have painted, built shelves, donated food and money, stocked goods, set up bags to give out.  We named it "The Food Pantry, " not "St. Agnes' Food Pantry" because we hope that it can become a community activity, a community response to a clear need.  We were delighted on Monday to have the Mayor cut a ribbon, opening The Food Pantry.

Please pray for those who come -- that they may find sustenance for their bodies and hearts;
Please pray for those who donate -- that they may sense as "well done!" deep in their hearts;
Please pray for the volunteers -- for compassion and kindliness, patience and giving hearts.

Also:  Tuesday the 24th, 1 PM    Needlecrafters meet
           Wednesday the 25th, 3:30 PM  Volunteers start
           Saturday the 28th, 8:30 AM  Volunteers start

            Sunday the 29th: 10 AM  Service in the Church (Eucharist, Rite II)
                                            and Children's Chapel

Vacation Bible School this week (7/9-15)

The Parish Hall Stage is festooned with sky-things: planes, birds, blimps, kites -- and even
(sssh a flying PIG! ) as we await Monday night (6PM-8PM) as our first evening of a week-long Vacation Bible School.   The theme of the SKY vacation bible school is "Everything is possible with God" and stories and activities, songs and games all help the children learn this trust.

Begun in 2009 as a joint of four Little Falls churches (St. Agnes', the First Reformed and Second Reformed, and the United Methodist Church) and changes venue each year.  This year, it returns to St. Agnes.

Children from 4 years old to entering 6th grade are enrolled; middle school and high school youth are helpers.  Because of grant funding, we are able to offer the VBS free of charge.

If you would like your child to be part of this VBS, come on Monday night -- you can register then!

We're also working to prepare our new Food Pantry for its first opening the last Wednesday and Saturday of July -- the shelves are up -- now we're praying for lots and lots of food donations.

We tend to think of starving people in some foreign country, of people starving in the southern hemisphere, about families wondering where their next meal is coming from -- but it's HERE, too, that families wonder how they will find food -- especially at the end of the month.

During the hours the church office is open (M-F, 9AM-Noon) you can take food to the office (door off long breezeway on the right); at other hours, you can leave it in our dropbox on the breezeway.  Thank you in advance!

Anticipating the Fourth

"Freedom is not free" was the tag that came along with this picture for the Fourth.  We think of the men and women who have served in the Middle East and their families, living icons that freedom is not free, and step away from the picnic or the fireworks to think of our responsibilities for freedom -- and for God.

The contemporary reading for the 1st is a jewel from Nancy Mairs:

"That's what we're here for: to make the world new.  We know what to do: seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly, treat every person as though she were yourself.  These are not complicated instructions. It's much harder to decipher the directions for putting together a child's tricycle than it is to understand these."

So how are you called, how are we called, "to make the world new?"


What's up this week: 
   Tuesday, June 26th        Needlecrafters, 1PM, Libarary
   Wednesday, June 27th   Taize Service, 7:30 PM, Church
   Thursday, June 28th      Food Pantry Team, Library, 7PM


   Sunday,  July 1st             Eucharist, Children's Chapel, 10AM
   Tuesday, July 2nd           Women's Group, 1PM, Library
   Friday, July 6th               Decorate Stage for Vacation Bible School, 3PM

   COMING UP: VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL   

JULY 9-13  6-8 PM

What's up this week

St. Agnes' just said "YES" to an end-of-month food pantry scheduled to begin in July!

Back in January, Bishop Beckwith challenged us to look in our community for a need which called for a mission outreach.

During Eastertide, we prayed for discernment about this need and mission.

In May a team came forward with a proposal for a monthly food distribution, during the last week of the month, providing food for humans and animals in families where there is food insufficiency. This resonates with our core values (years of bringing food and collecting it for others, a small emergency food pantry on site, years of providing one dinner a month at St. Paul's Men's Shelter in Paterson).

In June it was presented for a second time to the parish members at a Forum.  People are volunteering, are offering money, are planning and helping with the set-up tasks.

God-willing, we will be open the first time on the 25th (Wednesday evening) and 28th (Saturday morning) of July.

Stay tuned for more!

THIS WEEK: 
Tuesday, June 11:     ECW and Needlecrafters, 1PM
                                    Vacation Bible School Planning Meeting, 7:30 PM
Friday, June 15:         SPRING DINNER, 5-7 PM: Fabulous food
                                     from Lorenzo's
Sunday, June 17:        Church Service, Children's Chapel, 10 AM

What's up this Week: May 13-19, 2012

Mother's Day -- Rogation Day -- and Celebrating our Confirmands

(That's several churchy words there...)

This season, our theme at St. Agnes' has been that we are grace-filled, and fed at communion for a purpose, that the purpose is so we can go out and serve in Christ's name.  We've been praying for an understanding of our mission focus: how can we focus our energies so that we make a difference for our community?

A week ago, we had an exciting proposal from a working group that we not only collect food (as we have been doing for years) but open a food pantry here at St. Agnes' -- and equally exciting was the response from those at the Forum, wanting to participate and wondering how soon it would start.

The Rogation days, celebrated for years at this point, are times for prayer for crops and a good harvest (of things on the land, in the sea).  Don Palmer writes that it's about our stewardship of the earth.

What it says to me -- Rogation time, our theme of discerning St. Agnes' mission, and Mother's Day -
is that it's about CARE.  Nurturing and caring for the earth, nurturing and caring for those closest to us -- those we see daily, and know by name;  and also nurturing and caring for "the strangers" for whom we sense a call from God to care.


This week:
Sunday:  10AM Family service (communion) with special prayers for Mothers and all who nurture.
   For children: Children's Chapel and nursery care.
   Following the service, special celebration of our two newly confirmed members,
     and our two newly received members.
Tuesday: 1 PM: Needlecrafters meet
Wednesday: 7:30 PM: Vacation Bible School team meets.

What's Up This Week - Holy Week 2012

During Holy Week, we remember Jesus' confrontation with the power structure in Jerusalem, his last supper with the disciples, his arrest and death, and the shocking realization by the disciples that he had gone through and past death into a new and different, vibrant, victorious life.  We talk about it all kinds of ways: the churchy language is "resurrection."  I like to think that in the power and love of God, even death is overcome -- and not only for Jesus, but for us.

That's the message of Easter.  During this week, we meditate on the central themes of Christianity:

Palm Sunday - with the procession of palms and the remembrance of Jesus' street theatre in contrast to the power play of Roman troops coming into the city of Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  Our service: 10AM.   (As part of that service, for those who cannot be at a service during the week, we read the story of Jesus' trial and death.)




Maundy Thursday - remembering his command to us to serve one another - "Maundy" from the same Latin root as mandate - and the the last supper.  Our services: 12 noon, 7:30 PM.   The evening service ends on a grim note, as we strip the sanctuary of all color and ornaments, anticipating the barren feeling of Good Friday.




Good Friday - remembering his trial and execution by the Roman Imperial authority. Our services: 12 noon, 7:30 PM, and a children's interactive stations of the cross at 3 PM.  
During this week, it is essential that we realize that "the Jews" didn't kill Jesus; the Roman government acted, at the request of the most powerful clergy and laity in Jerusalem.  Using language from Occupy, it was the 1% that wanted to silence him and his message about the love of God and the call to live generously.

EASTER Sunday, with a joyous celebration of Jesus' new life, and the power and love of God which we see in action. Our service: 10 AM.  We will be talking about what new life looks like, and how eternal life stretches into this life, changing everything.

Holy Time (Lent), Prayer, and the Prophets

Holy Time (Lent): 
     "Don't think of it as a 'Lenten Rule,' Fairbairn; think of it as a training plan," said The Rev. Lee McGee, fomer professor of pastoral theology at Yale Divinity School and a beloved spiritual director.  I could get that:  I resist rules, but a training plan works for me.  So what we do (and don't do) during Lent is a way of getting in shape for Easter, getting a little better at sensing God's love and call, a little better at responding to God's love and call.

     It's far enough into Lent for us to have bombed on part of our Lenten plan... and therefore it's time to start again, and that's fine...  usually, we have to try over and over to learn new ways.  Fr. William Crummer, rector at St. Mary Magdalene's Toronto, gave one Lenten sermon with a calendar and an alarm clock as props, saying "This is the time we have; when it's gone, it's gone."

Prayer:  
    There are a gazillion ways to pray; we each find ways that work and ways that don't.  The proof that it's working isn't a warm fuzzy feeling (though those sometimes come and knock our socks off) but a change in how we're living.  Think of prayer as a conversation (some sharing from the heart, some listening) within a love affair.

The Prophets: 
   ... wrote of their understanding of God's love and purpose for their contemporaries -- they didn't do roadmaps for 2012, though we may discover our way by reading them.   Come learn more as we look at six Hebrew prophets on Wednesdays during February and March.  Soup at 6:30; study at 7:30.

This week: 
   Monday, 2/27:        Buildings and Grounds 7:30
   Tuesday, 2/28:       Women's Group, 1:00;  Communications 7:00
   Wednesday, 2/29:   Soup at 6:30, Study at 7:30
   Sunday, 3/4:           Service, Children's Chapel, at 10:00, followed by Coffee

What's Up This Week (2/5-2/12)

Coming this week: 
     February  5th,  10:00  -- Teens/Tweens meet with Sue Ploch
                                            Children's Chapel in the Library
                                            Main Service (Eucharist, Rite II) in the Church,
                                                    followed by coffee hour

     February  7th,    1:00     Women's Spirituality Group in the Libarary
                              7:30      Vestry meets in the Library

     February 12th  10:00      Children's Chapel in the Library
                                            Main Service (Eucharist, Rite II) in the Church,
                                                    followed by coffee hour
                              3:30      Absalom Jones Service at the Cathedral


Pray for Peace...   There's saber-rattling going on


One of my lifelong friends is a Quaker-Episcopalian, from a Massachusetts family which has given significant support both to a Friends retirement home and to the local Episcopal Church for generations.  When we differ, she leaves me squirming with her critique of our willingness to resort to force and threats of force.

It's happening now.  As I read the web news, I sense a ratcheting up of the language of threats in our dealings with Iran and Syria, a growing conviction that someone "should" or "will soon" attack Iran (whether Israel or the US), a demonizing of our perceived enemies.  There is momentum growing for another intervention (whether by Israel or by the US) which is reminiscent of the pre-Iraq assurances of "Weapons of Mass Destruction."  I remember standing on a bridge in Boston protesting this as President George W. Bush came to town.

It is estimated that the war in Iraq has cost the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis and 4482 American military, that 32,213 US military have been wounded, that over 1.5 million Iraqis are refugees, and that our running total cost has been $704.6 billion.   Can our best and brightest, can Israel's best and brightest, can Iran and Syria's best and brightest, not do a better job for us all this time?

From the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel, teachings on a radical way of living as God's people:

 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?'

Pray, dear friends, for a burst of sanity, a hint of humility, a vision of peace, and the courage to do something new, something godly in this time.

Fairbairn