Reflecting on Soup'd Up Worship Last Night

Last night at Soup'Up Worship we played theologically with the image of the church as a family gathered around a table. Obviously it is not a radical image as it is at the heart of what we do together week after week.



But it has always struck me as so beautiful that a meal would be the central symbol of what it means "to do" church. We come together as a family around a table. It can be relaxed or formal, but either way there is hospitality and sharing and fellowship.

One of the most helpful insights that I took away last night was the phrase that one of the participants used. She said that a meal was great because "we let our guards down." This really resonated with me because I realized that of course part of the reason we come together is to come to know each other better, and we will never do so unless we let our guard down. And coming together over food and drink is ideal for creating the context where people feel comfortable and welcome. It is a place where we can talk and share.

Of course it raises more questions:

Does the way we do church work against the intimacy of a meal?
How can we make this part of our gathering together stronger?

Here are the quotes that guided our discussion last night. I especially love the Dorothy Day quote:

Dorothy Day:

"We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven in a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship."

Eugene Peterson:

"For the Christian, every meal derives from and extends the Eucharistic meal into our daily eating and drinking, our tables at which the crucified and risen Christ is present as host."

“It is virtually impossible to be detached and uninvolved when we are sharing a meal with someone.”

Sermon Notes from October 6th

• You will have to forgive me about changing the prayer for the day to reflect the feast of St. Francis and to preach about Francis. Normally I try not to insert my personal preferences, but this day is really important to me, for if I had to put myself in a box, which I am loath to do, but if I had to, I would call myself a Franciscan, and it is because St. Francis showed me, more than anyone, what it looked like to have faith.
• What is the difference when you love what you do?
  • Wood worker: make a table just for use in a work room, or something beautiful as a gift.
  • Study a language because you have to for credit, or study because of the beautiful woman who only speaks French and you want to speak with her.
  • Throw dinner together because you are hungry, or make a meal because your best friends are coming over.
  • To love to do something is to add something
  • From Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz: "I never liked Jazz music because Jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked Jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."
• It is something like this why I love Francis so much
• He showed me what it looked like to have faith, to love Jesus
• [About Francis]
  • There is an interesting prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, when the world was growing cold you
  • raised up blessed Francis, bearing in his body the marks of your
    passion, to inflame our hearts with the fire of your love"
  • The church by the time of Francis was in many ways an institutional church in the worst way
  • The church of the 13th century was wealthy, comfortable, powerful. The pope at the time, Innocent III was particularly gifted in power politics and was able to consolidate a good many powers in the church. 
  • The church was cold
  • It was into this church that Francis came, and it could be argued that no single person outside of Jesus and the apostles made a bigger impact on the church with the exception of St. Augustine.
  • But he didn't do it in any ordinary way: he didn't write theology, he didn't change liturgy, he had no authority, he was no bishop or anything like that. He was just a poor beggar. 
  • How did he do it? The answer is painfully simple. He had a radical faith. 
  • He lived more like Jesus than anyone other than Jesus or Paul ever has.
  • He absolutely trusted God for everything; he gave to everyone who asked; he forgave everyone who attacked him; he didn't care about what he wore or his possessions; he served freely; he loved everyone; he exhibited pure joy and radiant peace in his life. 
  • And it all came out of his radical love of Jesus.
  • What he did was to fire the imagination of the people of the church, and even if they couldn't completely do what he did, they saw that the way of Jesus was so beautiful and moving and powerful that they were affected.
  • And they rededicated themselves anew to the faith; gave themselves over to Christ again.
  • People can look at his life even centuries later and still be moved
• A moving example for me is the book Chasing Francis
• About a pastor of a church who has gotten into a rut. Something is missing. Everything is humming along, but the passion isn't there, the excitement. 
• There is infighting in the church and it is weighing him down. Some people want to force him out.
• So he goes to Italy, forced to go to visit his uncle who is a Franciscan priest. 
• He finds a whole new world of Christian witness. His imagination is set on fire seeing how the church there is so involved in the life of the poor, in the arts, in peace making, in the inner journey.
• And he comes back to his church with a new vision. He sees a different calling for his church.
• • Transcendence: Knowledge and theory are not sufficient! Encounter God! Encounter! Francis believed transcendent encounters with Jesus were the key to people's coming to faith. Opening our ears to God's voice in creation, being touched by the Spirit's presence in the community of believers, walking in solidarity with the poor, practicing contemplative prayer and meditation, saying the liturgy, and meeting Jesus in symbol-rich spaces and events like Communion - all of these are vital experiences that can act as portals into the life of God.
  • Community: We are an expression of Jesus on earth. No artificial distinctions between the sacred and the secular. Into the marketplace. The world community: we consume too much. What does it mean to live in the community of the world. Simplicity. Community of reconciliation and peacemakers.
  • Beauty: arts and music. Francis was a singer, poet and actor. The imagination is a beautiful way into people's souls, a way to think about and experience God. The arts used to be a huge part of Christian expression in the middle ages. The church could be a safe place for artists to practice their vocation.
  • Dignity: People come to us broken and looking for acceptance and healing. We also need to fight against the things that rob people of their dignity such as racism, sexism, addictions, injustice, poverty and so on. Give creation back its dignity; we can find areas that are trashed and make it beautiful again for God.
  • Meaning: People are meaning seekers. We have to understand people in terms of the story of which they are a part. We want to invite people to be a part of what God is doing in the world.
• Now the Gospel is problematic for my story.
• A very hard message.
• My interpretation: there is evidence that some of the disciples thought that they were going to get patronage positions in the kingdom of God based on their loyalty. And Jesus is telling them in a hard way that this is not how the Kingdom works.
• About the humility of St. Francis
• What I have realized recently is that it is not really St. Francis that I love; it is the one whom he reflects: Jesus, my Lord.

From Steve's Office:

Dear friends, I pray that you are well. There are just a few couple I wanted to talk to you about. Many of you were able to go to the concert for the Common Cup Company this week. What a wonderful event that was in the life of our congregation! The music was entertaining and uplifting and it was a lot of fun to sing as well as visit with so many people. But one thing I want to mention that I got to see that a lot of other people didn't. The amount of effort to put on the event was tremendous! There was selling tickets and CD's, putting the band up for a whole week, preparing lunches and dinners for the band, and so on. The whole week was a lot of fun. But a lot of people worked hard and with joy and I really want to thank all of them. Really wonderful stuff! Thank you, thank you.

Also, the other thing is that I am getting excited about the Ecumenical Mission for a couple of reasons. First, I know that Danielle, the leader, is a tremendous speaker, and it will be interesting and challenging. I am confident that the content will be first class. And second, this kind of event which is churches all over Sherwood Park is really a rare event. I have never run into anything like it and it is something to be supported. In so many ways, the divisions within the Christian community are such a sadness and tragedy, and this is a small glimpse of what real ecumenical work can look like: Churches coming together to better proclaim the Gospel. Please join me!

Sermon from June 9th

• I often wish that everyone could write sermons. I love doing this because it allows me a chance to really explore and dig into really great questions. Most of my sermons aren't actually final products, but steps on the way of exploration of the spiritual life. 
• Reflect on scripture, current events, the writings of the past.
• Sometimes I like to reflect a bit on certain words that resonate with the human soul. And that is what I am doing today. Some are universal and timeless. Words like: courage, truth, honour, love, justice, compassion.
• Other words are newer, have come about in the last century or so but speak to our current situation. Words like: creativity, authenticity, holistic, inclusivity and relevance.
• I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on the last of these words, relevance. And the reason is that the word relevant represents a bit of a tug of war in how we understand what the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be.
• The word relevance means "pertaining to the matter at hand."
• There is a lot of debate about things like whether the church is supposed to be relevant to where people are today in their wants or their needs, or is the church more timeless, not running after passing fashions. And if the church is to be relevant, what does that mean?
• To think through this, I want to look at three different aspects of the concept of relevance by looking at three different stories: the first is the story of the Apostle Paul, the second was a conversation with someone in my youth group at my last church and the third is about the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• First, Paul
• The reason I wanted to look at St. Paul is that I wanted to look briefly at why we still read him. What I mean is that here is a man 20 centuries distance in time from us from a completely different cultural and historical context and yet we say he is still relevant for us. What do we mean by that?
• Who was Paul?
  • Who he was. Convert who became a great planter of church across the Mediterranean world.
  • Why was he so effective? He wasn't terribly charismatic. Reading between the lines, he was a great letter writer but not necessarily a very charismatic person.
  • • In another place he tells us that the love of Christ compels him. What does that mean?
    • We know he had a life changing experience.
    • Simultaneously realized that what he thought he was doing for God was truly monstrous, that he was a murderer, and also experienced the cleansing power of the love and grace of God. That in the same moment he knew his sickness, he was healed.
    • It was an encounter that he could barely put into words.
    • He had found an inner freedom like he had never known
    • He realized that at the heart of God is a love that is completely undeserved and yet giving
    • Called drunk on grace
    • He wanted to share that freedom that he knew
    • He was effective because he spoke about an experience that is timeless and common to all humanity:
    • The need to be loved and accepted, no matter our failings or our sufferings. The need to be healed of our brokenness, and he pointed to Jesus as the one to bring the healing.
    • The word religion incidentaly originally meant to bind, to connect, to root and it meant to connect us to the transcendent God. 
    • I think this is why Paul is still relevant. He points to this universal need for connection to God, and he found it in Jesus.
• The second story goes in a different direction: one of the relatives of a member of my youth group came up to me and said I needed to talk with her.
• About what?
• I think she is getting down on organized religion.
• I wanted to tell her my joke, don't like organized religion? Become an Anglican, there is little here that is very organized!
• I resisted.
• I told her I didn't think I might be the best person to defend organized religion.
• But the question raised a bit of a paradox for me. Here I was, a duly ordained priest in good standing serving in the institutional church. But it wasn't really the institutional church I was interested in talking about. I wanted to talk about Jesus.
• And yet for her, the institutional church was actually getting in the way of that. And I could sympathize.
• I could remember in high school going to a Bible Study with a very kind man, he was the basketball coach, and part of the pull was that he brought Little Ceasar's pizza every week. But he had a crisp clear answers to questions I didn't have.
• I wanted to explore, and he wanted to give answers. I wanted to be a seeker, he wanted me to make a decision.
• I left the church and wandered for a long time. But the wandering was good; I did come to faith in Jesus, because he had answers to not only my questions, but to the needs of my heart and soul.
• But because of my path, I understand people who are searching and I have an extreme sensitivity to ways in which he church hampers the search.
• So when I spoke with her, I listened closely to her struggles, her questions; told her some of mine, and tried to answer HER questions, being careful not to answer the questions I think she should have.
• And it resonated. It was a great conversation.
• For me, I want to talk about Jesus.
• I have found such joy and meaning in following Jesus. I know him to be a close companion; I know him to have compassion on my many, many failings and to forgive me; I know him to be a challenge to me, to help me grow spiritually and in maturity; I know him to fill me with the love of God, so much sometimes I feel as if I can't take it anymore; I know him to be the answer to my questions. And if others can know him like I know him; nothing gives me greater joy.
• But I also realized that her questions were not my questions, and if Jesus was going to be relevant to her, I had to let him speak to her heart where she was at, and what she needed.
• I realized she wasn't just looking for timeless truth, but truth that spoke to her questions and her needs.
• Jesus has to speak to her in a different way than he speaks to me, but I hoped I could play a small role in bringing them together.
• This was where I started really thinking about the question of relevance. And it colours my thinking on the subject.
• To me the real issue of being relevant is not so much what kind of music we play or what kind of words we use, but the fact that we as a church are slowly realizing that Jesus does not speak in only one way, with only one kind of music and one kind of prayer book.
• As I have now prayed with and spoken with dozens and dozens of people about Jesus, I have become crucially aware that people have different personalities, different cultural backgrounds, different spiritual needs and challenges, different sins they wrestle with, different questions that are on their hears and all of these effect how Jesus needs to speak to them. And relevance is perhaps creating as best we can a space for all of them to encounter the living God in their hurts, their sorrows, their joy, their hope, their whatever. 
• Final story: paradox of Justin Welby's Enthronement 
• About the AofC
• About the service: pomp, ceremony
• But what spoke to me was the words of his entry
• Staff on door:
• Justin Welby's Enthronement
• • "Who are you and why do you request entry?"
  • "I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together."
  • "How do you come among us and with what confidence?"
  • "I come knowing nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified, and in weakness and fear and in much trembling."
• Humility
• This was the language of St. Francis and it is no accident that there is a resurgance in his popularity.
• It is the language of the new pope, and that is why he is touching millions.
• I think relevance for us has to come through humility.
• That last line comes from Paul and ties the stories together. 
• The good news of the Gospel is only good news when it speaks to the universal need of the human heart, but paradoxically only in such a way that it speaks to the individual where they are and when it is brought in a genuine spirit of humility and service. 

Notes from Vestry May 21, 2013

• We welcomed our new administrative assistant, Sherry Poulos.
• Janitorial: we chose Clarence's company to clean the church. Their offer fit well into our budget, and they will clean three times a week.
• Admin Assistant: Thanks to Gordon Weighell for all of his work on this. We interviewed several people and have hired Sherry Poulos and very please that she has joined us.
• Alpha: no new news
• Fire Alarm: Information was combined with engineering.
• Pay Pal: we are working on putting an electronic system of giving for the web site. Chris is heading this up. He will be in touch with the Envelope Secretary.
• Vacation Bible School: we have decided not to have one this year either like last year or using the Crosstalk team. We are still in conversation with Fusion about a possible summer program.
• Revenue Opportunity: there is a music teacher who has expressed using the church as a base for teaching piano. He is willing to pay $800 a month for 10 months. The corporation is looking at exploring this more fully.
• Assistant: Chris is going on Marriage Encounter this weekend. He has been busy with Soup'd Up and the Facebook workshop. He is looking at working with the youth group in the fall.
• Financial. We have finished the first third of the year in a good position. We have a $9,606 surplus. But that is with the surplus from last year being rolled forward; without the surplus we would have a small surplus of $674 which puts us in a good position for the more difficult third of the year financially.
• Stewardship: Gordon Voth presented on our plans for the fall. They will be tied in with the Mission Fest and Back to Church Sunday.
• Executive Council: will meet on Thursday
• Youth: We are sorry to see Devon going but wish her well. She is going to the University of Victoria.
• Engineering: The fire alarms are in and functioning. The county was happy with all of the work that we have done. We may not have to put in fire doors as we thought. This will save us a lot of money.
• Maintainance: William is going on vacation for six weeks; he is passing the baton onto Jim Reville in the meantime.

Spirituality for Millennials

One of the big questions in church circles is what does it engage the next generation. The name given to the current 'next' generation is the Milennials and they have specific, interesting demographic trends. Here is an interesting article on the spirituality of millennials: (the original site is: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/05/14/ministry-among-millenials-the-spirituality-of-young-people/)

Note: While religious affiliation amongst young adults is down, it is intriguing to find that studies show significant numbers of unaffiliated young adults pray daily and meditate weekly. This article addresses this opportunity.

Many young adults are investigating themes in spirituality more willingly than formal religion. Across religious traditions absentee young adults are no longer an exception, instead they have become the norm. This drift could exist because young adults express disappointment regarding relationships with families and institutions. More than ever, young adults are alive to the inconsistencies that exist in what they are told to do and what they are shown to do by example. Furthermore, with millennials, dissociative behaviors are customary. This new way of being could have several influences: parenting styles, non-traditional familial structures, technology, social pressures, and/or mental health issues.

Additionally, post-modern, global situations have millennials searching for deeper meaning, beliefs, values, and relationships that can offer greater support for self-integration in this convoluted world. Young adults do not only want to cope with the realities of post modernity, but seek opportunities to thrive in it.

Contemplative spirituality enhances the spiritual lives of young adults. Practices in the contemplative tradition offer young adults a path toward prayer, depth, and awareness of the presence of God. When young adults regularly engage practices within the contemplative tradition they can:

1. Discover and understand their distinct relationship with the divine.
2. Draw out and build up their overlooked innate strengths and spiritual resources.
3. Notice what encumbers and sustains their awareness and reaction to the divine.
4. Cultivate their spiritual lives through practices, worship, and/or education.
5. Interpret or simply be present to their lived experiences of the divine.
6. Be a witness to the transformation of their perceptions, responsiveness, and overall ways of being in the world.

The theological concept of Koinonia, spiritual companionship, is a guiding principle that weaves throughout the contemplative tradition. Groups are an ideal vehicle for spiritual growth in the lives of young adults. Groups, large and small, are a significant part of spiritual formation, facilitation, and direction. When we are in communion, we are better able to engender hope, express universality, encourage altruism, and develop an ecology for the Spirit.

Since 2009, I (Andrea Noel) have engaged young adults with practices from the contemplative tradition. As a spiritual companion, I pray, listen, encourage, and respond to the presence of God in young adults’ lives. Some practices include: meditation, lectio divina, labyrinths, examen, journaling, chanting, collaging, body prayer, group and individual spiritual guidance, and others.

As the Chaplain at University of Maryland College Park, I (Rev. Gaddis) find myself at the intersection of religion, spirituality, and young adults. One of the ministries of the chaplaincy is a contemplative spiritual practices group. This group bears out many of the assertions above as the majority of students who come are spiritual, but not religious. Through my pastoral presence and facilitation, the community is one of non-religious people encountering the Episcopal Church and its theology. The group is an experience of spiritual direction where being Episcopal or Christian is not necessary. Yet, students are adopting in their own way an Episcopal identity.

As we close the second semester, I (Gaddis) regularly see 7-10 students attending, and an additional 10 students who are part of the community irregularly. Each week we see newcomers who have been expressly invited by other attendees. The students are beginning to have spiritual experiences that are opening them to a coherent, real-time relationship with God. Conversations about one’s relationship with God are happening with several students who simply would not have been willing to two months ago. The students have even asked me to continue the group during the summer. This desire is an unprecedented request.

This is the effect of creating environments where people can have and process spiritual experiences. For those who are spiritual but not religious, this is exactly what they are looking for: something real. Because these practices are drawn from our Christian contemplative tradition, what is happening here is a repeatable authentic expression of the Episcopal Church.

Our hope is that exposing young adults to these practices invites them to a deeper encounter of God. We want to empower them with the ability to see their intrinsic value, strength, and connection to God. Contemplative spirituality allows young adults to express their own lived experiences of the divine without judgment or qualification and with genuine freedom. These practices help to cultivate a regular prayer life, encourage self-discovery, and create a knowing self in relation to God.

Andrea Noel completed a Master of Divinity at Howard University, residency at Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats, and is currently enrolled in the Master of Arts in Spiritual and Pastoral Care at Loyola University Maryland. Her life’s work is to help young adults go inward, realizing the deepest purpose within them that the world desperately needs, and reconnecting to the one true source. 

Otis Gaddis III came to the University of Maryland as a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School (2012). He studied young adult ministry, progressive evangelism, and community organizing during his time there. At Maryland, he serves as the Episcopal/Anglican Chaplain.

God's Vision for the World

Here is a nice piece from Brueggemann about God vision for the all of creation:

Living Toward a Vision

by Walter Brueggemann

 

The central vision of world history in the Bible is that all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every other creature…. Israel has a vision of all people drawn into community around the will of God (Isaiah 2:2-4). In the New Testament, the church has a parallel vision of all persons being drawn under the lordship and fellowship of Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20; John 12:32) and therefore into a single community (Acts 2:1-11). As if those visions were not sweeping enough, the most staggering expression of the vision is that all persons are children of a single family, members of a single tribe, heirs of a single hope, and bearers of a single destiny, namely, the care and management of all God’s creation.

 

That persistent vision of joy, well-being, harmony, and prosperity is not captured in any single word or idea in the Bible, and a cluster of words is required to express its many dimensions and subtle nuances: love, loyalty, truth, grace, salvation, justice, blessing, righteousness. But the term that in recent discussions has been used to summarize that controlling vision is shalom. Both in current discussion and in the Bible itself, it bears tremendous freight—the freight of a dream of God that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness, and misery.

 

Reprinted from Peace (Understanding Biblical Themes Series), (Chalice Press, 2001), 13-14.

Joint statement from The Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, Justin Welby and Vincent Nichols, concerning the ongoing violence in Syria

Since the very first days of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, we have prayed as we watched in horror and sorrow the escalating violence that has rent this country apart. We have grieved with all Syrians - with the families of each and every human life lost and with all communities whose neighbourhoods and livelihoods have suffered from escalating and pervasive violence.

And today, our prayers also go with the ancient communities of our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria. The kidnapping this week of two Metropolitan bishops of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver while they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, is another telling sign of the terrible circumstances that continue to engulf all Syrians..

We unreservedly support these Christian communities, rooted in and attached to the biblical lands, despite the many hardships. We respond to the call from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, and the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, urging churches worldwide to remain steadfast in the face of challenging realities and to bear witness to their faith in the power of love in this world.

We both continue to pray for a political solution to this tragic conflict that would stem the terrible violence and also empower all Syrians with their fundamental and inalienable freedoms. We also call for urgent humanitarian aid to reach all who are suffering. We pray that Syria can recapture its tradition of tolerance, rooted in faith and respect for faiths living side by side.

+ Justin Welby          + Vincent Nichols

Notes from Vestry April 16, 2013

• Rector's Comments:
• • I gave a power point on the plan for the next year. It was called A Year of Discernment and Building and reflected the plan for the rest of the year. There is a two pronged plan. The first part is intensive discernment on the part of the parish as to where God is calling us. I am using the analogy of a soup pot. We will do lots of things like perhaps NCD, a parish conference, educational bits, congregational meetings and prayer activities designed to increase conversation, prayer and reflection. All of the ideas will go into an Evernote notebook for the leadership to check in with. The idea is that as we discern, God will guide us in the next chapter of our life together. The second aspect is building the healthy church as I outlined at the AGM with the addition of intentionally building community between the services.
• Janitorial: 
• • This is still in process, and a final decision will be reached by the next vestry meeting.
• Administrative Assistant:
• • We have received over 50 applications. We will narrow this down to 10 or so in the next week and begin interviews hopefully the week after that.
• Identity of Soup'd Up Worship:
• • The corporation decided that it was too early to make any final decisions about Soup'd Up Worship, and so we would wait until October to start answering the specific questions about what the service's ultimate purpose is to be.
  • We will however try to identity stats, make contact with new people, and try to follow up.
  • The Vestry approved a motion of support for Soup'd Up Worship as an outreach experiment of the congregation.
• Alpha 2013:
• • Rather than running our own Alpha, we will be in contact with Heartland Alliance church to see how we can assist them.
• Tofield:
• • I am no longer the rector Tofield. I have stepped down as of April 1st. Colleen Lynch will be their rector.
• Website Redesign:
• • We showed the vestry the website redesign that Chris did. Everyone is invited to look at it. We particularly highlighted the administrative aspect. We have turned all of the policies and job descriptions into searchable PDF's. 
• Assistant:
• • Chris has been away for a couple of weeks on study leave. Before that he put quite a bit of time into the redesign of the website.
• Financial:
• • We have a surplus of just over $6000. However, when you take into account the surplus being rolled forward from 2012 on a monthly basis, we have a deficit of $173.00 for the first quarter.
• Stewardship:
• • Gordon Voth reported the numbers from the last stewardship. There followed a lively discussion on what stewardship looks like in terms of its different meaning for different generations, what it will look like here and so on. Alison talked about the workshop she went to where the Diocese gave us a helpful book and lots of ideas.
• Youth:
• • Devon talked about our group here and the sleep over that she arranged for those from the winter camp that had been cancelled. She also talked about a big weekend that  she has planned taking a coach with the Diocese of Calgary to Sorento.
• Engineering:
• • The installation of the alarm system will start the week of the 29th of April. It shouldn't take more than a week. The question of monitoring still has to be determined.
• Wardens:
• • Alison floated the idea of community funding and having pay pal on the website. We will look into this.

Holy Ground

One of the things I have always wondered about is the short little passage when Moses meets God at the burning bush, and God tells him to take off his shoes for he is standing on holy ground. My question has always been, why don't we take off our shoes in the presence of the holy? Why is it no longer important?

This thought came to me again this year on Maundy Thursday when I was standing with my bare feet on the cold floor of the cathedral waiting to have my feet washed by the bishop at our annual celebration. I was in line for awhile as there are a lot of clergy, and I thought of standing on holy ground in my bare feet. I don't think it was the cathedral floor especially so much as being a part of a community of clergy who were gathering in love of God and each other, and who would that night wash the feet of the various communities of which we are a part. I loved the image of us getting our feet washed and going to wash the feet of others and providing them a place to wash each others feet as a sign of service and love. That I thought must be the holy ground upon which I was standing.

The Joy of Cleaning

Today Kendra, Chris and I cleaned out the little storage room off of the Teape Room, the one with the glass doors. I think for awhile it was both and storage room and the place to put things that no one knew what to do with. Our hope was to move a lot of the stuff from the office into there to free up room in the office. A bit of a puzzle! We ended up putting most of the books downstairs in the library. We made room for them by culling out the secular books and only keeping the religious one. (By the way, the secular books will be for give away this Sunday. Easter present.) The we got rid of the desk, consolidated all of the binders and liturgical materials and now we have a nice clean storage room. I felt so productive. It was so satisfying that I went into the room three or four times afterward just to enjoy the difference.

March 19th Vestry Meeting Notes

• Rector's Comments:
• • Vitality: reviewed the imput from the congregational meetings
  • Resiliance: The first Conflict Management seminar will be May 11 from 10am to noon
  • Communication: We are in the process of developing a new website which will hopefully be published in the next week or two
  • Clarity: an explanation of how the policies, job descriptions, procedures and administration calendar will be put on the new website and how it will facilitate the administration of the parish.
• Janitorial Services:
• • There are three bids coming forward for janitorial service. We will evaluate them and decide which one to go with.
• Treasurer: 
• • Kent Heine has agreed to be our parish treasurer. He will be assisted by a team of people who will do much of the data entry.
  • Dale will continue to provide reports for February and March, and then work with Kent for April and May.
  • We are looking at striking a finance committee which will do a lot of work crunching numbers to make the financial situation clearer to Vestry when it needs to make financial decisions. 
• Identity of Soup'd up Worship
• • We had quite a long discussion about where the leadership of the parish sees the service going. Questions that came up were what was the demographic that we were looking at ministering to? How do we evaluate if it is a success?
  • Our thought is that it is an outreach ministry. But that raised the question of what is outreach. We will try to formulate and answer and bring it back to vestry next month.
• Parish Library:
• • The office staff wants to use the counting room as an organized storage facility. To do this, the vestry agreed that we could give away all secular books found in the library in the basement and then move the books from the upstairs library to the downstairs library for storage. This is a temporary pattern. One idea would be to have a bookshelf upstairs with a rotating stock of books.
• Alpha 2013:
• • There is a large initiative around Alpha in the fall province wide, and the Bishop wants all Anglican parishes to participate. The question we asked was whether we would do it ourselves or team up with another church. 
• Chris Dowdeswell: Chris reported about what he has been doing. One thing he noted is that he and Krista are going to be leaders at an upcoming Marriage Encounter weekend coming up.
• Financial Report: February was better than expected. We are about $200 to the good. (Unfortunately as I type this I don't have that report in front of me. When I get back to the office I will update this spot with the exact numbers.)
• Youth:
• • Exciting events are planned up until May. There is a good core group. There is a Diocesan Winter Camping Trip planned.

Sermon for March 17th

• Sermon Outline:

• Today is St. Patrick's day. You know he wasn't Irish right? :)
• • Amazing story: kidnapped and sold into slavery as a teen; six years in slavery when he escaped. Got back safe and sound, and felt called to go back, to take the Gospel. Went out of love, was hunted, persecuted, trial after trial and he kept going. Where did he find the inner strength to go on? That is what I want to explore for a few minutes with you this morning.
• For some reason it was this question that came to me again and again as I meditated on the Gospel passage for this morning.
• Jesus and the story that Holy Week tells
• The place of this story
• • Six days before the passover, three days before Palm Sunday. This is the reading that gets us ready for next week: Palm Sunday
  • Mary: love the detail: the fragrance filling the room
  • Judas Iscariot 12:6 is interesting, probably because 12:5 actually does make sense. It was a tremendous amount of money. Clearly ad hominum.
• But then Jesus says a surprising thing on the surface: "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
• ____________________________
• Odd about the passage is that on one reading it can be used to ignore the poor.
• The irony is that this is a quote from Deut. 15:11 "Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.""
• That is pretty clear as a command. It is an OT injunction, and Jesus seems clear that we are to follow it. In fact, it seems to be assumed that this would be a mark of Jesus' followers.
• But why does he indicate to serve him first, and then later the poor. Shouldn't it be the opposite?
• To my mind this is 
• My thoughts: what does it mean to serve the poor, or anyone for that matter. Service to others seems to be what Jesus was describing.
• We can do it because we are commanded to, because we have to. But I don't think that is what God was imagining. 
• I think he was imagining that the impetus comes from being part of a community that is marked by compassion, naturally.
• Ministry out of duty has a coldness and hardness about it.
• Service from the heart just has something of a beautiful quality about it. This is one of the reasons I think the new pope has a lot of people being interested, even amongst us who are not catholic. Church of the poor.
• But even if you minister out of compassion and love, the love gets stretched.
• Jesus was right; there always seem to be more poor, there is no end to the suffering of the world, and no matter how much we do it seems to always be overwhelming. I remember working with someone with addictions: patience and compassion would be stretched as he wasted opportunity after opportunity. Fight with tiredness and anger.
• But this is any ministry, social work, parish ministry, 
• The question is if we are in this for the long haul, where do we find our strength?
• It is Jesus. That is the reason for the order. 
• Importance of the Sabbath
• Have to have time before God for several reason: to pray and intercede, to scrape off spiritual junk, to renew. There is an energy and power in coming before Jesus.
• The secret to the spiritual life is simple. Show up everyday. 
• Story of the restaurant selling soup. New management watered it down. Profits for a while, but ultimately killed the golden goose. They lost their customer base. : you will be tempted to shortchange what works. Don't
• Metaphor for avoiding shortchanging the spiritual life.
• End with Chariots of Fire speech

Congregational Reflection Documents

Reflections on the 8am Congregational Meeting

Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussions about our early service. I really appreciated the chance to listen and reflect with you.

From our conversations I basically heard a strong affirmation of this service as we do it. The people who come appreciate the traditional language of the service and the quietness and reflective spirit of the service. There seemed to be a great deal of unanimity around not shortening or cutting anything out of the service, but to keep it a full service. I heard agreement that we should keep the BAS for the most part, but openness to using the BCP on a minority basis, perhaps once a month or in months where there is a fifth Sunday. I also heard agreement around things that would compromise the quiet and reflective spirit of the service. There was discussion about having longer times for reflection, asking people in the foyer to speak quietly, even to the point of rethinking the timing of the 9am service, if it could start later. (That would obviously entail a much longer term discussion.)There was also a strong appreciation of the gathered community in the peace and a wonder if there could be a larger space and time for fellowship after the service.

Reflections on the 9am Congregational Meeting

Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussions about our contemporary service. I really appreciated the chance to listen and reflect with you. The discussions were quite animated with lots of good ideas and topics covered.

The first and strongest thing that I heard was an appreciation and affirmation of the work of Tapestry in providing musical leadership for the 9am service. Overall people appreciated the fact that the music was good, contemporary and that there was a wide variety. Tapestry is definitely at the heart of the 9am service. The second thing that I heard was an appreciation for the value of creativity. People who worship at this service connect best with God when the worship is not rote, boring or stale, but rather innovative, joyful and participatory. There is a strong experiential element in the service, the tangible feeling of the Holy Spirit in our words, singing, activities and community. This style of worship lends itself to an informality that is marked by children present and active, appreciation of spontaneous moments of both joy and difficulty, as well as the clergy not vesting. There is an appreciation of variety in the prayers used and the methods of reflection, but while there were some voices who would look for a more radical transformation of the service on a regular basis, most seemed to look for a variety of content rather than in structure. There is a strong appreciation of the gathered community which is strongly symbolized by the holding of hands during the peace as well as the coffee hour afterwards. The service is marked by a desire to allow a wide group of people to participate both in their worship and through the use of their talents. There have been creative ways of enhancing worship, the two of which people most pointed to were the drama and dance ministries. Part of the challenge is to find even more creative ways for people to use their gifts.

Some of the questions raised had to do with evolution of the service where it began with an emphasis on breakout groups, and these groups have been missed by many. Added to this is a desire to listen to a wider variety of voices than just those of the clergy. There were also several voices who have missed the prayer ministry group since it has not functioned at the same capacity it did in the recent past. Another question has been the struggle around the time. The Sunday School has a wonderful program, and yet for several families the 9am is felt to be too early. However, many who feel it is too early prefer the service because it better matches their worship style, and added to this is the fact that there are no children’s ministries at the 11am. There was a strong minority voice that wished to have more 10am combined services. Many people expressed the wish to move the chairs, but also expressed an acceptance that this is extremely difficult given the time constraints. There was also a variety of voices on the amount of worship enhancements such as drama and dance, whereby some wanted quite a bit and some appreciated it on a less frequent basis. The last point was that of hospitality. A few were concerned with the fact that fewer and fewer were participating in that ministry. However, it needs to be noted that the disagreements were not major. Most agreed about the substance of the service and what they appreciated about the service.

Reflections on the 11am Congregational Meeting

Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussions about our 11am service. I really appreciated the chance to listen and reflect with you. It was good to be in conversation and listen to what everyone reflected on about the services.

The strongest thing I heard was a real appreciation of the music ministry of the choir and organ and the leadership of Connie and Rob. There was a real feeling that given our size and budget we are fortunate to have the high quality of music that we do. When describing the characteristics of the service itself that were appreciated many people used words like reverence, appreciation of traditions, time for reflection, quiet, but also a service marked by joy and fellowship. Perhaps a good way to put it is to describe the service as attempting to balance reverence and joyfulness. There is thankfulness for the community. Overall people seemed happy with the service as it is currently happening. There was openness to having a regular procession and recession of the clergy and choir, and there was openness to small doses of extra liturgical activities like chanting.

There was less consensus on the number of hymns from the beige book. There was a significant group that liked the more contemporary hymns, just not a contemporary worship setting, as well as a significant group that thought the hymns from the Common Praise were adequate. One question that was raised at two tables was the key the hymns were sung in to make it easier for male voices. Many people appreciated the 11am time slot because they felt it was more difficult to come to an earlier service. There was also concern about the parking issue. Many in the 11am service arrive while the 9am service cars are still there. There were also concerns about the noise as people from the earlier service leave coffee hour. Another question raised at several tables was the role of children and the welcoming of families at this service. There is recognition that there is a tension in not having a children’s program; it makes it difficult for families to worship, and there is added noise to the service from children, but there is also little appetite within the 11am to create a children’s ministry. Overall however, I did not perceive the questions raised and the disagreements being raised to be divisive. There was far more agreement than not. If there was one place of unease that was articulate is a perception that there is a significant split between the worshipping congregations based on history, worship and parish socializing.

Sermon for February 24th

Sermon:

• I have a tough job in the sermon today. I want to create a direct link from our meeting after this service to a man who lived and died in the bronze age, somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC. Is it possible? Of course it is possible. 

• The man is the man from the Genesis reading this morning, Abraham and there is a very important connection between him and our AGM and I am going to show it to you by considering 5000 years of history, all of Biblical history and then all of church history and in only 10 minutes. 
• Put on your running shoes!
• The problem for God is how do you fix a broken world? You can reboot the system; that is what he did with Noah,but the virus was still there.
• God chose another path like yeast in dough. It is little but will eventually change the whole dough.
• God chose a man, Abraham to be the yeast and made a covenant with him, which means that they enter into an agreement: God will bless Abraham's family over many generations and Abraham will be faithful to God.
• And so it begins: Abraham has a son Isaac, who has a son Jacob, who has twelve sons, the main one being Joseph. Over hundreds of years the families of the twelve sons grow into twelve tribes. The 12 tribes of Israel.
• Unfortunately for them they are enslaved, but are saved by a man named Moses. God renews Abraham's covenant with him by giving him the 10 commandments on Sinai in Egypt.
• They travel for 40 years until they reach a land promised to them by God.
• There they live for several generations until they decide they want a king. The first king doesn't work out, but the next one is King David who really loves God, and God again renews the covenant of Abraham with him by promising him that he will always have a descendant sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.
• Unfortunately after David dies the people of Israel begin a civil war. The country breaks in half with a series of really bad rulers, but eventually they are wiped off the face of the earth, first by the Assyrian Empire and the the Babylonian empire and are sent into exile. 
• Eventually they come back, rebuilt the temple, but there is no descendant of David on the throne. And it seems as if God has broken the covenant. 
• But then a group called the prophets claim that God will still call up a descendant of David who will sit on the throne in the future, and for Israel this person becomes the Messiah that they start waiting for. 
• They wait a long time. Hundreds of years. 2000 years now since Abraham.
• How am I doing for time?
• By this time the Assyrian empire is gone, the Babylonian empire is gone, the Greek empire of Alexander is gone and now it is the time of the Roman Empire, and into this is born just this Messiah. Jesus from Nazareth. And you know that story, but just to reiterate, God again renews the covenant with Jesus and seals it with his blood. At Easter Jesus walked out of the tomb and began a new covenant to be renewed regularly when his followers come together for Eucharist. 
• Now Jesus had a few followers who were convinced that Jesus was good news, no great news for the whole world. In fact, they thought Jesus was the hope for everyone. And they spread the news by telling people AND living a different kind of life.
• Now get this:
• the early followers of Jesus followed the Roman roads and spread the message of Jesus all around the Mediterranean: Israel and the Middle East, Greece, modern day Croatia, Italy, French coast and Spain and Northern Africa. 
• At first they were ignored, then persecuted and then 300 years or so after Jesus the Roman Emperor became Christian and within a hundred years the whole Roman Empire was Christian. But then the Roman empire started to fall apart form internal problems as well as invasions of Germanic tribes from the North. 
• But eventually the Germanic tribes became Christianity spread all over Europe up into Scandinavia, and eventually the Germanic tribes and what was left of the Roman empire coalesced into Christian nations all across Europe.
• Eventually there were disagreements about what it meant to be a Christian and different nations broke up into different churches, instead of one church. One of them, England, developed a state religion which became known as the Anglican church.
• As you know, England spread across the ocean to North America and set up colonies and in the colonies came the church. 
• The Anglican church in North America started on the East Coast but as Europeans pushed West.
• The first Anglican missionary in these regions was Canon Newton who founded the All Saint's congregation in 1875.
• Eventually the churches in Alberta were grouped over time into three Dioceses. Edmonton became a diocese in 1913, and within this diocese a church was started in Campbells town in the 1950's.
• And here we are over 50 years later about to have a meeting deciding what our next chapter looks like.
• But remember this: we are here today making decisions because we are in a church that came from people who came to Campbell town who were educated by people whose ancestors were taught the faith by missionaries who had moved West from colonists from the East who had come over from England whose national church came from the Reformation split from a church which had its roots in both Roman and Germanic tribes which had learned the faith from the Christian Roman Empire which had happened because Constantine converted and was taught the faith by Christians who were persecuted who learned from missionaries who had traveled the Roman roads who knew the faith from the followers of Jesus who were part of a people who had been told by the prophets that a Messiah was coming. This faith was traced back to David who was king who inherited the throne from a people brought forward from slavery by Moses. The people had grown from 12 tribes who had come from the 12 sons of Jacob, who was the son of Issac who was the son of Abraham, who is our father in faith. 
• (Hopefully less than 10 minutes!)

Congregational Worship Questions

Next week we will be meeting in our worshipping communities after the services to look at questions around how we worship. The point of the exercise is to help me understand what the congregations want and how I can serve you better as a priest. The meetings have no agenda for me; I am happy to lead worship in a variety of settings. Also, just to note, there will be no decisions made at the meetings. It is a listening and information gathering exercise for the leadership of the parish to process and determine what the best way forward. My guess is that after the meetings we would come back with a list of observations and invite feedback on the observations and then move forward based on the observations. Hopefully we can have the whole exercise wrapped up just after Easter. Thank you for taking part. (Note: I will also have the questions up on my blog; you can post comments there as well.)

These are questions for the different worshiping congregations to ponder. They are not the only questions possible; they are just to get the conversation started:

8am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Do you want to continue using the traditional language service out of the BAS or do you want to switch to the BCP?

·         Given the limited time would you prefer either the same sermon as the 9 and 11am services with less of the liturgy or the full liturgy with a slightly abbreviated version of the sermon?

·         Other issues?

9am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you basically happy with what we have now which is a standard BAS service with contemporary music, or would you prefer to explore creative forms, albeit still (mostly) within the general Anglican fold?

·         Are you comfortable changing the seating arrangements or would you prefer them to remain as they are?

·         How much extra liturgical material would you be interested in having on a monthly basis? This includes drama, liturgical dance, etc.

·         What would you add or take away from the service?

·         Other issues?

11am Service

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you happy with the service as it is now or would you change aspects of it?

·         Would you be interested in adding tradtional liturgical elements to the service such as reading the Gospel in the midst of the people, or entrance and exit processions?

·         Would you be interested in a responsive changing of the introduction to the Eucharistic Canon? This is the dialogue: The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord…

·         Other issues?

Notes from the Vestry Meeting on February 19, 2013

Here are some notes from the Vestry meeting. If you have any questions please drop me an email:

• There were lots of people away from the Vestry meeting though we did have quorum. 
• The biggest thing was the approval of the budget as presented last time. Brian will present it at the AGM and Steve will have a few things to say. It is a balanced budget though it is because we rolled the surplus from last year forward to this year. The idea is that it is a one year stabilization budget.
• The Diocese asked if we could have a prayer partnership with the Diocese of Buye in Burundi and the Vestry agreed to this.
• We approved in principle allowing the Alberta Junior Forest Wardens have the use of the basement on some Tuesday evenings. We still have to negotiate the details.
• Financials: We are ahead in January, but there were anomalies to account for this, February will be much more difficult.
• From the Diocese: we will be having a giant Diocesan wide service on the Sunday of Pentecost which is the May long weekend. The Diocese is asking us to not hold services here, but to invite everyone there.
• Engineering: we are entering final negotiations around the fire alarm system and emergency lighting. We can hopefully start implementation soon.
• This was Ted Greenaway's last meeting as the People's Warden. He will be thanked for his service at the AGM.

Pope Benedict and the Second Vatican Council

There is a fascinating article here where Pope Benedict blames the media for misunderstanding the Second Vatican Council. The problem for him is that the media interpreted the event as a power struggle with in the church and that the change in the liturgy took away from the focus of the liturgy as an act of faith. Now of course it is true that Benedict was there and I was not, and it is very possible if not probable that much of the media misunderstood the event. But what strikes me as being disingenuous about Benedict's attack on the media is that it wasn't just the media. It was the interpretation of many within the church and in the council at the time. In fact, the whole reason he is having to make these claims is the obvious fact that many within the church think of it in exactly those terms!

In other words, there is a fifty year old debate within the church as to what the council meant. Benedict is of course right to interpret the event in the way he thinks best, but to blame it on the media to me is odd. In fact,  the bigger issue is that it ignores the entire historical trajectory of which Vatican II was a part. One of the great movements of the modern church in my mind is just this democratization of the church. These are currents that began in the Enlightenment, but really came to a crescendo in the 20th century. In this century, in the protestant churches power shifted from priests and pastors to become more dispersed in councils and synods. Power shifted from men to more and more to women; from white culture to people of colour and so on. The Catholic church was caught in these currents as well. It seems to me that the real issue is that Benedict, like John Paul II before him, wants to backpedal on this understanding and the media is a good scapegoat.

On the Pope's Resignation

Here is the statement from Fred Hiltz, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada on Benedict's resignation:
http://news.anglican.ca/news/stories/2566

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Someone asked for my notes on my sermon. I am posting them here; let me know if they are helpful. I can keep posting in the future if it is.

• One of the great ironies of the modern Christian church is that one of the most influential Christian writers was a man who never held a job, was held up to constant ridicule in the local press, broke off an engagement and broke his fiancé's heart because he didn't think he could overcome his melancholy, who died almost penniless and on his deathbed refused communion from a local pastor.
• He was by all accounts an odd man, and yet he became one of the central influences for some of the greatest Christian thinkers, writers and saints of the 20th century including Barth, Tillich, Balthasar, Bonhoeffer, Merton, Percy, O'Conner; I could go on.
• His name was Soren Kierkegaard, a Dane, and he was convinced that Christianity had lost its way.
• In 1835, when he was 22, he experienced a series of crises. His studies were not going well, partly due to his gregarious nature: he loved good wine and good company, and three of his sisters, two brothers and his mother all died in rapid succession. He felt as his father did, that a curse had been laid upon him. And he started questioning, what was his purpose here on earth. What was he supposed to do.
• He writes, "What I really need, is to get clear what I must do, not what I must know. What matters is to find a purpose; to see what really is God's will. The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me."
• The answer comes to him he writes when he was sitting in the famous Fredericksberg gardens in Copenhagen. He was sitting smoking his cigar, when he went out. He lit again and started thinking about all of the famous people in the world from scientists and businessmen who tried to make things easier for humanity. He reflected that after everything in the world has been made easy, there will be one last want: for things to be difficult. So he decided that it was his task to make difficulties for people, to make difficulties everywhere. 
• And the difficulty that he really focused on was reminding Danish society about what it meant to be Christian.
• Now that might seem odd because in fact everyone in Copenhagen was a Christian, a member of the state Lutheran church, and had been for generations and generations.
• But the problem as Kierkegaard came to see it was that Danish society had made being a Christian far too easy.
• In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of tremendous consequence forcing one to be socially outcast and perhaps killed; in the Danish church one was just born a Christian without any fuss. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being radically transformed in every aspect of your life by the power of the Holy Spirit; in the Danish church it meant attending services on Sunday. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being convicted of your essential sinfulness and being aware of the need for radical forgiveness; in the Danish church it meant being respectable. In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of discipleship, of self-sacrifice and giving, being a follower of Jesus; in the Danish church it didn't mean much at all, it was just the state religion. Everyone was a member. 
• In short, the Danish church had forgotten its purpose. And so Kierkegaard went to war with the state religion.
• It did not go well for him, but he continued on until the end, because for Kierkegaard there was a simple truth that just could not be ignored, to be a Christian meant to come face to face with the tremendous awesomeness and majesty of a God whose power and presence shakes mountains and creates worlds, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom our tiny minds can't even begin to comprehend or grasp or get around, and who out of a depth of love that should astound us, gave all of that up to come to us as a man, Jesus from the town of Nazareth.
• He saw that this is not a truth to assent to, but a truth to fall on our knees in front of. This is a truth that changes everything, that is so beautiful and so healing and so unbelievable wonderful that we can only give everything we are and have in gratitude to God. Anything less than this is not Christianity.

____________________________________________________

• Why do I tell this story? Because I think Kierkegaard's insight helps us to understand the true depth and beauty of the Gospel story this morning.
• Tell the story. metamorphasis 
• The story is important for several reasons
• 1. Affirmation of who Jesus is
  2. Church Fathers: preview of what is to come: the transfiguration of all things
  3. Reminder that this is the purpose of all of it: of Jesus, the Bible, the Church, us, our worship; all of it is about what God is doing in the world
  • • and we have the honour and joy to be a part of it.

___________________________________________________

• I can't tell you how important this is to me as a Christian and as a priest. I am convinced of Kierkegaard's essential point that we have to keep the purpose and truth of the Gospel always before us, and when we do everything else will fall into place.
• I see an essential part of my job here at St. Thomas is to help us articulate what our purpose is a crisp concise vision. Our particular purpose here in Sherwood Park at this time, 2013, with these people gathered here today who come from so many stories, backgrounds, struggles, ministries and joys and whom God has gathered together to work for the kingdom. This crisp concise vision is so important.
• From the business world Patrick Lencioni hammers this point again and again: Healthy organization minimizes confusion by clarifying…
  • Why the organization exists
  • Which behavioural values are fundamental
  • What specific business it is in
  • Clarity creates power like nothing else can.

  • And from Rick Warren in his very helpful book on church growth: "I discovered in my research was that growing, healthy churches have a clear-cut identity. They understand their reason for being; they are precise in their purpose. They know exactly what God has called them to do. They know what their business is, and they know what is not of their business. Does your church have a clear-cut identity?"
• What does this look like?
• • AGM vision
  • WONDER-ing about the purpose of the church bible study
  • Mission of the church intro course
• Epilogue
• • In Prayer this week: the parable of the farmer
  • God gives the growth, but we can make the soil good
  • That is our job; God will show us his plan, but while we wait, let us prepare our selves by clearing away things that divide us, praying and studying about what his purpose is, and above all to hope. 
  • As Kierkegaard tells us, " If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!” 

Praying Our Lives: SSJE daily videos for Lent

This is a daily Lenten video series on prayer produced by the brothers of the Society of  St. John the Evangelist. I am a member of the fellowship and very much appreciate the work that they do. Here is the trailer. You can go here to enter your email for daily links to the videos.

Leonard Sweet

One of the key people that I really wanted to see at Breakforth this year was Leonard Sweet. He is one of the key people thinking through the church's mission in the 21st century and how it differs in many ways from previous eras. His biggest challenge I think when I went to see him is that God is calling us to witness and be a disciple of Christ in and for this time. The challenge he said was that this was not the time that he would have chosen to be in. Leonard feels he is much more Victorian at heart, but the fact is, he is in the 21st century with all of its changes and differences.

The best way to describe the time is TGIF (Twitter, Google, Ipad and Facebook). This is a digital, social media time in which people are connecting to people in very different ways. He encouraged us to look at it like this: when missionaries go out into the field they must first learn the language in order to connect with the people to whom they are taking the Gospel. For us as a church, we are not only NOT learning the language, we are willfully refusing to learn it. This is a problem.

But there is also a balance that has to be acknowledged. For the church not only connects with the outside world to bring them to Christ, but is also a worshiping community who already has traditions that have been nurtured and cultivated over the centuries. It is not possible nor desirable to throw the old out and go with the new. There is an ancient - future dynamic that has to be taken into account. But the heart of what he said that points us in the right direction of the church is that we have to be very cautious about mistaking bringing people into the church as the mission of the church. The mission is to bring people to Christ and to help them grow and deepen in their faith. Our church programs are a means to a greater end, and never the end themselves.

News from New Zealand

Here is the latest news from the cathedral controversy in New Zealand.


If you have not been following the controversy, there is a great video at the BBC about the cardboard cathedral here. It is about 2 minutes long.

The Importance of a Web Presence

Here is a fascinating blog post called 8 Things the Churches Could Learn from the collapse of HMV.
The post is a reflection on how important it is to have a strong presence on the web. Here are a couple of tidbits:

• Know that Social Media is not a fad. It isn’t going away. Trust me on this one. It is where the people are. Engage.
• Understand that people trust personality not corporate speak. They don’t trust language about mission from companies like HMV. They don’t and won’t trust it from us. Saying you are “doing mission” my well put people off. No, really.

News from Vestry: Meeting of January 15, 2012

• We started off our Vestry  mtg with Chris giving  a presentation of our use of social media and the website as a method of communication. One nice feature of Facebook that he pointed out was that we can track how much exposure our posts are receiving broken down into categories such as age, gender, geographic location and so on. 
• Until the budget is approved, the corporation decided to contract Janitorial services for the months of January and February.
• We are in the process of finding people willing to be part of the vestry for 2013.
• There was no financial statement as the entire financial statement for the year is in the hands of the Accounts Examiner. 
• Our big discussion was on the budget. The budget committee proposed a recommended budget to the vestry for consideration. Vestry will have a month to look at the numbers and will decide on the budget to bring forward to the congregation in February. The AGM is on February 24th.
• Betty Hopfner has agreed to organize the Shrove Tuesday dinner. She will be looking for volunteers.
• Brian Jolly brought us up to date on the situation with having the fire alarm system put into place. We have a contractor we are negotiating with. Hopefully, we can start to have the installation begin soon. 
• The annual Turkey Pie baking fundraiser will take place on two Saturdays: February 9 and February 23.