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.