Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices

by Richelle Thompson on February 22, 2012

I like shiny and new.

I’m not typically first on the bandwagon of the latest trend, but I normally get in line for ride two or three. This is especially true with communication, and I’ve spent many keystrokes for ECF Vital Practices and other arenas encouraging the embrace of new technology, social media and other tools to share our faith.

But my daughter and three of her friends reminded me that sometimes communication can take the form of an ancient tradition.

A local TV station carried the story: My daughter and three of her friends found a message in a bottle three weeks ago at a lake about an hour away. When they uncorked it, they discovered a letter written in 2008 from a boy in a neighboring community. The girls decided to write back.

They tracked down his school and called the principal. The boy, in second grade when he launched the bottle, is now in middle school but still in the same district. The girls wrote a simple letter and sent it to him – this time, via snail mail.

The news glommed onto this as a novel way of communication against a backdrop of texting, tweeting and Facebook-ing.

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by Miguel Angel Escobar on February 21, 2012

Over the past ten years of working on various committees and church groups, there have been a few critical moments when I've found myself thinking “I didn’t sign up for this.” Please note: I’m not proud of this fact. For me, this is a boiling point comment; it’s what I mutter to myself when all my alarm bells are going off and all my instincts are telling me to run away.

Chances are that you have your own versions of this phrase. Moreover, chances are that at some point in the next year or so you’ll have an occasion to mutter something similar. Off the top of my head and with absolutely no (none, zero, zip, zilch) relation to things I’ve experienced, here are some examples of moments that may leave you thinking “I didn’t sign up for this.”

• After much pushing and prodding, the true financial state of your church is revealed to be far worse than anyone expected.
• Your favorite projects are shelved as the leadership team’s time and energy becomes consumed by a conflict.
• A phone call alerts you to financial  improprieties taking place at church.
• An action is taken that offends your core values.

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by Richelle Thompson on February 21, 2012

The festivities were well underway by the time we arrived.

Sequined dresses and glittered faces greeted us at the door. The normally more staid atmosphere of a diocesan convention was replaced with the upbeat celebration of Mardi Gras, complete with jambalaya, colored beads and auctions to benefit Haiti as well as local ministries.

I was instantly envious of the masks. Ladies in full regalia walked around with intricate masks – peacock feathers, beads and sparkles. What more could a girl want?

Despite my nudging, my husband passed the booth without stopping. But, God bless her, the only other woman in our delegation purchased two and presented me with the masked gift.

It was great fun during the night to don the mask (though I was careful not to wave it too high, lest someone mistake the gesture for a bid on one of the magnificent – but out-of-my-price-range – auction items).

Tonight, too, at our church’s pancake supper, I’ll wear the mask and embrace the frivolity and joy of Mardi Gras before laying it aside on Ash Wednesday.

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by Jeremiah Sierra on February 20, 2012

Though we often try to keep them separate, work life and personal life intermingle in any job. For the staff of a church this is especially tricky. The church is deeply personal for members of the community. It’s a community made up of relationships. For staff members, it’s something in between.  

In a church, like in any organization, there are program staff and administrative staff. One of the main tasks of program staff is developing and maintaining relationships. They teach and perform liturgy as well, of course, but it has always seemed to me that relationships are central part of ministry. The priests and youth ministers work to strengthen relationships within the community and between individuals and their faith and God. The administrative staff, on the other hand, is primarily task-oriented.

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by Lisa Meeder Turnbull on February 17, 2012

In their book Celebrating the Offering, brothers and Methodist ministers Melvin and James Amerson assert that offerings of prayer, presence, gifts, and service are all required to be good stewards.

This must have been in the back of my mind when I read this week’s lectionary. I noticed a little detail in Mark’s account of Jesus’ early ministry that I had read right over in the past: There in the midst of preaching and teaching and healing and fellowship, in the morning scurry to pack up and get the show on the road to the next town…. Jesus slips away to pray. It grabs my attention that Mark, never one for verbosity, takes particular care with the details of this scene. “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

We don’t know what he prayed, what was on his heart in that moment. All we know is that Jesus allowed himself to be discovered in the practice of stewardship of his intimate relationship with God the Creator. Jesus taught by example that his prayers, our prayers, indeed all offerings of prayer “communicate our gratitude and love of God’s grace, love, mercy, protection, provision, and …petitions for God’s blessings upon those gifts.” (Amerson, p.54)

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