Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Bring on the routine. 

In 12 days, the kids begin school for the fall, and our family settles into a regular schedule. Homework, dinner, a little TV. Piano practice, art lessons and for the first time, maybe karate.

I say maybe, because the nearest karate class in our small town is offered on Wednesdays – the same day as our Saints Alive dinner and formation programs. If we don’t sign up for this class, it means a drive of 25 minutes to the next town.

Scheduling our lives around our priorities isn’t easy. Even for me, a priest’s spouse and a church employee, sometimes I consider convenience over obligation.

I think this is one of the great challenges facing our churches: How do we get people back into the routine? How do we compete with soccer practices and drama club – and karate lessons?

Part of it requires a willingness to put God first. Why should learning how to tackle or launch a crisp spiral throw take precedent over an evening of fellowship and Scripture? We know in our hearts that it shouldn’t, but it’s easy even for those of us committed to the church to relegate Bible study or weekday worship to last on the list. After all, God will understand. Right?

I think it becomes our responsibility to model priorities – to keep sacred our Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights – or whatever time your congregation gathers. This may require sacrifice and inconvenience but it’s a witness to our community that faith matters.

At the same time, I’m cognizant that not everyone can or will make the same decisions. And that’s where we also need to be flexible and creative. A church in my diocese will offer WEBible classes this fall, an online Bible study. They’re using WebEx, which allows for video, audio and shared documents or screens, so the class will be interactive while giving people the option to participate at home, on the road or at the church building. Our diaconal program, now shared between three dioceses, will also use the system. Their weekly formation gatherings will be virtual, with in-person meetings throughout the year.

How is your congregation managing the balance of routine and flexibility? In what ways are you modeling priorities -- and how are you developing programs that accommodate the frenzy of fall schedules? Share your creative solutions here.

I’ll read them after checking on the kids’ progress waxing the mini-van. If they can’t take karate lessons, pointers from The Karate Kid will have to do. Wax on. Wax off.

For my family, vacations are usually intergenerational affairs. From an early age, I remember vacationing with an assortment of my MacKay aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as well as day trips and picnics with cousins, aunt, uncle, grandparents, and great aunts on my father’s side of the family.

This tradition continues today. For nearly 20 years, my mother has rented a cottage on the coast of Maine and filled it with an assortment of relatives and friends.

Once at the cottage, I find myself transported to ‘Maine time’ where the clock becomes irrelevant. Breakfast and lunch are on your own, and dinnertime is set according to how people are feeling on any given day. Daytime often means beach time, swimming, biking, or long walks along the shore. Evenings might mean a walk along the beach, looking for constellations or sharing a space on the couch with other Red Sox fans while watching the game.

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Episcopalians aren’t the only people God trusts to take the summer off.

At our church, the nursery attendant goes home from college, and the kids join the congregation for the whole service.

During the program year, the nursery is staffed with a friendly undergrad who brings her young charges to the service during the peace. This gives the kids a time with the priest during a brief children’s sermon. They partake in the Eucharist or “God bread” as my children call it. The shorter time period means that most children stay relatively church-behaved – solemn and relatively quiet.

But an entire Rite II service tests the sit-still-ability of even the most sedate child. Goldfish crackers and crayons only satisfy for so long.

Today, a whole retinue of princess dolls lined a pew, with an adorable 2-year-old playing and laughing. In another row, Lego blocks spread across the seat, with a child (truth be told, he was my son) sitting on the kneeler and creating a castle creation. He set aside the Legos to listen to an amazing solo and started clapping until he realized he was the only one. A young toddler wandered the narthex, squealing as he made a break for the communion rail.

It will be nice when the nursery attendant returns, and the kids have a place to run off their energy, to imagine stuffed animals into a flock of friends, to laugh without being shushed. And to be sure, it will be of some comfort to the parents who worry that the noise of their children distracts others from worship.

But I love when we are all together, all ages, gathered for church. And in my opinion, a giggle here and there only makes the worship more sacred, more alive.

When we picked a theme for our Vacation Bible School this summer we naturally gravitated to Green. Our parish has made ecology a major theme during my five years in charge, so it was only natural that we took our young people down that path this summer with Back to the Garden: Renewing God’s Earth. 

This follows on our Green and Growing Capital Campaign and our City of Seattle-funded effort Taking Green Home. Each of these initiatives has deepened our commitment to being good environmental stewards. It has also given us a great, green brand in the community.

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(All is well…..I have goodness in my heart.)  

Today, I want to share the story of Grace Art Camp, a ministry offered by Grace Memorial Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon. 

For me, growing up, summer meant camp. Among my earliest memories are glimpses of the day camp my grandmother ran: swimming at the lake, the inside of the main cabin, and pine trees carpeting the ground.  Camp was where I tried new things and first met people who came from different cultural contexts than mine. It prepared me for life at a large state university and shaped my leadership skills. From being a ‘tag-a-long’ at age two until serving as a day camp director in my early 20s, camp was an important part of my life and shaped the adult I have become.

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I want to Super 8 the church experience of my youth.

J.J. Abram’s cinematic homage to Stephen Spielberg relishes in nostalgia without overdoing the saccharine. We caught the flick on date night, and it prompted many a tale over dinner about the movies of our youth, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and even Star Wars.

So I got to thinking: How would I tell the story of the church of my youth? How could I begin to pay tribute to the ways it shaped me, helped to craft my moral compass, and cement the types of relationships I still seek?

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Elizabeth Kaeton has a proposal for the Church for Fathers Day: “I think we should use the day to begin a movement to give up 'Father' as an honorific title for male clergy.”

Growing up in the Episcopal Church in New England in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, we called the rector of our parish ‘Mr. Thorp’ or ‘Reverend Thorp.’ He was our minister: If you had a priest, or used the term ‘Father,’ it signaled that you worshipped at the Catholic Church. This was before women could be ordained in the Episcopal Church; after 1974, I used the same formula when referring to a female priest – Mrs. or Ms. last name or, the Reverend.

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Do you remember the Pentecost story? I'll admit that at the beginning of this week, I had to look it up. If it wasn’t for Facebook and the various online theological resources I subscribe to, Pentecost wouldn’t make the list of things I would think about this week.

Checking Facebook this morning, I found a post by Tom Brackett, “Pentecost -- what we're really all about (or wish we were)!” with a link to "It's Pentecost."   

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The stores are closed today.

On my way to a staff retreat in the verdant hills of southern Ohio, I won't be able to make my usual stop at the Amish store to purchase some amazing cheeses and fresh-baked bread.

Today is the feast of Ascension, a time to remember Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Most of us will carry on with our daily obligations. But the Amish shutter their doors in observance of the special day.

Several years ago, I worked as a newspaper reporter in northern Indiana, near a large population of Amish. I spent a lot of time with different Amish families and the area bishops. As with any group, the more time I spent with them, the more three-dimensional and dynamic they became. No longer were they a quaint reminder of olden days.

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Campers could share a lot with parishioners when it comes to building community.

We travel frequently with our children – my son was seven weeks old when I flew to New York City for a business trip. I wasn’t ready to leave him yet, so we packed the Baby Bjorn and gave him an early taste of Time’s Square. The kids have been to Disney (World and Land), San Francisco, Niagara Falls, and lots of places in between.

But invariably, when we ask their favorite vacation, the reply is instant and unanimous: camping.

I thought about this over the Memorial Day weekend, as we rented our small slice of the outdoors for a three-day retreat.

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Can fundraising be good for your spiritual health? Henri Nouwen thinks so.

Many of us have come to love Henri Nouwen – his books, wisdom, life story, and especially his ability to convey the depths of spiritual life and practice in a way that invites God deep into our hearts and minds.

But you may not think of Nouwen as a fundraising guru. Think again.

Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932-1996) was a contemporary teacher, writer, pastor, and Catholic priest who spent his last ten years living in community with people with developmental disabilities at L’Arche Daybreak in Canada.

Along with insights from many of his books, Nouwen has had an abiding impact in my professional and personal life through a little booklet called A Spirituality of Fundraising. Apparently Nouwen gave lectures on this topic, which the Henri Nouwen Society compiled into a simple booklet to share his wisdom.

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Some mornings we found a bucket of blackberries on our porch. On other days, parishioners would drop off a jug of maple syrup, tapped from their trees, or a few blue gill, freshly caught.

In the first country parish we served, the people lived off the land. Many were farmers, but even those who had day jobs spent hours tending to their gardens.

They took a broad view of tithing – giving a portion to the church of all that God had given them, from income to ripe red tomatoes and succulent ears of corn.

But even for a people so connected to the land, the idea of blessings on Rogation Days seemed far-fetched. 

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Guess who is running Vacation Bible School at my church this summer? Yours truly. It gives me the opportunity to get back to basics on marketing that I used to advise other churches to use when I was the Missioner for Communications Ministry at the Diocese of Olympia. Here goes.

Theme. We picked Back to the Garden: Renewing God’s Earth because an environmental theme will be very attractive in our area. The RENEW curriculum from the Lutheran Church will provide great support materials as well as good graphics for our marketing.

Audience. Who do we want at VBS? We decided on 90 children spread out across grades Pre-K through 5th grade. We want to reach about 60 of our own children and 30 newbies. For the new ones, we want them to have a positive experience of St. Andrew’s that gives them an honest feel for our parish. Again, this is where the environmental theme is key since it is such an important part of our DNA at St. Andrew’s.

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Blanche DuBois relied on the kindness of strangers, but I am thankful for the kindness of Facebook.

Already this morning, dozens of people from across every stage of my life have taken a moment to wish happy birthday on Facebook. On the surface, it seems trivial, I suppose – a quick typing of a few good wishes.

But for the recipient, it feels like a mini-episode of this-is-your-life. I get to remember my kindergarten best friend and Taco Bell runs and Choir Tour trips with my church youth group. I think about college all-nighters and lazy afternoons on the quad. There are happy wishes from colleagues during my newspaper years – including an unusual five May 11 birthdays from my time covering city hall in Fort Wayne, Ind.

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The rector who was my first supervisor as a young priest used to tell the story of a fellow rector who checked in to a mental hospital for Easter Week nearly every year. I, myself, share openly that when Jesus emerges from the tomb on Easter morning I am ready to climb in behind him for a long nap.

Holy Week is a marathon. We enact so much in so short a time. At St. Andrew’s, the journey of Holy Week begins with our Palm Sunday procession from Green Lake to the church. It follows its usual course from Green Lake Park just west of the tennis courts at the park’s north end winding through our neighborhood and through the front doors of the church led by two donkeys. Street theatre, plain and simple. We then save the reading of the Passion for a dramatic climax at the very end of the Palm Sunday service, sending people out a little disoriented I hope.

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My earliest church memory is from Easter 1960: I sang in the Cherubs’ choir at both the 9:00 am and 11:00 am services at William Street Methodist Church in Delaware, Ohio. I remember distinctly the musty smell of the basement room where moms handed around yellow choir robes to find ones to fit a roomful of variously shaped five- and six-year-olds.

I also remember clearly the wonderful breakfast we shared with the youth choir and chancel choir in the parish hall between services. We were worship leaders.

Built in 1888, our church building was a towering structure in town. It was a neo-Gothic castle where we young people ran wild and played mightily. A long-standing joke went that the Methodist’s waited until the Catholics completed St. Mary’s, then built their steeple three feet higher.

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Easter dinner doesn’t normally make me feel holy.

Happy? Yes. Full to the brim with succulent ham, dumplings, green beans and three-layer chocolate cake? Yes, definitely.

But holy? Not so much. That normally happens during the triumphant strains of "Lift High the Cross" in morning worship.

But a few years ago, I glimpsed heaven at our Easter banquet.

My family traveled in for the weekend – both parents, even though six weeks earlier they had announced their separation. We invited another couple, partners for more than 20 years. At the last minute, plans for Easter dinner fell through for other friends, and we invited them too.

Ray came in to the church straight from his overnight shift at Kroger. He had wandered into the fellowship hall in January, cold from sleeping under a bridge. He warmed up with coffee and donuts and stayed for worship. He didn’t miss a Sunday for the next four months.

People in the congregation helped him find a place to stay, put in a good word at the grocery store and assisted with some other necessities.

With Ray still wearing his grocery store smock, we asked him to join us for Easter dinner. He declined, saying he needed to spend the afternoon at the Laundromat.

Bring them to our house. We'll throw the clothes in the wash before dinner. 

My husband drove him to the motel where he was staying, and Ray packed all of his clothes in a small garbage bag. When they arrived, we started the washing machine. Then Ray stood in a corner, uncertain.

I handed him a carton of hard-boiled eggs and a butter knife, and he and my 6-year-old worked together on the deviled eggs.

We carried all of the dishes into the dining room, then joined hands to pray. I snuck a peek around the table: Here we were together, holding hands, straight and gay, young and old, conservative and liberal, wealthy and homeless.

My heart knew then: Heaven feels like this. Then I closed my eyes and re-joined the praying.

It’s probably the most successful example of reverse psychology that’s out there - “Whatever you do, please don’t try this at home.” The effect is instantaneous. Mild-mannered souls become daredevils; otherwise sane folk start working out the logistics behind the stunt. Why are these words so powerful?

The phrase works on me in two ways. First, I don’t like it when people tell me what I shouldn’t do. My inner adolescent rises up in revolt. Secondly, home is the best testing ground there is. Not only is it where I tried out lots of crazy stunts as a kid, it’s also where I continue to try out new practices and new ways of viewing life.

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Maybe it was the lemon cake, but by the end of Friday’s dinner at Julian House in Chicago the constant hand wringing about young adults and the future of the Episcopal Church seemed a distant memory. Where are young adults in the Episcopal Church? For a moment at least, eleven of us were seated around a dining room table eating delicious food and discussing the exciting new ways many young adults are partnering for peace, social justice, and discernment.

With Peter Drucker’s insights in mind, here are two “unexpected successes” to consider when discussing the role of young adults in the Episcopal Church: Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Urban/Rural Pilgrimages and Episcopal Service Corps’ network of service internships. Both are growing, both are being led by and engage young adults, and both are equipping folks to go out and beyond the red doors in service, on behalf of social justice, and grounded in faith. 
If you know of a young adult who might be interested in spending a week or a year exploring these issues, please share these opportunities with them. 

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Have you had 6-8 servings of sacred story? What about the recommended monthly 2-4 servings of Christian action? 

The Soul Food Pyramid outlines what is needed for a healthy, balanced spiritual diet. 

Developed by the folks at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, the Soul Food Pyramid plays off the well-known USDA Food Pyramid. And just like that pyramid, the Soul Food one isn’t a “rigid prescription but a general guide.”

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