Vows Inside This Issue
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Grace Notes Newsletter of Grace Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia Rector’s Reflections April 2013 Vows Inside this Issue We will celebrate 30 days of the Easter season this April, including Asst. to the Rector ................2 four Sundays! And we plan for eight baptisms and two weddings in Eastertide. The vows, the promises made, in the marriage and Graceful Worship .................3 baptismal liturgies, highlight our commitment to live together in the TNT Resumes ......................3 light and truth of the Risen Christ. Music....................................4 Both liturgies involve not just individuals making vows (in the case Retreat Recap .......................4 of a bride and groom; or a baptismal candidate, and/or parents and sponsors); the entire worshipping community is asked, “Will all of Senior Warden’s Report .......5 you witnessing these promises (vows) do all in your power to Stewardship Is ......................6 uphold these two persons in their marriage?” or “…do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?” (BCP, p. 303 GES News ............................7 and p. 425). When we attend marriage and baptismal liturgies we all make vows, promises. HMP News ...........................7 Stephen Ministry Workshop 8 Our support of marriages, families, persons baptized, confirmed, received and reaffirmed (including 11 adults at the Great Vigil) is a The Lochers! ........................9 priority for each of our program ministries, especially the first Growing at Grace ...............10 five—worship, education, evangelism, pastoral care and outreach— based upon the promises we reaffirm at every baptism (BCP, pp. April Forums ......................10 304-305). April Birthdays...................13 Jesus during the 40 days after his resurrection continued to teach his Parish Staff .........................13 disciples. He asked them to make promises to continue his work. In one of my favorite Easter appearance stories, John 21:1-23, the Risen Christ asks Peter three times, “…do you love me?” Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times after Our Lord was arrested. During Easter we consider our promises, our vows. Jesus continually asks each of us, “…do you love me?” The way we live our lives is the answer. Grace, Peace, Love, The Rev. Robert H. Malm Worship Schedule From the Assistant to the Rector Sunday Schedule Holy Eucharist Rite I ........... 7:30 am What does it mean to be an “Easter People”? It means sharing with the Child Care ........... 8:45 am–12:45 pm world the hope and joy we find in the good news that the tomb was La Santa Eucaristía .............. 9:00 am empty and that Jesus was risen from the dead. Choral Eucharist Rite II ....... 9:00 am Christian Ed classes ........... 10:15 am This spring, the Mission and Outreach Committee is discerning the Choral Eucharist Rite I ...... 11:15 am Holy Eucharist Rite II .......... 5:00 pm possibility of an adult mission trip to Haiti in the fall of 2013. Mission is a theme that threads through our parish life. Our Christian education Weekday Schedule and formation programming for next year will be mission-focused, Tuesday, Rite II .................. 6:30 pm, beginning with our annual Shrine Mont parish weekend in September. with healing Our mission theme will continue with the Sunday school and Adult Wednesday, Rite I ............... 7:00 am forum programs. The Mission and Outreach Committee wants to take Thursday ........................... 12:15 pm, the opportunity, while the whole parish is focused on mission, to alternating Rite I and Rite II weekly deepen our commitment and ties to our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Haiti. Grace Church is: Grace Church supports the Haiti Micah Project (HMP), a safe home for A center for worship and fellowship orphaned and needy children and a daily lunch program at St. Peter’s A school for discipleship and Episcopal Church elementary school in Mirebalais. Mirebalais is a stewardship large town, in the mountains north of Port-au-Prince. Although it does not suffer from the urban issues in the capital city, food security and A community for healing and extreme poverty stress the resources of the community. In 2011 Grace outreach Church helped HMP to build a water purification system in the town. This small enterprise supplies the home and students with clean About Grace Notes drinking water. It is also a business which sells extra water to the town, Grace Notes is published 10 supplying revenue to support the HMP efforts in the community. times a year by Grace Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia – HMP has shared a vision with Grace church of building a vocational monthly except for combined school for the youth who have graduated from the elementary school. It July/August and would be a place to learn highly valued skills such as metalwork and December/January issues. The carpentry, skills Haiti needs to build a brighter future. Part of the deadline for submitting copy is mission trip will be in support of the vocational school. The trip will midnight on the 15th of the also be an opportunity to learn more about HMP’s outreach work in the preceeding month. community. The Grace Mission Team will be witness to the transforming love of Christ in a very hard place. The next Grace Notes deadline is April 15, 2013 for the May 2013 The Mission and Outreach Committee will host an adult forum in late issue. Articles should be April. It will be an invitation to the congregation to learn more about submitted by e-mail to Haiti and to join the conversation about overseas mission. The [email protected]. All Committee will also sponsor a second spring forum on the Haiti Micah articles are subject to editing. Project with Jim Snow, a member at Immanuel Church on the Hill, who goes on mission to Haiti frequently. If you are interested in supporting Grace Church’s newsletter team mission or exploring a call to join the mission trip, please feel free to includes Amy Barron, Gary contact me. Carter, Kristine Hesse, June Peace, Huber, Lee Meeks, Sarah Schultz Mother Leslie and Beth Wiggers. 2 April 2013 ♦ Grace Notes Graceful Worship: The Church as Community When someone says to you “I’m going to church,” what picture enters your head? If you’re like most people, it’s a picture of a building. It might be stone, or brick or wood; it might have a steeple; and it probably has a large door. But it’s a building where people gather to worship. Is that what Jesus had in mind when, in Matthew 16:18, he said, “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”? Is that what Paul meant when he addressed his Second Epistle to the Corinthians “unto the church of God which is at Corinth”? The answer is no. The early church wasn’t a “what” but rather a “who.” The word used in the New Testament was ecclesia, which meant an assembly of people. Greek-speaking Christians chose this word to designate those whom Jesus had called and who had responded to his call with faith and obedience to live together as his people, his community. This term appears over 100 times in the New Testament. It’s used to identify local Christian communities as well as, in a universal sense, to mean all believers. And early Christians gathered together to worship wherever they could find someone’s home, in a cave or grotto, and in the open air. The building wasn’t the important part. In his first letter, Peter writes about the responsibilities of the members of the church—as a community—to each other. “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” And in another first letter, John writes, “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” It wasn’t until the New Testament was translated from the original Greek into English that the word “church” was used. The English word "church" is from the Old English word cirice, derived from West Germanic kirika, which in turn comes from the Greek kuriakē, meaning "of the Lord." Kuriakē in the sense of "church" was most likely a shortening of kuriakē oikia ("house of the Lord"). As a result of this translation, some people may have started to focus on the building rather than the community. And this change in focus may contribute to the problems that some churches have in attracting and retaining members. The “church as community” is like a big, wonderful family whose members have a wide variety of talents and resources that they can offer to support the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of each other and the world outside the community itself.