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SAINTS Alive! THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PARISH All Saints’ Church Chelmsford, MA February 2010
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SAINTS Alive! THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PARISH All Saints’ Church Chelmsford, MA February 2010
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The Deficit as a Spiritual Challenge
At the Annual Meeting of the parish this past January 24th, the Vestry presented a budget that was about $15,000 in the red. They had spent a great deal of time looking at the budget and the implications of cutting it so that it was balanced or passing it with a deficit. Traditionally, this parish has been very disciplined in passing a balanced budget. And so, we have been able to weather the recession fairly well. However, cutting back our already lean budget this year seemed like we would be cutting too close to the bone. The vestry decided it would be better for us to make up the loss of revenues from losing the Nursery School, and my no longer being Dean, rather than cut expenses.
The proposal the Vestry has accepted is to work to increase income from rentals, fundraisers and pledging. They have also realized that while they need to provide the leadership, this is a parish-wide problem and not just something the 13 people on the Vestry must do. I applaud the vestry’s hard and faithful work on the budget.
As I mentioned in my Annual Meeting address, this is not just a marketing, fundraising and accounting challenge. For us, as a church, it is also a spiritual challenge, for it is out of our spiritual lives that we are going to find the resources to address the deficit.
Increasing revenues from rentals is all about hospitality. Increasing revenues from fundraisers is all about fellowship. Increasing revenues from pledging is all about spiritual growth. If we can draw on these spiritual values and practices we will not only meet our financial goals, but we will have more fully joined God in God’s mission.
I ask you to join the Vestry and me as we wonder how we might offer fuller hospitality to those who rent space from us and who might rent in the future. I invite you to wonder how we can more fully make fundraisers events about fellowship both within the parish and with those in the community. Finally, the money that individuals and families pledge for the support of this parish comes out gratitude of this parish and for Christ in their lives. How might we be able to let that gratitude grow and blossom? I contend that if we can do this work, a side effect will be the elimination of the deficit.
Peace,
Tom
Wolverhampton Concert
Saturday, February 13 at 7:00 PM
We welcome back the Concert Band from St. Peter’s Collegiate School in Wolverhampton, England in their fourth visit here to All Saints.
All are invited to hear this wonderful group of young musicians on February 13 in the sanctuary.
I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all who sent cards, telephoned, visited, brought food, took me out for food, gave me rides, etc., etc. during my recent recovery from surgery. It meant a great deal to me and I’m sure it expedited my recovery. Thank you for all the help and attention.
Sincerely,
Liz Landers
World Music Choir Performances
February 20-21
Boston Harmony, the unique Boston area world music choir led by Patty Cuyler and Larry Gordon, presents concerts on Saturday, February 20 at 7:30 PM in Cambridge at First Church, Mason and Garden Streets, and Sunday, February 21 at 3:30 PM in Amherst at Grace Episcopal Church, on the Green. Admission, at the door, is $12, $8 for students and seniors. For further information call (978) 371-7317 or visit www.villageharmony.org
The concert program presents South African songs and dances, traditional sacred and secular music from Caucasus Georgia, Bulgaria and Corsica, a short mass by Antonio Lotti, and American shape-note and gospel songs. Now in its fifth season, the choir has expanded to 60 voices, evenly divided between teens and adults. The group is particularly notable for its ability to radically change its sound as it ranges through these different genres: from the dark and sonorous Georgian timbre to the ultra-bright Bulgarian hard-voice, from straight-ahead shape note singing to the rich and mellifluous South African sound.
Over the years, All Saints’ has been able to help many families through Angel Tree, a program that matches churches with families of incarcerated parents who have applied to participate through their prison chaplains. Parishioners purchase and deliver gifts to these families to support the caregivers, who are often grandparents, aunts and uncles, and especially to renew or strengthen the bond between the child and the absent parent. We write to the prisoners to offer our prayers and to let them know how we have or have not been able to serve their families. We invite the families to join us for worship at All Saints’, although I am not aware that any have taken us up on the invitation.
According to Proverbs 11:25, “The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” This theme plays out on a number of levels. Many generous parishioners at All Saints’ comment to me on how good it makes them feel and
how happy they are to be able to contribute to our Angel Tree Program each year. We know that this “refreshment” of our own spirits is a side benefit of Angel Tree. The relatives caring for the children often express relief to have some help in celebrating Christmas with the kids in difficult circumstances. The imprisoned parents sometimes write to us to express their gratitude. Along with their Angel Tree applications, many of them send personal messages of love and hope for us to convey to the children along with the gifts. Several of the prisoners are looking forward to reuniting with their children when they are released this year.
All Saints’ parishioners responded to a special challenge in 2009, lovingly providing gifts for 16 children from Child and Family Services of Merrimack Valley as well as for 14 Angel Tree children of prisoners. We don’t know precisely what each gift means to an individual child, but we do hear from Prison Fellowship, the parent organization of Angel Tree, of gifts sometimes beginning the process of reconciliation in troubled families and transformation in prisoners. Child and Family Services writes of bringing “a degree of normalcy to children whose lives have been touched by turmoil.” Most sincere thanks to all who contributed gifts with open hands and hearts. I am grateful to all the behind-the-scenes helpers who made this program such a success – Melissa Flewelling, Denise Sullivan, Scott SanJurjo, Connie Pawelczak, Cynthia Bennett, Jennifer Knapp-Hernandez, Kevin Ackert and (apologetically) those whose names I may have missed in the hubbub of taking in dozens of wonderful Christmas presents. Many thanks also to Darlene Gossement, who played a central communications role as messages, requests and gifts crossed paths through the church office.
With thanks and joy,
Stephanie Ackert, Angel Tree Coordinator
978-663-5188 sackert1@comcast.net
In my Annual Report for 2009, I reflected upon why formation in the religious tradition of Christianity matters and why adult Christian formation matters. My starting point was a quote from Phyllis Tickle, an Episcopal writer and editor, describing the difference between spirituality and religion. I wrote, “I talk a lot at All Saints’ about being leaders and I get a lot of resistance, as in ‘Oh Amy, I’m not a leader.’ People are rightly wary of taking on authority that is not theirs, but I am talking about something different. I am talking about the difference between being a consumer of spirituality and being someone who is intentionally engaged in being a Christian. To respond to Jesus Christ and out of our relationships with Jesus makes us leaders, not necessarily as people with titles and power, but as light to one another and to the wider world.”
Parishioner Harry Taplin recently sent me an article about Miep Gies, the office worker who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis for nearly two years. The article said of Gies that “She resisted being made a character study of heroism for the young. ‘I don't want to be considered a hero,’ she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren. ‘Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary.’”
Imagine if we believe that we have to be leaders or heroes to live out our faith.
Imagine if Christianity is something lived out by ordinary people in ordinary circumstances.
That continues to be the draw for me both in the Christian faith and in doing the work of adult Christian formation-- the belief that God invites us, ordinary people in ordinary lives, to join God’s mission of reconciling love. Our call is to be light and leaven and salt in a broken world that is in enormous need of healing and grace. That call is not limited to a specialized group of leaders and heroes, but is the call to just plain folk, to you and to me, here and now.
I invite you to take advantage of the many opportunities that All Saints’ offers, to worship, to grow in your faith, to be community, to be intentional about our journeys, as individuals and as a parish, with God.
in peace,
Amy B Hunter
Associate for Adult Christian Formation
Prayer as First Resort meets February 9
Prayer as First Resort meets the second Tuesday of every month, 7:30- 9:00pm in the Blue Room and is a group that comes together to support one another in practicing the Christian faith in our daily lives.
For the next several months, the theme of our meetings will be reflecting upon the ancient monastic practice of praying throughout the day at set times, praying the hours. We will look at how we have our own rhythms of personal prayer, at the ways we are part of communal prayer, and at what the traditions of monastic prayer might teach us about prayer, practice and sacred time. Lynne Grillo and Amy Hunter co-lead this group and would be happy to talk with you about it.
Upcoming Formation Dates and Events
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Feb 9 |
Prayer as 1st Resort |
Blue Room |
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Feb 12 |
Wolverhampton musicians arrive! |
Hear here! |
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Feb 16 |
Shrove Tuesday |
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Feb 17 |
Ash Wednesday (beginning of Lent): three services |
7:00am Chapel; |
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Feb 28 |
Service for Families with Small Children |
4:00pm Church |
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Mar 3 |
Lenten Program: Community and Mission |
look for more info |
On Saturday, February 6th at 6 pm there will be a dinner to benefit the West Virginia Workcamp at All Saints’. The purpose of the dinner is to recount the experiences of those who attended Workcamp this past summer, thank those who supported the mission, and introduce this unique experience to those who may be interested in attending in June 2010.
Dinner will be followed by a slide show of pictures from the 2009 Workcamp. If you supported the 2009 Workcamp by buying shares of $25 or more you will receive an invitation in the mail. Admission is free but donations to support the workcamp will be gratefully accepted. If you would like to come, please let Dave Kuzara know in person or by calling 978-256-5484 or emailing him at djkuzara@mail.com. This will allow us to ensure that we have enough food for everybody. If you have any interest in going on the 2010 Workcamp, or would just like to support this worthy project, please consider attending.
Dave Kuzara
Mission/Outreach Team
In the Sunday Bulletin we list those with more acute needs. Saints Alive carries a list of more “on-going” concerns to bring to God in prayer.
We will keep the description you provide as general or specific as you indicate. Please let us know what you would like included. We also encourage you to clip out these names and keep them in your prayers.
If you would like your name to be added or removed from any of the prayer lists, please contact Darlene in the Church Office.
· Eleanor Ferreira at home
· Al Gorham, at home
· Bea Iams, Sunny Acres
· Lillian Doris Johnson, Loisann Grant’s mother, at D’Youville Manor
· Chaz Freeman, Lois Freeman’s son
· Doug Grant at home, chronic back pain
· Bob Moorehouse at Nashoba Park#2 in Ayer
· Edwin Redman at home
· Dora Smith, Betsy Eisenmann’s mother
· Priscilla Smith at Willow Manor in Lowell
· Phyllis Page, at Chelmsford Crossing (from Amherst, MA)
· Gladys Stephens, Palm Manor Nursing Home
Ministering at Nyahela Sub-Parish in Kenya:
James Mwaura, Pastor. Rev. Mwaura has asked us to pray for political stability in Kenya.
Rural Dean Rev. Jacob Mbunjiro, Dorcus Esilaba, Shem Bwonya, Elizabeth Osiolo, and Phanice Otenyi, Chairlady of the orphan feeding program.
Nyahela sub-parish currently receives SaintsAlive. If you would like to write directly to them, please note their address:
ACK: Anglican Church of Kenya
ACK NYAHELA PARISH
P.O. BOX 201
LUANDA - KENYA
CODE: 50307
The very idea of doing nothing has great appeal: ease; and nothing for which you might be held responsible. Except that there are times when nothing is exactly what you might be held responsible for. Remember how burying one’s master’s money in a safe place, and not losing it was regarded as a betrayal of trust? (Matt 25: 14-30.) Moreover, the lessons to be drawn from having done anything at all would not be available to you.
In the fog of the real spiritual war being described in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape advises a younger demon to play with his assigned human’s mind in ways designed to provoke inaction. If the “patient” can believe that just feeling pity is noble in itself, then no one gains from the feeling. And the world doesn’t really become a better place.
So, remember to “ENGAGE” before you ruminate the whole day away!
Patrick Blumeris, editor
Thank you to Margaret Geanisis for providing the following list of resources…
Book of the Month:
Home Tonight: further reflections on the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, ed. by Sue Mosteller, 2009.
…follows the path of Nouwen’s spiritual home-coming. More than three years prior to writing his great classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen suffered a personal breakdown followed by a time of sealing solitude when he encountered Rembrandt's famous painting. He reflected on and identified with the parable's characters and experienced profound and inspiring life lessons.
This captivating book was created from never-before-published materials that formed the basis of the small workshop inspired by Nouwen’s intimate encounter with Rembrandt’s painting. Readers are led to welcome their unique belovedness through practices of spiritual listening, journaling, and communing with God, thus connecting personally with the unique, unconditional love of the One who created them. Home Tonight is a practical guide for the inner journey home.
If you have not read this wonderful priest's work before you may want to read The Life of the Beloved first or The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Homecoming.
Website of the Month:
This is a site specifically for daily devotions which are set to soft, meditative background music. The Devotions were written by ministers, professors, students, teachers, missionaries, denominational
leaders, and others who work with and care for students. An author typically writes one week of devotions. In these devotions, you will read honest struggles and questions, all in the context of real faith. As you read the thoughts of the writers, think about your own response to the scripture for the day. Let the writer’s words serve as background for your own conversation with God. Each devotion asks you to Pause, to Listen, to Think, to Pray, and to Go. It's been our favorite devotional site for over four years now.
CD of the Month:
The Troubadour Years, by John Michael Talbot
In 1990, John Michael Talbot began a new direction in recording the music God gave him by starting his own label, Troubadour for the Lord. This change came after 14 years as a top-selling artist with Sparrow Records. This two-disc compilation represents the best of John Michael’s music throughout these later years, as he continues to tour, perform, and create new music in the wake of a devastating fire that destroyed his Little Portion Hermitage Monastery. For more information about John Michael Talbot or to preview his music visit his web site: www.johnmichaeltalbot.com
The parish mission trip to Kenya scheduled for this January has been postponed until the summer. In the meantime, there will be an intergenerational Lenten program being planned for March 10 to explore and experience this international relationship. Anyone interested in participating should contact Rev. Tom or Lois Freeman.
Thanks are due to Alfred Tekah, the artist who brought to our attention Kevin and Samuel Imende, Vincent Masinde, Paul Maganga, Jackton Otenyi, Wales Osore, Philip Ayoro, Benson Andebe, Rojas Ndengu, Fanud Saunya, a formidable Nyahela United “soccer team” destined forever to remain ahead by one goal against All Saints’ Football Club. More of Alfred’s work is on display outside the parish office.
Pastor Rev. Mwaura has asked us to pray for political stability in Kenya:
O God, You have made of one blood all peoples, to live in creation, and sent your blessed son Jesus Christ to preach peace to people both near and far: Help all your people to seek your will and find you; and hasten, O Lord, the fulfillment of your promise, to pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Bob Bishop Carl Clark Joan DeChane
Laura Geary Edith Parekh Connie Pawelczak
Sean Seyffert Chantelle Somers Mike Thompson
Scott Bempkins, Senior Warden
Liz Landers, Junior Warden
Cynthia Bennett, Treasurer
Gail Laundry, Clerk
(All phone numbers are area code 978 unless indicated)
Church Office...................................... 256-5673
Senior Warden....... Scott Bempkins...... 877-8966
Junior Warden........ Liz Landers............ 256-9681
Treasurer............... Cynthia Bennett..... 256-5673
Clerk..................... Gail Laundry.......... 250-4031
Acolyte Director.... Clem Cole.............. 251-1296
Adult Education...... Amy Hunter........... 459-3418
Altar Guild............. Liz Landers............ 256-9681
Buildings and…….. Scott Bempkins...... 448-6872
Grounds Dave Cahill............ 250-3592
Christian School..... Laura Marshall…....256-1460
Elizabeth Danieli..... 256-3044
Melissa Flewelling..250-8164
Coffee Hour.......... Matt Hickcox......... 448-0931
Endowment ........... Derick Gates ………250-1569
Environmental Stewardship
Committee............. Bill Moreau .............250-4028
Fellowship.............. to be filled……..... 256-5673
Finance Interim...... Derick Gates.......... 250-1569
Handbell Choir …. Debbie Psilopoulos... 256-0797
Music Minister....... Maggie Marshall.... 251-1296
Outreach............... Dave Kuzara………256-5484
Pastoral Care......... Ann Kirk............... 251-4547
Saints Alive............ Patrick Blumeris..... 256-9638
SaintsAlive e-mail:.. ........ saintsalive@yahoo.com
Stewardship Interim Derick Gates......... 250-1569
Thrift Shop............. Carol Cannistraro…256-0929
Youth Group.......... Nancy March......... 250-1695
Webmaster............ Richard Coles........ 256-1311
Web site................ www.allsaintschelmsford.org
… for the March 2010 Saints Alive! is
February 21st, 2010
Please leave your articles in the Saints Alive! mailbox in the church office, or send them via email to SaintsAlive@yahoo.com. Thanks.
