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 Last week, Anne, Marc, Carol and I all attended the clergy conference at Chanco. The teaching part was presented by two pastors who had written a book, De-churching the Church, that explored the reasons why people, former church-goers, had stopped going to church. We could go off on all of the social, theological, and political issues of a quarter century, but predominantly it came down to one reason: they had moved to a new place.

Now I know about moving to a new place, both as a child in a military family, and now in my dotage. When we moved here in the summer of 1955, I had lived in eight places in 10 years, and gone to five different schools. I vividly remember coming to St. Andrew's for the first time, walking with my mother over boards resting on the dismantled floor of the duplex that had been the entrance to the parish house, to be registered for Sunday school. They were building what is now the lobby and what became the day school library (now the Senior Lounge). Miss Mabry, parish secretary, sat at her desk. The young Miss Humphreys who led Christian education, Junior Choir, Junior Altar Guild, and Girl Scout Troop 45, was bustling about. And Mr. Burke, the rector of one year, was still listening to stories about the wisdom of the previous rector, as Episcopalians do as new rector orientation for about five to 10 years. For the rest of my elementary days at Hilton School, I spent at least three afternoons a week involved in those offerings for children, as well as confirmation classes and confirmation on December 21, 1958. 

After three years here, my father took us first to Jackson, Michigan, and a year later to Birmingham, Michigan, where he was working on the Enrico Fermi project, and in those two parishes I was unable to find my place and became a truant middle schooler. My parents were not church goers, but senders, and that seemed to make a difference, unlike at St. Andrew's.

We moved back here in 1960, where I finished high school.

Those years were spent in Sunday school, EYC, and attending the dances held in the parish hall basement after football games, pancake suppers, and some very nice dinners the mothers of the church had for the EYC.

After college and two years in Suffolk, VA, my husband accepted a teaching and coaching position at Warwick High School and I was back again. I got involved with teaching Sunday school, being supportive of the EYC, and served on a couple of committees, and probably was too opinionated in adult forums.

Later, as a single parent with three children, I enjoyed and was grateful to this parish for walking with me and caring about and nurturing my children.

My point in this travelogue is to tell you that this parish has met me at every stage and every intersection in my life. It has offered friendship, wise counsel, and some forbearance as I navigated many changes over a 70-year period, as I came and went, wherever my father's job took us, wherever I wandered and whatever befell me, trauma or grace, good time and hard times. 

The question raised by De-churching the Churched is what will it take to get people to come back. The answer was to invite them, offer warmth and friendship, fellowship and path that will help them feel closer to God and to one another, whether it's a place in the choir for a 10-year old who can't carry a tune, fellowship to a teenager who is so exhausted from moving that she is at risk in lots of ways, friendship to a young divorced mother with three children with no nearby family who is trying to re-build her life, or an older woman trying to figure out what God calls her to do, to become, to offer the world. 

You've got this St. Andrew's. Continue to do what you do, and this world will indeed be a better place. 

- Kathy Gray

"This is how church used to be!"

If we had a dollar for each time one of us has heard this phrase, we’d all be rich by now, right? I had to submit my budget last week, in order for the vestry to review it well before the start of 2025. I approached the task the same way I have for the past 20 (has it been 20??) years working at churches. Step one: identify the bare minimum needed for the music program. Step two: attach dollar signs. Step three: get a pat on the back for doing my best to identify the bare minimum. (Okay, step three doesn’t always happen but that’s what I imagine.)

Certainly, there is value to being frugal. It’s part of our care of creation, i.e. let’s not buy more and more stuff to eventually fill our landfills! It’s part of our stewardship of church resources,

i.e. let’s make the best use of the money all of you have given to this church out of your desire to see St. Andrew’s thrive and be a force for good in our community. As a church staff member, assembling a budget and spending church money has always been a very humbling task.

I found, though, that outlining a bare-minimum budget was also causing me to envision our musical future at the bare minimum. My goal was the status quo. It was a theology of scarcity rather than abundance. But good Christian theology tells us that God’s love is abundant! Good theology tells us there is always room for one more at the table, that there’s no limit to forgiveness or generosity.

After Evensong the evening of October 6th, someone came up to me and said, “Now THAT is how church used to be!” And for once I didn’t hear it as bitter or pessimistic. The church was not full, but everyone was singing their hearts out to the extent that the voices, combined with the organ, filled every crevice of the sanctuary. According to multiple people I spoke with, it was transporting. We felt our bodies literally lift up. Our hearts were so full that tears felt ready to fall. It was a combination of beauty and togetherness that reminded us that God is real. God must be real; he was certainly present at Evensong on October 6th!

That experience is not something you can force, but it is something we can strive for. After Evensong and before I submitted my budget, I added a few big-picture, pie-in-the-sky dreams for us and our worship service. And I made a commitment to pray more often, asking God to help me hold these two seemingly paradoxical ideas equally: that I can be a practical steward of the church’s money and dream big when I think about the future of our church music program. With God’s help, we can do both!

And the church said: Amen!

- Ginny Chilton, Minister of Music

Lifestyle

Here’s another reflection from sabbatical: When something becomes a lifestyle, you don’t stop thinking that way when you’re not doing that thing.  It becomes the way you think in all things.  Here’s what I mean.  Back in a previous life, my crew and I used to paddle open boats (canoes, as opposed to “decked” boats like kayaks - or worse, rubber boats like rafts) on whitewater.  I was class III competent, class IV challenged.  In class III, especially in an open boat, you really should know what you’re doing; in class IV, you had better have some pretty serious skills.  A couple of things whitewater teaches you: 1. Your ego will get you hurt or worse.  You have to be completely honest with yourself about what you can handle and what you can’t.  If you can’t, then portage around the rapid and live to paddle another day.  (The rule was “If you can’t spit, don’t run it!”)  2. No matter what happens, never stop thinking, meaning don’t freeze up if you find yourself heading somewhere you’d rather not be.  Just use your skills and experience to maneuver into a better position and trust the people you’re paddling with.  Once that becomes the norm of your thought process, it generalizes even when you’re off the river.  I’m absolutely sure that’s what kept me out of a wreck when I was about to be sandwiched by two people coming in opposite directions with me between them.  I put my vehicle in the only one-inch margin of error there was between the two and we were all able to drive away unscathed.

That’s the way of it for a life of faith.  It’s like the Lenten disciplines that aren’t only for that short period of time between the end of Epiphany and the beginning of the Easter season.  Ideally, you shouldn’t focus on the Lenten disciplines - self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting, self-denial; reading and meditating on God’s holy word - only during Lent, like “I’ll do Bible study (or not have martinis) for four weeks or so, but then I’m off the hook for the rest of the year.”  They should be the way of deepening your faith that lasts through the whole year so that whatever it is - deepening faith, compassion, self-giving, grace - becomes a lifestyle, the way you think and pray and act whether it’s Lent or not. 

We have quite a while before Lent begins again (March 5, 2025), but that gives us a lot of time for self-examination, i.e. to be completely honest with ourselves about the degree that faith plays in our actual day-to-day life in work, family, and community, and not just on Sundays.  And if we find ourselves heading somewhere we’d rather not be, rather than letting that taunting voice of doubt keep us frozen in a rut, we can use our skills and experience to maneuver into a better position (i.e. repentance) and trust the people with whom we are all paddling along when the class level gets challenging.  Then it becomes a matter of lifestyle, not just when we’re in church mode, but in all things.
 
- Marc Vance

Beloved Community

Dear friends,

In my late 20s, I joined a parish in Greenfield, Massachusetts.  After arriving, I asked a priest if they had a young adult group, and she said, “No; but you could start one.”  (Clever priest!)  So I sent out a survey:  What ages do you think should be included?  Single folks only or couples, or families with children?  Should our activities be outreach, fellowship, or Bible study? 

To my amusement, when the results came back, people wanted everything.  So I ended up starting The Get-Togethers, a group for folks of all ages that cycled through different kinds of activities so that everyone could participate in whatever most interested them.

Only one survey-taker indicated an interest in Bible study—a young mom a few years older than I was.  We decided to tackle the book of James together.  Every week Lisa would climb the steps to my second-floor apartment with a baby basket in one hand and a Bible in the other.

Since that study, I have always loved the book of James, and I greatly enjoyed our foray through it in September.  During the bishop’s visit we heard James 5:13-20, which begins, Are any among you suffering?  They should pray.  Are any cheerful?  They should sing songs of praise…  James gives practical instruction to the Christian community, telling them how members are to care for one another:  praying for the suffering, rejoicing with the cheerful, anointing the sick, confessing their sins to one another, and forgiving each other.

I thought about this passage while attending a recent diocesan event called Gathering on Sacred Ground.  The conference was offered to help participants think about next steps on the journey of Becoming Beloved Community, our work together to respond to racial injustice.  The keynote speaker, author Canon Stephanie Spellers from the Presiding Bishop’s office, gave a description of beloved community that I want to hang onto:

Beloved Community:

The community where your suffering pains me,

your hope becomes my hope,

and your flourishing makes my heart sing.

The community where I am willing to take risks

and to give up some preference or comfort,

if it means we will all finally become whole.

I think Beloved Community was what James had in mind for the church.  More importantly, I think it’s what Jesus has in mind for the church.  I look forward to continuing our work together to become Beloved Community here at St. Andrew’s and beyond our doors, and I am so grateful that I get to participate in this crucial practice with each of you.

- Blessings.  -Anne

Stewardship

One retired minister offered a stewardship perspective in this way, “The question is not, how much of what is mine do I give to others? The question is, how much of what is God’s do I reserve for myself? The answer we give is a faith issue, a stewardship issue.”

My family believes that God calls us to be stewards of His abundance, and I see it as an opportunity. Shouldn’t we be giving God back some of the time, talents, and treasures He has given us in a spirit of joy? Just as we pay for the foundation in which we live (our home), as well as its “supporting characters” (electric, water, sewage, etc.) that combine to make our house a warm, inviting place, we believe that our pledge to St. Andrew’s supports our church foundation (a 100-year-old building needs a lot of care) and its many, many other supporting characters (overhead, staff, mission, outreach, community), with every belief that the time, talents, and treasures we all bring to the table help ensure St. A’s is seen as a warm, inviting house of worship. 

A quote attributed to Aristotle, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” comes to mind here, and I contend that when each of us pledges, we are (1) honoring God’s call for us to be caretakers of all He has entrusted to us and, (2) Although two of the four specific goals for next year’s pledges may first appear miles apart, I feel that maintaining our beautiful, historically rich building and expanding our children’s ministry work hand-in-hand; we want our children to see St. Andrew’s as a safe haven, not just a place to learn about, and serve, a loving and gracious God, but also a SAFE building in every sense of the word.  

We have always faithfully honored our annual pledge, even if that pledge only covers a week of salaries, or necessary maintenance and upkeep repairs that are not “exciting” (like when we must pay a plumber on the weekend—hardly exciting, but necessary). We see St. Andrew’s as our “church home,” and its parishioners become extended family members. When all of us “family members” pledge, it creates what Aristotle said--a combined effect of different elements, which are more valuable, or impactful, than the sum of each of our individual contributions.

It’s a nice thought for me that when I hear the proverb, “it takes a village,” perhaps our collective pledges are doing just that—providing a community of people to support each other, with emphasis on our youth, and ensuring a safe and healthy environment for them to grow in. With St. Andrew’s meeting its stewardship goal, it will be able to do just that, as well as invest in innovative technologies, strengthen our outreach ministries support, and take care of our Centenarian Building that holds so many memories—past, present, and future.

1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”  May we all see this time of stewardship as an opportunity to continue serving a generous and loving God.

- Debi Nicolai