The Power of Presence

The past two weeks haven’t been the happiest or the most hopeful for me, so I’ve been trying more than usual to attune myself to God’s presence in my everyday life. Sometimes I get caught up in feeling like I’m just one small, insignificant person. What difference can one person make?

As I tuned my heart and mind toward the present moment this week, I found myself thinking more and more about the power of presence. I’ve been feeling it lately as I mourn the loss of Becki Shamblen. I didn’t realize how much I had come to anticipate seeing Becki several times a week around church. I got used to the sound of her footsteps back and forth from the sacristy, as I sat working alone in my office. I got used to bumping into her in the nave on a weekday and exchanging a few words. Would Becki have considered me a close friend? No, and that’s okay. But her loyalty to the altar guild, as well as several other ministries, became a source of encouragement for me. Her devotion to her faith strengthened mine.

I remember I felt it at the beginning of this year, too, after Bill Wilds retired. Bill used to appear in my office doorway, and not always because we had church business to take care of. Did Bill and I ever solve world peace in our workday conversations? No. But the joy he took in his service made me more joyful in doing mine.

Recently a neighbor of mine was going through a difficult time and sought my support. This is someone I see often but do not have a close relationship with. Somehow, though, in our short interactions, I became known to her as someone who was grounded in faith and someone she could trust. Apparently, just by just being myself, I had been a source of strength for someone without knowing it. The power of presence.

As we head into Advent in a couple weeks, we’ll all be able to ponder the power of presence: Immanuel, which means “God with us”. God came to earth as a baby. Babies are inherently helpless. What can a baby possibly do for a hurting, divided, violent world? As we celebrate Christmas and hear the stories of the groups of people who came to visit Jesus, we are reminded what it all started with: simply being there. The power of presence.

- Ginny Chilton

 

Altar Guild and Flower Guild seeking new members

Altar Guilds, as known to the Episcopal Church, did not become a formalized body until the nineteenth century. The history of its development goes back to the time of the apostles. In the early days of the Church, followers of Christ gathered in private homes to break bread together and to share their memories of Him. Presumably, the head of the household provided whatever was required for the meal. As the Christian population increased substantially, larger buildings in which to meet were required. Certain people were given the ministry of caring for these places, the worshipers themselves providing the food for the meal. Food was also being set aside to take to those in more remote areas and circumstances which did not allow them to be part of corporate worship, for example the shut ins and the poor. By the fourth century, parish ministry had been generally established, and for hundreds of years to follow the ordained clergy referred to as sacristans were responsible for maintaining all the paraphernalia of worship, for preparing for the services, and for doing the Church housekeeping as well.             

In the Church of England, beginning in the sixteenth century, altar care was also the task of ordained clergy such as the sacristan and the verger, who was not ordained, in the cathedral and the cleric in the parish. Years later, laymen became the sacristans and eventually, in the nineteenth century, women were included in this ministry as assistants to sacristans. By the turn of the twentieth century, women were beginning to organize into Altar Guilds, and in most parts of the United States they assumed the sacristan’s duties themselves. Until the 1970s this channel was the only one through which they could serve God at the altar. Now, however, men are taking part in increasing numbers, as once again the decoration of the Church and preparation for worship is becoming a joint ministry of all the baptized. [Reference: “The Altar Guild Handbook – The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd,” Venice, Florida]

A "flower guild" is not a historical guild in the traditional sense of medieval Europe, but rather a modern concept primarily found within churches, where a group of volunteers, often called a "Flower Guild," dedicate themselves to arranging flowers for religious services, with roots in the long-standing practice of using flowers for decoration in worship spaces, particularly during special occasions like Christmas and Easter.   Guilds gained more prominence in recent centuries as flower arranging became a more recognized art form, with individuals forming dedicated groups to manage this aspect of church decor within their parishes.  The main purpose of a flower guild is to create and maintain floral arrangements for church services, altars, and special events, adding beauty and symbolism to the worship space.   Members of a flower guild are typically volunteers who contribute their time and skills to arrange flowers, on a rotating basis.   Just like the Altar Guild, the Flower guild can also serve as a way for church members to connect and participate in the beautification of their worship space as they come together in planning, arranging, and sharing fellowship with each other.

The Altar Guild serves the Church under the direction of the Rector.   As an Altar Guild member, it is an honor to be in the sanctuary and prepare the altar for the Lord’s Table.  The ministry of the Altar Guild is to:

• Prepare for the worship services of the parish as directed by the clergy

• Provide for suitable furnishings for the altar and other liturgical appointments and to take due and reverent care of them

• Care for the vestments of the clergy and other ministers

• Keep the area around the altar swept

• Protect and reverently provide for the consecrated elements of the Eucharist

• Check silver for fingerprints and polish when needed

• Dust pews and put books in order.

Those joining our Altar Guild will be receive hands-on instruction from experienced Altar Guild members. You will be a member of a regularly rotating group responsible for the complete set up and take down of the altar for your assigned service, meeting before Sunday to prepare for Sunday services and then immediately following each Sunday service.  You will be assigned to one of four teams who will each serve three months during the year.  Being on the Altar Guild is a labor of love; but it is also a time of fellowship and joy.

With the recent death of Becki Shamblen and those who have served for many years (decades for some) feeling the need to step down, our Altar Guild is at a crossroads.  As we begin the process of reorganizing, we are truly in need of new members.   If you are interested in joining one of our teams, or if you would just like more information about being an Altar Guild member, please contact Diana Skelton (757-897-7395).

If you enjoy working with flower and would be willing to share your creative talents on one of our flower guild teams, or if you want to learn more about flower arranging, please contact BoBo Smith (757-927-7453).

Pay attention to the period

 It’s been said that a preacher really only has one sermon.  Assuming that to be the case, one way or the other, to some greater or lesser degree, mine I think typically has a threefold basis:

1. The word “gospel” literally translates as “good news”.  If it’s not good news (say it with me, now)...it’s not gospel!  I know of no one who takes being made afraid or shamed or dehumanized as good news, so if that’s what you hear coming out of pulpits and radio speakers, I don’t know what is being preached, but I do know it is not the gospel!
2. The single most important word in the Christian faith is “love” (lots of scripture to back that up).
3. The basis of every single atrocity across human history - the institution of chattel slavery, Native American genocide, the European holocaust, on and on - is dehumanization, the failure or even refusal to see the image of God in another person, thus devaluing, thus making it much easier to exploit and harm or worse.

So, you cannot dehumanize someone and claim Christlike love at the same time.  Those two things are incompatible, mutually exclusive.
 
The single most important word in the Christian faith is love, based in the self-sacrificing love of Jesus on the cross, God’s love more powerful even than death.  That is our singular job, underlying all else that we do.  Notice that there is a period at the end of that sentence.  There is nothing that follows, no love if...  Just love, period.  No idolatrous judgmentalism (idolatrous because anything put in God’s place is an idol, including our own willingness to usurp God’s place by making a judgement about another person’s value.)  Just love, period.  No dehumanizing another by presuming to decide for another person who they understand themselves to be.  Just love, period.  No devaluing another person (who is also made in the image of God no less than anyone else) because they don’t look like what you see - gender, skin tone, ethnicity, etc. - when you look in the mirror.  Just love, period.
 
Anne mentioned in a sermon on Oct 27 the unprecedented level of “unadulterated hatred” and “life-sapping vitriol” that we too often experience in our culture.  Point to all the reasons you want, but that doesn’t change our singular purpose.  In fact, that only heightens the urgency for the way those who would claim to follow Jesus should respond: love, period.  There’s an awful lot of love if out there, as if love is qualified somehow, as if there is something that follows the period at the end of that sentence, but that is not our way.  Our way is love, period.  Maybe (but not maybe!) we should make sure we pay attention to that period.
 
- Marc Vance

Looking for a home...

 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