Dear Friends in Christ, Last Saturday, your vestry spent the day together. They did some of the ordinary work of parish life, talking about our facilities and our budget. But they also did more extraordinary work—the kind of work only possible when there is time for extended conversation, where there is space for the…
Dear Friends in Christ, Do you remember the first time you came to Grace Church? For some of you, that day was very recent; for others, it has been decades. A very few of you cannot remember your first time because you were a baby carried in someone else’s arms. Most of…
Dear Friends in Christ, C.S. Lewis wrote, “your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Sunday allows us to live out that truth twice. The first time is at our morning worship, when we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, more commonly known as Candlemas. The day commemorates when the infant…
Dear Friends in Christ, Sunday’s annual meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the Auditorium. (Remember—it’s the only English-language service we’ll be having that day.) The meeting will be set in the context of our Sunday eucharist. This format was an innovation that Mother Jenny introduced last January, and I have heard from…
Dear Friends in Christ, Two national holidays coincide this year. Monday, January 20, marks both Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday and Inauguration Day. This co-incidence forces our attention to our civic engagement. We have to look at this day not only as Americans, but also as Christians. What does it mean to stand…
Dear Friends in Christ, I want to convince you that stewardship season is now. Conventional wisdom in the church world says that fall is the time for stewardship. Every church that I know sets up a pledge campaign in October so that the vestry can make informed decisions in preparing a budget for…
Dear Friends in Christ, How big is your gospel? Growing up at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church over in Springfield, I thought I knew what the gospel looked like. As you might expect, my gospel was populated by a lot of people who looked a lot like me. After college, I moved on…
Dear Friends in Christ, Here in the week after Christmas, many of us are finally ready to contemplate the prospect of a new year. All of those events that were “after the holidays” are suddenly at hand. As January begins, we collectively pick up the abandoned threads of our lives, often with a start…
Dear Friends in Christ, We all want to “make haste to Bethlehem,” to hurry to the manger. Hurry, it seems bring the operative word. I see that my schedule for the coming weekend includes three parties in two days, as well as baking several dozen cookies, grocery shopping for the holiday, and bringing…
Dear Friends in Christ, It is often said that Christmas is a season for children. I believe this statement is true—but not necessarily in the way we think. December is, indeed, a time of great excitement for children. Parents take them on special outings. Their homes and classrooms look different than usual. They may get brought to…