Last Sunday (Pentecost 6, July 5, 2015)
July 15 – 10am, Ecumenical Bible Study
July 15 – 3:30pm-5:00pm, Village Harvest Food Distribution
July 20-24 – 8:45am-12pm, Gleaning at Parker Farms
This Sunday at St. Peter’s – Servers, Readings
Attention – Things we need!
- By July 12 – For July’s Village Harvest distribution, July 15, please bring peanut butter, tuna, and elbow macaroni.
- By July 13 – We need to have forms for gleaning completed
Vacation Bible School 2015, Four Summer Days
Vacation Bible School is the consummate summer event for kids. We had 10 children during the week July 6-9, 2015. It was great getting "our gang" together on a relaxing, summer day for learning and simply to have fun with each other.
Each day centered around a chosen Bible verse or concept. Day 1 was about "God is Love". It was taught in what they colored, what they sang and ultimately about an outreach project they did. Catherine and Becky are our teachers with the assistance of Judy and Tucker. In most of what they did they learned to work together, an invaluable lesson Day 2’s verse was "Make a joyful noise to the Lord." Day 3’s verse was "Be kind to one another." Day4 was "you are the light of the world."
The days’ activities can be divided into the following areas:
Songs. On Day 1, the children went to the church for a question and answer session and to learn songs with Catherine and Tucker. Two songs are on tap for the week – "This is the Day" and "God is good." Tucker was invaluable in helping to keep the song progressing. On Day 2 they listened to the ocean’s roar in a conch shell, and then we used a variety of noise makers to add sound to Psalm 98. On Day 3, they had learned the songs and then played a game called Pass the Parcel while still in the church. Day 4 was about light – They got to touch a light ball, and we learned a new song, "This little light of mine."
Outreach. Becky led the children in filling jars with beans, adding different beans each day and finally instructions on the last day. Why did they do this ? This was cool. These items will be used for bean soup which will be part of the Village Harvest Food Distribution during a month. Connecting children ministry to outreach!
Stories. On Day 1 Catherine read a story from "Frog and Toad"- "The Kite". She asked the question of the children, "Which would you like to be ?, Frog, Toad the robbins? She probably enjoyed the story as much as the kids. Frog and Toad is definitely a favorite here. On Day 2 we heard the story of Jesus and the disciples on the stormy sea and Jesus calming the sea. On Day 3 we talked about how Jesus came to teach us how to be kind to one another.
Crafts. Becky did a craft on Day 1 – Bubble snakes. The children took a container and fashioned cloth at the other side. They went outside and poured soap through it and produced these long soap snakes. Some long ones – about a foot or more. On Day 2 the children made kite suncatchers during craft time. On Day 3 the children made hands which coincided with the Biblical verse. Day 4 was all about sunprints coinciding with the light theme.
Games. On Day 1, Becky led them in "catch the squirrel" which shows an ever widening circle of children as the "squirrel" tries to sneak through. The "squirrel" then becomes of the circle. A game, "Duck Duck Goose" followed which involved the children sitting in a circle and one going round tapping each head "duck" until a "goose" was chosen. At that point there was a chase of the "goose" after the tagger. The tagger tried to run home to be "safe." On Day 2, we played several games using the parachute and then some circle games. Day’s 3 game was freeze tag. Day 4 was all about water. Everyone enjoyed the water games, which included a relay in which the children cooperated in order to fill a bucket, and then they helped one another fill the pool. They played water hose limbo and enjoyed getting soaking wet
Links to stories and pictures of individual days:
Gleaning Mission Project, July 20-24. Sign up now!
Gleaning is going over a field or area that has just been harvested and gathering by hand any usable parts of the crop that remain. It keeps waste at a minimum and helps Food banks and suppliers replenish their supplies.
It helps us appreciate the supply chain and give back to those who help us. We couldn’t do the Village Harvest program without the ability to buy fresh produce at 5 cents a pound from the Northern Neck Food Bank.
1. When? We will be gleaning Mon., July 20-Fri, July 24, 8:45am-12pm for “Feed More” , a supplier for the Northern Neck Food Bank where we purchase our produce for the Village Harvest. The fields are owned by Parker Farms. It’s only in the morning so we avoid the afternoon heat.
2. Where ? We meet at General Testing Labs 1623 Leedstown Road Colonial Beach, Va. 22443 at 8:45am each day
3. What you need to do ? There are two forms to complete
A. Complete a signup sheet on what day(s) you would like to glean. We need to let them know how many will be coming. We also may be able to carpool.
B. Complete the Northern Neck release form. We have pre-filled in some parts of the form to make it easier.
These forms can be 1. completed online and then printed OR 2. printed and then completed by hand.
Whichever way, bring the forms by the church. We need the completed forms a week ahead – July 13
15 for 2015 – The General Convention at work
This past week ended 9 days of meetings of the General Convention, the top legislative body of the Episcopal Church. Of course General Convention is more than legislating – it’s like a gigantic family reunion, a time to network, a time to renew friendships and make new ones and to see what everyone is doing in and out of the church. Electing Presiding Bishop Elect Michael Curry was a highlight but there were many others.
This article focuses on the resolutions passed.
There are several types of resolutions:
1. Some are structural, changing how the church will work.
2. Some reflect new directions that church will be taking in the next 3 years.
3. Some reflect trial actions that a later convention will evaluate.
4. Some are steps toward future actions.
5. Some are more recommendations for bodies to take.
6. Some are more courtesy resolutions.
My count is that there were 403 resolutions and they completed work on 352. 288 were adopted as they were or with amendment. Here are 15 to highlight:
1. Establish a response to systemic racial injustice (C019) (and fund with $2 million)
“the 78th General Convention affirms as a top priority of The Episcopal Church in the upcoming triennium the challenging and difficult work of racial reconciliation through prayer, teaching, engagement, and action."
2.· Create a capacity to plant churches (D005) (and fund it $1 million over asking)
“We propose creating a churchwide network for church planting, in order to reach new people and new populations with the good news of the gospel. We propose that this network should consist of a number of interrelated parts: funding three new seminary faculty positions in order to teach church planting methods to future lay and ordained leaders; developing a churchwide church planting training program; recruiting and training 40 to 50 new church planters this triennium, including providing internships for some planters in current church plants; developing a bi-lingual and bicultural training program for lay and ordained leaders of Latino/Hispanic ministries; providing $1.5 million of grants in each year of the triennium to support diocesan church plants; creating a task force of persons experienced in church planting to support and encourage this work; and providing staff positions, including support staff, to coordinate the program."
3. Continue financial support for global missions, Young Adult Service Corps, and Episcopal Volunteers in Mission (A013)
This resolution is “to increase the opportunities for global mission through such programs as Young Adult Service Corps and Episcopal Volunteers in Mission, through budgetary means as available so that opportunities for global mission are increased, diversified, and prioritized by the 79th General Convention;"
4. Create networks, resources, mentoring, and training for Latino/Hispanic ministry (A086)
This resolution is intended to create a Task Force to oversee a team of professional consultants in collaboration with the Office for Latino/Hispanic Ministries to provide best practices and professional development (coaching) for lay leaders, seminarians, clergy, and diocesan staff in dioceses with existing Hispanic/Latino congregations.
It will create an intensive cultural-competency training program for diocesan staff members, seminarians, clergy, and lay leaders to gain language and cultural skills for ministry in bilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural Latino/Hispanic communities, including collaborations with Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other ecumenical partners.
5. Start planning for Prayer Book revisions (A169)
"That the 78th General Convention direct the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) to prepare a plan for the comprehensive revision of the current Book of Common Prayer and present that plan to the 79th General Convention. " The plan must “utilize the riches of our church’s liturgical, cultural, racial, generational, linguistic, gender and ethnic diversity in order to share common worship” and “take into consideration the use of current technologies which provide access to a broad range of liturgical resources.”
6. Create marriage equality (A036 and A054)
5 Words of General Convention
There are certain words we have heard repeatedly this time in resolutions or in conversation and may be remembered more than the resolutions that are supported by them. Here are five of them :
1. "Reconciliation". Racial reconciliation was also frequently heard specifically. Michael Curry talked about reconciliation – between each other and each other and God. Racial reconciliation has been at the forefront and was a resolution. CenterAisle from the Diocese of Virginia ran an article about it on July 3 and at the end wrote "As we look to the future after 10 eventful days in Salt Lake City, reconciliation – the real kind that helps us disagree better – looms out there as an exciting opportunity. It won’t be easy. It’s difficult to build community with those who don’t want to talk to you. It’s not helpful to gloss over actions that ripped apart the fabric of a community of faith."
2. "Jesus Movement" – This is Michael Curry’s language – "I talk of the Jesus movement, of evangelism, of making disciples and our witness through public service and public advocacy. That can sound like rhetoric that has no actual consequence, but let me assure you … we are talking about the church moving forth, taking evangelism seriously – in the Episcopal way but taking them for real because there is good news to share. There really is. Personal service and public witness and advocacy is what we do; that’s the Jesus movement."
Three reasons I’m really, really excited about our new Presiding Bishop
summarized from an article by Ben Irwin, author of The Story
Links
1. Curry addresses the media upon his election as Presiding Bishop
2. Sermon July 3 at General Convention
1. He knows the biblical story.
"His knowledge of Scripture runs far deeper than the ability to rattle off a few Bible verses. He knows the story. He knows how to tell the story behind passages like Isaiah 40. In his brief sermon, he seamlessly connected this text to Israel’s story—in particular, their painful exile in Babylon—and to its eventual culmination in Jesus.
2. He can speak to—and challenge—both progressives and conservatives.
"Often, PB-elect Curry sounds like someone who’d be right be at home among evangelicals. At the same time, PB-elect Curry marches in the Moral Monday protests. He’s an advocate for justice and inclusion. He understands that reconciliation in Christ has profound social implications. He challenges us to be a prophetic alternative to the “nightmare of the world”—that is, the nightmare of injustice, oppression, and exclusion—because of the gospel of Jesus."
3. He’s got a big gospel.
"We need a big gospel. We need a gospel that can lift us out of the pit. We need a gospel that proclaims reconciliation with God and with each other. We need a gospel that is more than a “get out of hell free” card and more than a blueprint for social activism. We need a gospel that transforms individuals, communities, and whole societies—a gospel that liberates captives from spiritual and economic oppression, from alienation and exclusion."
July 4 is the turning point of the summer. So what does the Bible have to say about summer ?
Psalm 74:17 "You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter."
Luke 21:30 "As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near."
Luke 21:29-36 "And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."
Psalm 32:4 "For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah"
Genesis 8:22 "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Mark 13:28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near."
Lectionary, July 12, Pentecost 7
I. Theme – Participation in Christ’s Ministry and Mission
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Amos 7:7-15
Psalm – Psalm 85:8-13 Page 709, BCP
Epistle –Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel – Mark 6:14-29
Today’s readings invite us to reflect on our participation in Christ’s mission and ministry. A unifying theme in today’s scriptures is that when we try to be people-pleasers, when we say what others want to hear, we are denying the fullness of God’s intention for us. Rather, when we give ourselves over to God–when we authentically praise God with our words, our actions, our very lives–we find our own fulfillment and satisfaction in participating in God’s reign on earth. However, if we are like Herod, wanting to hear the word of God but wanting to please others, we end up doing things contrary to the Gospel. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, so to speak. God’s desire for us is the fullness of life, and in order to achieve that we must give ourselves fully to God’s ways of justice, love and peace.
Sometimes, like Amos, following God’s call is very difficult, even life-threatening. Amos defends his prophetic calling in the face of opposition from Israel’s rulers. In 2 Samuel, David brings the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem with song and dancing. The author of Ephesians reminds us that God has chosen us from the beginning to share in the redemptive work of Christ. Jesus instructs and sends out twelve disciples to share in his ministry.
We might expect a drum roll, or at least a lightning flash, when God chooses human beings to participate in God’s work. Yet in today’s readings we see a more human, humble face of the choice described so beautifully to the Ephesians. God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.”
Amos is an example of the lord’s stamp of destiny on responsive people, whom God may call from any modest quarter, fill with the Holy Spirit, and commission to speak God’s word. Amos had no credentials as a prophet, and sounds rather bewildered that he was called away from his sheep and sycamores. Nevertheless, he had no doubt that he had been divinely called to speak God’s word.
Like the people in Nazareth who turned a deaf ear to Jesus, so Amos’s listeners rejected his unpopular message. In less than fifty years, however, his prediction came true.
When Jesus sent out twelve disciples, they were ill-equipped by our standards—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, no extra clothes. Only sandals on their feet—to carry them to the receptive and away from the unreceptive; and a staff—a support for walking and perhaps a symbol of the shepherd’s profession. Neither were they prepared for their mission by understanding fully what it was all about. Jesus sent them out with a message that had made him offensive even to his own family. Yet something about him must have impelled them to go forth with the same message.
How then do we follow their model? Perhaps they show us that we needn’t have our own houses perfectly in order before we minister to others. Nor do we need to spruce up our credentials: apparently none of the disciples took theology courses in the seminary. Jesus calls them in their ordinary clothes, pursuing their usual routines. To do his work, it seems more important to have a companion than a new wardrobe.
Their willingness enables them to drive out demons and cure the sick. They discover powers they didn’t know they had. And people knew there had been followers of Jesus among them. These disciples had been chosen for an astonishing destiny.
Read more about the lectionary…
David Lose on Mark’s Death of John the Baptist story
David Lose is the president of Luther Seminary in Philadelphia
"Close reader’s of Mark’s story have noticed several things about this scene over the years that make it stand out: it’s one of the longest sustained narrative scenes in the Gospel, Jesus does not appear in it at all, it seems to interrupt the flow of the rest of the story, and it’s told in flashback, the only time that Mark employs such a device. Because of these features, the scene is not only as suspenseful and ultimately grisly as anything on television, but it is unlike anything else in Mark’s account and seems almost out of place, even misplaced as a story looking for another narrative home.
" Which has occasioned the question over the years as to why Mark reports it at all. Later evangelists must have asked the same question, as Matthew shortens it markedly and Luke omits it altogether. The majority opinion is that it serves two key purposes in Mark: it foreshadows Jesus’ own grisly death and it serves as an interlude between Jesus’ sending of the disciples and their return some unknown number of days or weeks later.
" But while these are undoubtedly plausible explanations, I think there’s another reason altogether, and that’s simply to draw a contrast between the two kinds of kingdoms available to Jesus disciples, both then and ever since. Consider: Mark, tells this story as a flashback, out of its narrative sequence, which means he could have put this scene anywhere. But he puts it here, not simply between the sending and receiving of the disciples but, more specifically, just after Jesus has commissioned his disciples to take up the work of the kingdom of God and when he then joins them in making that kingdom three-dimensional, tangible, and in these ways seriously imaginable.
"Herod’s Kingdom – the kingdom of the world and, for that matter, Game of Thrones and all the other dramas we watch because they mirror and amplify the values of our world – is dominated by the will to power, the will to gain influence over others. This is the world where competition, fear and envy are the coins of the realm, the world of not just late night dramas and reality television but also the evening news, where we have paraded before us the triumphs and tragedies of the day as if they are simply givens, as if there is no other way of being in the world and relating to each other.
Amos or Amaziah?
By Dan Clendenin for Journey with Jesus
Amos, Cologne Cathedral, 12th century
"It’s hard to read Mark 6 about the beheading of John the Baptist and not think about the grotesque images of ISIS. Whatever else ISIS is doing, it’s pimping religion for a political cause.
"And that’s exactly what this week’s reading from Amos is about.
"Amos wrote 2,800 years ago, but his prophecy reads like today’s newspaper. He lived under king Jeroboam II, who reigned for forty-one years (786–746 BC). Jeroboam’s kingdom was characterized by territorial expansion, aggressive militarism, and unprecedented economic prosperity.
"Times were good. Or so people thought.
"The people of the day interpreted their good fortune as God’s favor. Amos says that the people were intensely and sincerely religious.
"But theirs was a privatized religion of personal benefit. They ignored the poor, the widow, the alien, and the orphan. Their form of religion degraded faith to culturally acceptable rituals.
"Making things worse, Israel’s religious leaders sanctioned the political and economic status quo. They pimped their religion for Jeroboam’s empire.
"Enter Amos. Amos preached from the pessimistic and unpatriotic fringe. He was blue collar rather than blue blooded. He admits that he was neither a prophet nor even the son of a prophet in the professional sense of the term.
"Amos was a shepherd, a farmer, and a tender of fig trees. He was a small town boy who grew up in Tekoa, about twelve miles southeast of Jerusalem and five miles south of Bethlehem. The cultured elites despised him as a redneck.
"Furthermore, he was an unwelcome outsider. Born in the southern kingdom of Judah, God called him to thunder a prophetic word to the northern kingdom of Israel.