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St. Mark's Moves to a Single Sunday Service Beginning June 17th at 9:30 am After three parish conversations, prayerful consideration and the input of Sunday staff, the Vestry and Leadership has set forth the following trial schedule for Sundays beginning on June 17th and running through Labor Day weekend.
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This week's Old Testament Reading is an important one for people of faith, especially for those who are seeking direction and a new sense of possibility in relationship to the Living God.
Samuel, the son of Hannah, has been dedicated to the service of YHWH as was typical of first born male children in Judaism as it was practiced in his time. Part of the story has to do with how the life of the People of God had grown stagnant due to a relative lack of God's speaking to and inspiring to Israel about their call and purpose as they lived out the covenant made between them and YHWH. Water is kept from becoming stagnant when it is kept in motion. Our Baptismal Font at St. Mark's is a good physical reminder of the importance of water in motion. Remember that Jesus referred to the water we receive from him like this, "The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Jn 4:14). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. Part of the life of a healthy and faithful parish is a commitment to keep seeking the next chapter in its life. We are called to fight against stagnation and to keep the water moving. Life at St. Mark's is not stagnant, but we are part of a tradition in America that has, in some ways, gone stagnant. The expectation of Churches to each be housed in independent, single use buildings is bleeding many small and medium sized congregations dry financially and in terms of the energy of the congregation to support the building. Often the support of the building comes at a cost to ministry to those who are outside the church's wall. The Most Rev. William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said, "the church is the only organization that I know of that exists primarily for those who are not its members." To live into this promise it is important that we return again and again to the promises of Baptism to be of service to others, seek justice, respect dignity, participate in the apostles teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers, and repent and return to God when we screw up. As we continue on our listening, prayer, discernment and commitment to God's call for us may we all remember to be bold in asking for the fullness of God's vision to be revealed in the spirit of Eli's request to Samuel in the text quoted above this reflection --Padre Warren  22 May 2018
Dear St. Mark’s Community; As we prepare to turn the calendar to June and really get into the summer season, I’d like to take a bit of time to reflect on my favorite Celtic Saint (maybe my all time favorite saint) Brendan the Navigator. I believe that Brendan’s life of faith, courage and adventure may have lessons for we at St Mark’s as we set forth on a journey of discernment about the future life, mission and ministry of our community. Brendan was born in County Kerry in Ireland in the village of Fenit near Tralee adjacent to the Dingle Peninsula in 484 CE. He was baptized by Bishop Erc of Ardfert and dedicated to the church by his parents and raised by a nun named Ita. Ita’s grave is on the site of Brendan’s baptism. After a profound call and a deepening of his conversion during an experience on Hungry Hill in County Cork on the Beara Peninsula, he established monastic quarters at the foot of Mt. Brandon on near Dingle, in Ardfert and in Clonfert in County Galway. Brendan’s monastic community, like that of St. Brigid, housed both men and women, unlike the vast majority of those in mainland Europe. Brendan’s most enduring legacy is detailed in the Voyage of St. Brendan the Navigator. This written legend details the seven-year journey of Brendan and companions chosen from among those in his monastery to set out to a place Brendan had heard of from another monk who called it The Promised Land. The journey across the seas by Irish pilgrim saints is not unusual. Preceded by Columba, Columcille and others, Brendan fits into the tradition of the ‘white pilgrims’ who set out on the seas in coracles, leather-hulled boats without rudder or sails and trusted the winds, waves and Spirit of God to lead them to the site of their missionary adventures. These pilgrims or ‘white martyrs’ (indicating exile) knew that they would likely never see their homelands again. Brendan was different. Brendan set out with a destination, albeit an amorphous one, in mind. He also built and provisioned a craft large enough for at least 14 other monks. His boat, a curragh, was made of oak, elm and oxhide and had sails and a rudder. The Dingle people of Ireland, being good sailors, knew how to navigate. Sometime between 512 and 530 Brendan set out on two journeys, the second of which would last seven years and made a repeated cyclical voyage that followed the rhythm of the liturgical calendar. The particulars of the second journey are fascinating and informative. There is evidence to suggest that perhaps Brendan and his companions reached North America fully 900 years before Columbus. What might be informative for us and help us to understand the journey that we are on is that Brendan chose to travel in community, he returned to share the story of the journey just as the earlier pilgrim monk did with him. We are embarking on a journey that is the result of the circumstances of the church in this age. Just as the church grew and changed over the centuries due to the context of its mission, so are the Church in the 21st Century faced with new circumstances that require us to adapt so that we might seek where God has called us to go in order that we might share the faith that is in us. The boat that we are climbing into, like Brendan’s, has sails, a rudder and a community with a shared vision of what is possible if a group of people commit themselves to prayer, trust in the wind of the Holy Spirit and keep their home firmly placed in the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Set firmly in the liturgical tradition of the Church, bound by prayer and nourished by the mystical Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we can be assured of God’s presence and blessing on the journey, regardless of the ultimate destination. As we embark on our journey of discernment about where and to what God is calling us, perhaps we could offer this prayer regularly as individuals and as a community. This is Brendan’s Prayer…. Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea? Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honor? Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, without sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on? Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke? Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land? Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea? O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves? (Ascribed to Saint Brendan the Navigator before sailing across the Atlantic.) --Padre Warren + 1 John 5:1-9
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. 7 There are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. 9 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.[1] John 15:9-17 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. [2] PRIEST IN CHARGE'S ADDRESS TO THE PARISH--2018 ANNUAL MEETING 6 May 2018 Before I begin my remarks on our first six months together I want to let you know that you have been blessed with patient, wise, and grounded spiritual leadership in your vestry, wardens and officers. I am honored and humbled to have been called to walk this journey with them and with all y’all. This morning you’ll notice that I’m preaching from a prepared text. I do not do so often. For the sake of those who are not able to be here and in order that we be able to discuss what I have to share this morning I feel it is important to be precise in what I have to say. I invite you all to take a copy of this if you like, check it out on the website or the link on the Facebook Page if you would like to reflect on where what I have to say. I will make sure that those unable to be with us today have access to what I have to say here. If there is anything that we can take away from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse and High Priestly Prayer in John’s Gospel, it is the mantra that those gathered in Jesus’ name are called to love one another. If the readings from John’s writings, both the letters and the Gospel, from the last few weeks have any kind of common theme it is about the call to love. Legend has it that near the end of his life, the full content of John’s preaching was the charge to love one another. In these first months I have noticed that you folks at St. Mark’s not only do a good job of loving one another, but that you also genuinely like one another. For those of you who have been through the long interim without a priest and held firm, who chose to abide in the community into which you have been drawn, this is not unexpected. The bonds of folks who have shared challenges and desert experiences on the spiritual journey are often more durable than those who have not faced tough times together. The question naturally arises as we move forward: Now what? In conversations with the wardens, vestry and the diocese as we entered into our agreement for me to come we were looking at a two to three year timeline do some re-visioning, reflecting, reforming and renewal work. The length of time that we would have to do this work depended on two things:
As we began our planning for 2018 and began the work of budgeting and planning for the coming year we were grateful and pleased that pledges increased from about $64K to about $84K. This is remarkable and a testament to the faith of the parish. Unfortunately, given the costs of the model that we have, ¾ time clergy, other personnel costs, building maintenance, insurance, Diocesan contribution, utilities and the like, our projected deficit was greater than we originally projected. The bottom line, as we communicated to the congregation in February, is that IF NOTHING CHANGES we will exhaust the Wray Fund sometime in early 2019. During conversations with the vestry, officers, wardens and other leaders of the congregation it has become clear that we need engage a process of discernment on what our options are moving forward and how we can most faithfully respond to the challenges before us. As I have reflected on our current reality and the challenges we face, one image has bubbled up for me repeatedly. That image is one of a group of people who are engaged in the ancient spiritual practice of pilgrimage. Perhaps the very first pilgrim we encounter in scripture is Abram of Ur in the Chaldees. The LORD appears to Abram and makes a number of bold claims on Abram’s future and establishes his heritage as the first pilgrim, called to follow YHWH, the God of all Creation to leave his home based on a nebulous call from a previously unknown deity, “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.[3]” This makes Abram the forerunner of noted pilgrims in scripture and the tradition of the Church:
In recent years the Church as rediscovered the importance of and richness of pilgrimage as a core practice of the faith. One thing can be said about pilgrimage as it applies to God’s people both individually and collectively, namely that the journey is almost always at least as important as the destination. Venturing into the unknown is central to the practice of pilgrimage. What we encounter on the way to what we understand the destination to be provides the necessary texture and richness to the practice itself. Some pilgrim journeys are chosen, think of visiting someplace like Jerusalem, Assisi, Rome, Ireland or other noted shrines in our Christian history. Others are chosen for us. Think of the Exodus from Egypt. The exile into Babylon and Persia in the Old Testament, Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt or Jesus being “driven into the wilderness” by the Spirit (according to Mark’s Gospel.) Perhaps the pilgrimage of how we respond to the realities we are facing financially and in terms of human resources are a pilgrimage that we are being driven into. Whether chosen or chosen for us, God’s presence on the pilgrims way is a given. Scripture supports this belief, that God ‘showing up’ on the pilgrim journey is more a matter of our commitment to looking for and being aware of God’s presence than it is of God’s choice to accompany us. In the Great Commission in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says to the disciples, “16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[4] Always, means always and all the way. The example of the Exodus from Egypt and that wilderness experience for the Chosen People has much to teach us, not the least of which is the importance of a unity that can only come from a commitment to love one another on the journey. If the readings from John’s Gospel and letters in these past weeks has made anything clear, it is the primacy of mutual love and respect among the followers of The Way, as being disciples of Jesus was called in Mark’s Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles. One of the core values of God’s leadership and Moses’ guidance in this journey was unity. To say they didn’t always get this right would be a gross understatement. Remember it took them forty years of wandering to travel the distance that would normally have taken only a matter of weeks if there would have travelled in a straight line and didn’t repeatedly long to return to the familiar, even if the familiar was slavery rather than freedom. This truth makes the practice of reflection and the sharing our reflections so important in times of transition. Every Christian community, whether they recognize it or not, is made up of pilgrims. With that in mind, St. Mark’s is at a critical point on its pilgrim journey and I suspect that the vestry, wardens and other leaders of the parish would agree with me. With this pilgrimage, as with any other Christian journey, God is the leader and we all have insights that can help guide us along the way. First of all I want to make it clear that I am not the leader of this pilgrimage. At best I’m a guide and I’m not the only one with wisdom, perspective and insight to bring to bear on the path ahead of us. I’ve been reading a book by Christopher Heuertz called “Unexpected Gifts: Discovering the Way of Community” that has been very helpful as I have studied, prayed, worshiped and tried to do the work of helping guide our pilgrim progress these past six months. One of the chapters in the book most pertinent to where we find ourselves at St. Mark’s is the chapter he writes on Transition. Heuertz says that transition is a part of any individual or organizational life cycle. He also says that given its inevitability, how we handle it contributes significantly to whether we experience any given transition as positive or negative in retrospect. At the heart of handling transition well is that, “creating safe space for a redefinition of self and a rediscovery of vocation in the midst of transition is necessary for everyone involved.” (Heuertz, “Unexpected Gifts” p. 82) Critical to the safety of the space we need to navigate our way through the waters ahead is being responsible for telling our own stories with integrity. We are also called to only tell those stories that are ours to tell. This means speaking only for ourselves and not claiming the experience of another through the practice of listening with an eye toward how we will respond rather than for the content and context of the experiences of one another. Simply put there is no room for ‘the blame game’ in the journey that we are on. As Heuertz says, “blaming tends to rewrite the past.” (Ibid. p. 81) Some important truths are in play as we move together in faith.
Having said all of this you are well within bounds to ask, “So what does all of this mean for us practically and presently?” Great questions. I’ll try and give faithful answers based on the prayer, study of scripture, sharing of stories and hopes and dreams that we have shared in vestry and leadership meetings. Generally speaking we have two kinds of work to do.
Here’s a brief example that I hope demonstrates the difference between the two. Let’s say (God forbid and for the sake of argument) that an earthquake makes our building uninhabitable for next Sunday. The technical question might be: Where will we worship next Sunday? This question is one that we can address quickly and make arrangements for out of our existing relationships and resources. The adaptive question might be: What are we going to do about the building in general? This question is a big one and has lots of moving parts and, for me, would be one that I would have to pray over, consult with the Diocese and our neighbor and have deeper conversations with folks who have more expertise and access to resources than any of us have at our disposal. Clear enough? The vestry and leadership has identified one important technical question that has an adaptive component. Let’s start with the second first. The big question before us is how do we create the kind of safe space I mentioned above? We are clear that it is something that cannot be done quickly and yet is urgent to begin on. We have seen how the energy and spirit of the parish is raised in times of common worship. We have agreed that common worship and shared prayer and work is key to tapping into the movement of the Holy Spirit. To that end we believe that it is vital for us to move to a single service as part of the process of prayerfully discerning what happens to the witness, mission and ministry of St. Mark’s. What we need initial discernment on is what that will look like. Are you all still with me? The short term adaptive work then is, “How do we best consider the options we have to transition to a single Sunday service?” To address this question we are inviting everyone to any one or all of three opportunities to gather and share concerns, ideas, and considerations to be aware of as we make this move. To be clear, we are going to a single service and we need the input of as many of the parish as possible into how we will do that. At each of these sessions we will allow folks to share their ideas as to timing and content of the worship, formation and fellowship components of what Sunday mornings might look like. We want to come up with an initial plan to begin on June 17th. The first of these meetings will be following Thursday night’s 7 pm Ascension Day service. There will be further opportunities to share thoughts, hopes and dreams following each service on The Feast of Pentecost May 20th after each service Once we have put together how Sunday worship, formation and fellowship will look we hope that we can use this initial process as a template for how we deal with the larger, more complex adaptive question of “What is next for St. Mark’s given our current dwindling resources?” and “Are we being called to a different way of being church?” or any number of other options that may arise as we share our fears, hopes, and dreams. I realize that this may be very much like trying to drink water from a fire hose right now. We, as vestry and leaders, realize that this may very well seem overwhelming. Take a deep breath and know that we realize there will be a lot of thoughts, feelings and emotions as you read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this news. We have all been there ourselves and are all committed to walking together into the future. Remember that Jesus has promised to go ahead of us to prepare a place for us. I’m eager, a bit scared and not a little bit curious as to what the Holy Spirit has in store for us. Whether it is in John’s writings or the wonderfully lyric 13th chapter of the first letter to a struggling church in Corinth or in 1 Peter where we are told “8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.[5],” we are told that our most abiding and important task is to love one another along this pilgrim journey. Many of you, no doubt, have noticed the blessing I typically use at the end of each Eucharist which begins: Go in peace, remember the poor, visit the sick, pray for prisoners, gather in the outcasts and MOST OF ALL LOVE ONE ANOTHER I firmly believe that if we keep our love for God and for one another at the forefront of all that we do, especially WHEN not IF we make mistakes in this process we will have done what is good and pleasing in the sight of God and we, like Jesus, will hear the voice of God saying, “These are my children, my Beloved and in them I am well pleased.” As we embark on this journey together let us pray the Prayer Attributed to St. Francis on Page 833 of the Book of Common Prayer Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. AMEN. (Book of Common Prayer p. 833) [1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Jn 5:1–9). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Jn 15:9–17). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Ge 12:1). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. [4] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 28:16–20). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. [5] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Pe 4:8). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. 24 April 2018
Dear St. Mark’s Community, This is written on the eve of the Feast of St. Mark, our patron saint. I am a firm believer that the patronage of congregations is not coincidental or inconsequential. The lives and witness of the early saints, especially those who thought enough to write the Gospels, is an important touchstone that keeps us connected with Jesus’ life, death, ministry and resurrection. Mark’s Gospel is generally accepted as the first of the accounts of Jesus to be put in writing. Mark begins his gospel with a simple declarative statement, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[1]” There is no ambiguity of what Mark believes about Jesus and what he is setting out to accomplish by telling the world about the truth of Jesus as he understands it. Another important and interesting aspect of Mark’s witness to Jesus is the sense of urgency that Jesus and his followers have in their movements and actions. Repeatedly throughout Mark the word ‘immediately’ marks Jesus’ transitions from one action to another, the effects of his action and ministry and, perhaps as importantly, his shifts between active ministry and contemplative prayer, quiet time and retreat with his core group of disciples. In our current terminology we would say the Jesus was a ‘difference-maker’, a shaker and a mover. He got things done. This aspect of Mark’s Jesus can easily overshadow the rhythm of these sudden movements. During this time of transition, discernment and seeking after the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we prayerfully ponder the future of the mission and ministry of St. Mark’s we would do well to pay attention to Jesus’ alternating pattern of engaged ministry which, in Mark’s Gospel, is almost always followed by ‘going away to a deserted place to pray’ (Mark 1, 6 and 14) or taking time away with his core group of chosen disciples for times of teaching and prayer. Mark’s Jesus models a life in the Spirit that alternates between action and contemplation. Each of these supporting, informing and creating space and need for the other. As we move into this season of discernment at St .Mark’s I want to issue a call to a recommitment to prayer and silence as part of our individual and communal spiritual practice. There is tremendous spiritual benefit that can come from sitting in silence before the Holy One and then sharing the insights of that prayer in gentle, respectful and gracious listening and bold sharing. This kind of work can only be done when we can be assured that the places of prayer and sharing are safe and that we respect and listen as deeply to one another as we do to the Living God. As we move into this season of imagining and seeking the dreams that God has for this community, I want to encourage us to take advantage of the mid-week services we have to do this important and foundational spiritual work. These will not be the only opportunities to sit together and listen to God in silence and in the words of one another how the Spirit might be moving in our midst, but they will be the regular opportunities to do that with out the active and purposeful work that will be offered in the form of Congregational Listening and Conversation Meetings which we will be offering in the coming months. The first of these events is scheduled for the Feast of the Ascension Thursday May 10th beginning with a contemplative Eucharist at 6 pm and with a light soup and salad supper and conversation to follow. I believe this to be an appropriate time to begin these conversations as it is the time in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels that Jesus gives his final instructions to his disciples before returning to God nearer presence. We will be announcing further opportunities to do the brainstorming that we will begin at this event before we begin the conversations and times of prayer and study that the vestry and I believe will help us discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in how, where, when, why, and upon whom we will focus our energies and the Power of the Spirit as we seek to be faithful in the living out of our Baptismal Covenant. These are uncertain times, but we serve a God who has issues a promise in the midst of the Great Commission given us through Matthew’s Gospel; “16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[2] God will not leave us without the gift of God’s presence, nor will God leave us comfortless as we prayerfully, faithfully and humbly dare to put our trust in the One Is and Was and Is to Come. In Christ, Padre Warren + [1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mk 1:1). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 28:16–20). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. We're getting together to celebrate the Feast of St. Mark on Saturday April 28th. The Menu will include
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