“God has given us everything we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and in this time.”
The world operates on an assumption of lack: “You don’t have enough to do that!”
The reign of God assumes abundance: “Look at all you have.”
We have discovered we have all these assets; now, the question is, what does God want us to do with them?
Adequate bathrooms and changing tables
Rest rooms nearby
Adjacent to Union Park and Bike Path
Proximity to library
Downtown location – close to the action
Lawn – for picnics, weddings
Certified kitchen
Telephones
Children’s Spirituality Center
Memorial Room – for 75 people – has own kitchen
Undercroft – occupancy for how many? At least 100
Fun space
Room for a sawdust dance floor 1 time per month
Intimate chapel for 40
Main worship space for 300
Front pews facing each other
Possibilities endless, especially if all the furniture is moveable
Stained glass windows – winsome
Choir loft behind altar, for 20
Sanctuary – altar table moveable
Room for a stage
Hosting recitals – with new grand piano, increase use for recitals
Needs access ramp
Stations of the cross – cool
Tells a story
Made by “women of Grace”, including women from other churches
Healing prayer every Sunday
Priest – good sermons
Creative thinking
Large corps of liturgical ministers
Congregation takes active role in worship
No class distinctions, no social hierarchy (= “our diversity”)
Relationships
2 AA groups
Families and Childrens Agency
Girls Scouts
Manic/Depressive group
Literacy Volunteers
Temple of Deliverance
Haitian Baptists
Close to funeral home
Beach service (new)
Nursery on ground level, close to worship space
Sophisticated, state of the art organ
New furnace
Lots of rooms – at least eight downstairs, in addition to undercroft & choir room, plus three more upstairs, in addition to two offices.
We own two houses on the grounds
Big choir room – room for 100, with decent piano, and much music
Off street parking for 54 cars
Lawn close to parking – picnics
Single access/egress – can control
Can be secured
Well marked
Ploughed in snow
“Block party” lot
Handicap parking
History/longevity – 118 years
Possibilities for:
Picnic tables and water cooler outside
Bicycle racks
Adopt-a-park
Art show
Business sponsor a fountain
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund
$900,000 in the bank
Ourselves – sixty of us for sure
BEING COMMUNITY
Monday, February 25, 2008
Dreams And Visions From The Vestry Retreat
When the Vestry met in retreat on February 9, 2008, to envision the future of Grace Church five years from now, here, in narrative form, are the things we dreamed.
Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ. We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
We will use our building and grounds to host services that are relevant and beneficial to the community at large.
We will partner with the diocese to make our building totally self-sustaining, no longer funded from the operating budget. We will find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We will continually search ourselves for assets we have that are not being put to use – Grace Church’s assets, and our own personal skills and talents. We will be realistic about what is not there and pray for those things to be supplied by a God who gives us everything we need right now to do what God wants us to be doing now, in this time and this place.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives to music schools’ recital hall. That means movable furniture.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them. We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We will house a separate organization, which we found, a Center for Religious Inquiry, or a Center for Spiritual Inquiry, as an entry point for those who do not want a church but who do want to engage the deep spiritual and doctrinal questions of their lives. There will be late evening programs, beginning at 7:30 p.m. for young, single, working people who want a place to explore their deep questions about life and to encounter the Almighty.
We will also become a cultural center, housing an art gallery, hosting concerts, maybe even housing a small museum. We will host a flower show every year.
We will become a place for story hour every week, in the late afternoon, partnering with the library to make it known. It could be for children but doesn’t have to be exclusively for children. Storytellers tell stories to adults as well, and we would like to have plays read in this place. Puppet shows, and magic shows where the children become the magicians are part of this dream.
We would like to become the Welcome Wagon center of Norwalk.
We have the ability to house a home for gay youth who are homeless, with a housemother to look after them.
We envision all of you taking turns in rotation to be volunteer hosts and hostesses, day and night, so the building can be open and unlocked round the clock to those who need a place to pray, or just a place to rest. We envision people coming here into this room to eat their lunch while the organ is being played, or others in the congregation or the community give free noontime concerts. We intend that we should strengthen our partnerships with Families and Children’s Agency, and Covenant to Care for Children to spend time getting to know the hurts and hopes of their clients and structuring safe ways in which we and they can get to know one another face to face.
We know we have all we need to meet their needs, but we will not forget that the Jessie Ball DuPont fund, while it is not intended to do all our work for us, is there as well to supplement what we are able to do with community based initiatives that allow people to have fun as well as feel useful.
We envision the area in front of the front doors and the tower doors becoming a plaza with picnic tables and benches, and bicycle racks and potted plants that soften the fortress like appearance and don’t just make us look inviting but are inviting.
We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s and Covenant to Care for Children to provide a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people. We envision having up to seven more of these kind of community services.
We host one of the Haitian Baptist churches of Norwalk here. But did you know there are Haitian Anglicans here who need connections with Episcopal Churches? Right now, Elena, the deacon at St. Paul’s on the Green is the liaison for their needs. And there is a huge Latino population that falls between the desire for a Roman Catholic expression and a Pentecostal one. Right now there is only one Episcopalian option for them, Iglesia Bettania, housed at Christ Church. We desire to partner with St. Paul’s and Christ Church to embody the best of the founding of Grace and Christ churches as offspring, in one way or another, of St. Paul’s, uniting us while retaining our individual expressions.
We want children on these grounds all the time. We envision year-round short Bible schools, in the park across the street, or in the church in cold or inclement weather, a Good Friday camp for children as a three hour event, the realization of one person’s dream in the near future for short term music camps for young children.
We are committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a people who make no hierarchical distinction between class or socioeconomic condition.
This is a huge vision. And it can come true. None of it is outside our grasp even in a shorter time than five years. Some of these things are in the works right now. Now, more welcoming and inviting parking lot signs, and a ramp for handicap access to the altar and choir area are being looked into and seriously planned. And today, to help us come closer together, we have retired from service the back three pews on both sides, until the day when we need them again.
Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ. We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
We will use our building and grounds to host services that are relevant and beneficial to the community at large.
We will partner with the diocese to make our building totally self-sustaining, no longer funded from the operating budget. We will find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We will continually search ourselves for assets we have that are not being put to use – Grace Church’s assets, and our own personal skills and talents. We will be realistic about what is not there and pray for those things to be supplied by a God who gives us everything we need right now to do what God wants us to be doing now, in this time and this place.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives to music schools’ recital hall. That means movable furniture.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them. We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We will house a separate organization, which we found, a Center for Religious Inquiry, or a Center for Spiritual Inquiry, as an entry point for those who do not want a church but who do want to engage the deep spiritual and doctrinal questions of their lives. There will be late evening programs, beginning at 7:30 p.m. for young, single, working people who want a place to explore their deep questions about life and to encounter the Almighty.
We will also become a cultural center, housing an art gallery, hosting concerts, maybe even housing a small museum. We will host a flower show every year.
We will become a place for story hour every week, in the late afternoon, partnering with the library to make it known. It could be for children but doesn’t have to be exclusively for children. Storytellers tell stories to adults as well, and we would like to have plays read in this place. Puppet shows, and magic shows where the children become the magicians are part of this dream.
We would like to become the Welcome Wagon center of Norwalk.
We have the ability to house a home for gay youth who are homeless, with a housemother to look after them.
We envision all of you taking turns in rotation to be volunteer hosts and hostesses, day and night, so the building can be open and unlocked round the clock to those who need a place to pray, or just a place to rest. We envision people coming here into this room to eat their lunch while the organ is being played, or others in the congregation or the community give free noontime concerts. We intend that we should strengthen our partnerships with Families and Children’s Agency, and Covenant to Care for Children to spend time getting to know the hurts and hopes of their clients and structuring safe ways in which we and they can get to know one another face to face.
We know we have all we need to meet their needs, but we will not forget that the Jessie Ball DuPont fund, while it is not intended to do all our work for us, is there as well to supplement what we are able to do with community based initiatives that allow people to have fun as well as feel useful.
We envision the area in front of the front doors and the tower doors becoming a plaza with picnic tables and benches, and bicycle racks and potted plants that soften the fortress like appearance and don’t just make us look inviting but are inviting.
We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s and Covenant to Care for Children to provide a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people. We envision having up to seven more of these kind of community services.
We host one of the Haitian Baptist churches of Norwalk here. But did you know there are Haitian Anglicans here who need connections with Episcopal Churches? Right now, Elena, the deacon at St. Paul’s on the Green is the liaison for their needs. And there is a huge Latino population that falls between the desire for a Roman Catholic expression and a Pentecostal one. Right now there is only one Episcopalian option for them, Iglesia Bettania, housed at Christ Church. We desire to partner with St. Paul’s and Christ Church to embody the best of the founding of Grace and Christ churches as offspring, in one way or another, of St. Paul’s, uniting us while retaining our individual expressions.
We want children on these grounds all the time. We envision year-round short Bible schools, in the park across the street, or in the church in cold or inclement weather, a Good Friday camp for children as a three hour event, the realization of one person’s dream in the near future for short term music camps for young children.
We are committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a people who make no hierarchical distinction between class or socioeconomic condition.
This is a huge vision. And it can come true. None of it is outside our grasp even in a shorter time than five years. Some of these things are in the works right now. Now, more welcoming and inviting parking lot signs, and a ramp for handicap access to the altar and choir area are being looked into and seriously planned. And today, to help us come closer together, we have retired from service the back three pews on both sides, until the day when we need them again.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Meeting With Bishop Curry
Meeting with Bp. Curry and Canon Marge Roccoberton
And Executive Committee John Sutton, Senior Warden, Stilson Daniel, Treasurer, Barbara Bancroft, Clerk and Lois Keen, Priest in Charge
Demographics of Norwalk are changing
Norwalk becoming a place for single people
On the rail line
Less expensive than some places in Fairfield County
Strategy:
Be in conversation with the developers of West Norwalk
Be in conversation with residents
Be in conversation with businesses – primarily legal offices nearby
Our use of our buildings
$8,000 to $9,000 per month
underutilized
make our buildings pay for themselves
Strategies:
How can the diocese help?
Be aware of those uses that do not accord with our non profit status
Avoid paid activities that result in taxation
Make sure our uses are in alignment with diocesan goals
Align revenue use of space with the goals of our mission,
but primarily align revenue use of space with the values of the Gospel
Talk with agencies in West Norwalk about primary needs for use of our buildings
May be desirable to run suggested uses past the diocese
Past use that came from talking with community about need
Mustard Seed, which became Artworks – need for after school programming
Put together by rector and a small group of committed parishioners
Very few parishioners had involvement day to day
Transportation is a major problem for school age children in Norwalk
Program eventually moved to a school, which made sense.
Parish no longer identified with the program – no longer seen as “a Grace Church project
Parishioners stopped being involved – the program died
Strategy – increase congregation awareness that Grace ministry does not happen only on Grace property.
All activities of Grace parishioners are Grace activities/ministries
Stilson: Vision and goals to be Big Daring Risky Must be known Must succeed
Music program described – community wide use of building for music related uses
Recitals, concerts, lessons, chorus(es)
Strategy: Connect with the Cathedral in Hartford – ie their concert series
Test community need for same
Be aware of competition? Competition is good – keeps us sharp
There are financial implications in the development of mission
We will need to use savings
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund grants for targeted, sustainable uses
Diocesan assistance:
Networking resources
Others in the diocese may have a track record of success in areas we desire
Strong recommendation: Knock on the doors of the offices in the church’s neighborhood
Ask, “How can we be of service?”
Ask, “How might you want to make use of our building?”
Regarding the parking lot signs, which we are in the process of changing:
How about “This is a good place for turning around!” on one side,
And/or “Jesus thanks you for turning around!”
Theologically sound signage!
Regarding goals to be met before calling Lois Keen as Rector
Financial sustainability
Active in mission
Yes, if July 19, 2009 comes, the end of Lois’s contract, Grace can renew
provided there is financial support for same
And Executive Committee John Sutton, Senior Warden, Stilson Daniel, Treasurer, Barbara Bancroft, Clerk and Lois Keen, Priest in Charge
Demographics of Norwalk are changing
Norwalk becoming a place for single people
On the rail line
Less expensive than some places in Fairfield County
Strategy:
Be in conversation with the developers of West Norwalk
Be in conversation with residents
Be in conversation with businesses – primarily legal offices nearby
Our use of our buildings
$8,000 to $9,000 per month
underutilized
make our buildings pay for themselves
Strategies:
How can the diocese help?
Be aware of those uses that do not accord with our non profit status
Avoid paid activities that result in taxation
Make sure our uses are in alignment with diocesan goals
Align revenue use of space with the goals of our mission,
but primarily align revenue use of space with the values of the Gospel
Talk with agencies in West Norwalk about primary needs for use of our buildings
May be desirable to run suggested uses past the diocese
Past use that came from talking with community about need
Mustard Seed, which became Artworks – need for after school programming
Put together by rector and a small group of committed parishioners
Very few parishioners had involvement day to day
Transportation is a major problem for school age children in Norwalk
Program eventually moved to a school, which made sense.
Parish no longer identified with the program – no longer seen as “a Grace Church project
Parishioners stopped being involved – the program died
Strategy – increase congregation awareness that Grace ministry does not happen only on Grace property.
All activities of Grace parishioners are Grace activities/ministries
Stilson: Vision and goals to be Big Daring Risky Must be known Must succeed
Music program described – community wide use of building for music related uses
Recitals, concerts, lessons, chorus(es)
Strategy: Connect with the Cathedral in Hartford – ie their concert series
Test community need for same
Be aware of competition? Competition is good – keeps us sharp
There are financial implications in the development of mission
We will need to use savings
Jessie Ball DuPont Fund grants for targeted, sustainable uses
Diocesan assistance:
Networking resources
Others in the diocese may have a track record of success in areas we desire
Strong recommendation: Knock on the doors of the offices in the church’s neighborhood
Ask, “How can we be of service?”
Ask, “How might you want to make use of our building?”
Regarding the parking lot signs, which we are in the process of changing:
How about “This is a good place for turning around!” on one side,
And/or “Jesus thanks you for turning around!”
Theologically sound signage!
Regarding goals to be met before calling Lois Keen as Rector
Financial sustainability
Active in mission
Yes, if July 19, 2009 comes, the end of Lois’s contract, Grace can renew
provided there is financial support for same
Sunday, February 10, 2008
First Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Sunday in Lent, Year A
The Reverend Lois Keen
Key scripture Matthew 4:1-11
On the day after the Vestry Retreat, in which we cast a vision for Grace Church five years from now, this is what I preached, distilling down some of the high points of that vision:
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Fairy tales don’t tell children dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children dragons can be killed.”
Satan, that great serpent, the dragon, tempted Jesus in the desert. It was a mighty temptation, hitting on all Jesus’s desires for the world – an end to poverty, the people following God with all their heart, someone to save them, a messiah. Was it him? To it all, Jesus said “no”. He killed the dragon of temptation, for that day. Even though it came back, being a reptile, having grown a new body part for the temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, the dragon was dead, for now.
We have a dragon to face. Over the past few weeks, since the annual meeting on January 13th, I have shared with you the challenges Grace church faces in becoming a viable congregation once again. On Ash Wednesday I told you that this is not a financial crisis but a spiritual one and that only a spiritual response will answer it.
I also told you that we put ashes on our foreheads to recall our mortality but also to recall the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus, who after his temptation, trials and crucifixion, was raised from the dead to give us a sure and certain hope for the future.
Yesterday your Vestry met in retreat with me. We have imagined our future. We have cast a vision for Grace Church five years from now. We would not do that if we did not think that we would be here in five years to see that vision come to life. Synthesizing all our separate visions, here is part of the vision we cast for Grace Church.
In five years Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ.
We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
To that end, we envision a separate entity, a Center for Religious Inquiry, for those not interested in church but desiring to explore their deep yearnings for and spiritual questions about God and the Absolute.
We will partner with the diocese to find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We want our buildings and grounds to be in used every day. We dream of being a cultural center for the arts, a place where children are present all the time, and where storytellers, puppeteers, mimes, actors in search for a place to read plays in front of an audience, music students in search for a recital hall, short time music camps, Good Friday camps for children, and people looking just for a place to rest or pray for a few moments will find a home.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives. That means movable furniture.
We envision partnering with St. Paul’s on the Green for ministry with the Haitian Anglican/Episcopalian community, and with Iglesia Betania housed at Christ Church for ministry with the Latinos of Norwalk.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people in our culture. We envision having up to seven more of these kinds of community services, including a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society. We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s Agency and Covenant to Care for Children to provide this service.
We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We have lots more specific details to this vision, and that is a work in progress. Meanwhile, three things are going to happen now, or soon. When we leased parking spaces to Virgin Airlines, we felt we had to put up Grace Church Only signs to protect those parking spaces. Now that Virgin Airlines is gone, we will begin work this week to design and erect more welcoming signs for our parking lot. We are also working on plans to add a ramp into the altar area so that people who are differently abled can have access to altar ministries and the choir.
A third action began today. To help us come closer together, so that we might better know our need of one another and be encouraged in worship by one another, we have retired the last three pews on either side of the central aisle, until the day when we need them again.
Your vestry is committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is only one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and where it is, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a congregation of people who make no hierarchical class or economic distinction between one another – these are some of our strengths.
Although we operate a deficit budget, we have substantial financial resources for the mission of the church in this community. We also have strong community ties through those who use our buildings already – two A.A. groups, a support group for manic depressive persons, Literacy Volunteers, Families and Children’s Agency, a Girl Scout troop, and two additional churches who are very different from us and from one another – and through our relationship with Covenant to Care for Children.
We are not starting out with nothing. We are starting with much. But that dragon, Satan, is ever crouching at the door to tempt us into anxiety, fear of change, fear of people not like us, fear of want and deprivation, fear of failure, and my all time favorite, our favorite pew being already occupied on Sunday morning.
We must become more prayerful, then, to stand up to him. Lent is the perfect time to develop habits of a spiritual rule of life, of prayer, study, healthy habits and an attention to the hurts and hopes of the world, especially of the people around us as well as one another.
Take this time to fast at least once a day, eating less at two meals a day, and not making up for it with the third, in order to leave a little space for God to make a home in you. Take on a discipline of study. Saul Haffner will join us a week from this Wednesday, at 6:00 in the evening, for studies in the Old Testament. You know Saul; you don’t want to miss him, and people you know may want to experience him. Light supper – soup and bread – at 6:00. Education for children in the Joseph and Exodus stories will also be provided.
And, even though it has been pointed out to me that the cartoons in the Lenten booklets we gave you before Ash Wednesday include some unfortunate stereotypes, I commend them to your use to help develop the habit of keeping the rest of the world before your eyes.
A strong spiritual life of prayer, fasting, and study will go a long way to see us through the times of temptation to give up. But the best years of Grace Church’s life are not behind you – they are yet to come.
And we all learned a valuable lesson from fairy tales when we were children: dragons can be killed, even that great snake, Satan.
The Reverend Lois Keen
Key scripture Matthew 4:1-11
On the day after the Vestry Retreat, in which we cast a vision for Grace Church five years from now, this is what I preached, distilling down some of the high points of that vision:
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Fairy tales don’t tell children dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children dragons can be killed.”
Satan, that great serpent, the dragon, tempted Jesus in the desert. It was a mighty temptation, hitting on all Jesus’s desires for the world – an end to poverty, the people following God with all their heart, someone to save them, a messiah. Was it him? To it all, Jesus said “no”. He killed the dragon of temptation, for that day. Even though it came back, being a reptile, having grown a new body part for the temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, the dragon was dead, for now.
We have a dragon to face. Over the past few weeks, since the annual meeting on January 13th, I have shared with you the challenges Grace church faces in becoming a viable congregation once again. On Ash Wednesday I told you that this is not a financial crisis but a spiritual one and that only a spiritual response will answer it.
I also told you that we put ashes on our foreheads to recall our mortality but also to recall the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus, who after his temptation, trials and crucifixion, was raised from the dead to give us a sure and certain hope for the future.
Yesterday your Vestry met in retreat with me. We have imagined our future. We have cast a vision for Grace Church five years from now. We would not do that if we did not think that we would be here in five years to see that vision come to life. Synthesizing all our separate visions, here is part of the vision we cast for Grace Church.
In five years Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ.
We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
To that end, we envision a separate entity, a Center for Religious Inquiry, for those not interested in church but desiring to explore their deep yearnings for and spiritual questions about God and the Absolute.
We will partner with the diocese to find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We want our buildings and grounds to be in used every day. We dream of being a cultural center for the arts, a place where children are present all the time, and where storytellers, puppeteers, mimes, actors in search for a place to read plays in front of an audience, music students in search for a recital hall, short time music camps, Good Friday camps for children, and people looking just for a place to rest or pray for a few moments will find a home.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives. That means movable furniture.
We envision partnering with St. Paul’s on the Green for ministry with the Haitian Anglican/Episcopalian community, and with Iglesia Betania housed at Christ Church for ministry with the Latinos of Norwalk.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people in our culture. We envision having up to seven more of these kinds of community services, including a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society. We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s Agency and Covenant to Care for Children to provide this service.
We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We have lots more specific details to this vision, and that is a work in progress. Meanwhile, three things are going to happen now, or soon. When we leased parking spaces to Virgin Airlines, we felt we had to put up Grace Church Only signs to protect those parking spaces. Now that Virgin Airlines is gone, we will begin work this week to design and erect more welcoming signs for our parking lot. We are also working on plans to add a ramp into the altar area so that people who are differently abled can have access to altar ministries and the choir.
A third action began today. To help us come closer together, so that we might better know our need of one another and be encouraged in worship by one another, we have retired the last three pews on either side of the central aisle, until the day when we need them again.
Your vestry is committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is only one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and where it is, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a congregation of people who make no hierarchical class or economic distinction between one another – these are some of our strengths.
Although we operate a deficit budget, we have substantial financial resources for the mission of the church in this community. We also have strong community ties through those who use our buildings already – two A.A. groups, a support group for manic depressive persons, Literacy Volunteers, Families and Children’s Agency, a Girl Scout troop, and two additional churches who are very different from us and from one another – and through our relationship with Covenant to Care for Children.
We are not starting out with nothing. We are starting with much. But that dragon, Satan, is ever crouching at the door to tempt us into anxiety, fear of change, fear of people not like us, fear of want and deprivation, fear of failure, and my all time favorite, our favorite pew being already occupied on Sunday morning.
We must become more prayerful, then, to stand up to him. Lent is the perfect time to develop habits of a spiritual rule of life, of prayer, study, healthy habits and an attention to the hurts and hopes of the world, especially of the people around us as well as one another.
Take this time to fast at least once a day, eating less at two meals a day, and not making up for it with the third, in order to leave a little space for God to make a home in you. Take on a discipline of study. Saul Haffner will join us a week from this Wednesday, at 6:00 in the evening, for studies in the Old Testament. You know Saul; you don’t want to miss him, and people you know may want to experience him. Light supper – soup and bread – at 6:00. Education for children in the Joseph and Exodus stories will also be provided.
And, even though it has been pointed out to me that the cartoons in the Lenten booklets we gave you before Ash Wednesday include some unfortunate stereotypes, I commend them to your use to help develop the habit of keeping the rest of the world before your eyes.
A strong spiritual life of prayer, fasting, and study will go a long way to see us through the times of temptation to give up. But the best years of Grace Church’s life are not behind you – they are yet to come.
And we all learned a valuable lesson from fairy tales when we were children: dragons can be killed, even that great snake, Satan.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)