The Blessing of the Bikes

It was a beautiful day for the blessing of the bikes. Being the primary organizer (it was my idea, after all), I dutifully put on my helmet and rode my bicycle to church, arriving at about 9:05. While riding on the municipal bike path I thought of all the things that didn't get done. The sign for the front of the church that I'd thought of last weekend but didn't have time to make. The idea I had last night coming home on the train that we should have made signs to put up along the bike path a week ago. The people who told me that they would help but never called or even showed up for the event. The newspaper article that never appeared in the local paper. The lack of response from the local bicycling club and a local organization that collects used bikes to refurbish and distribute to kids who need them. Fortunately, it was too nice of a day to dwell on all of that, and I'd already decided that no matter what happened, it was a first time event, and it didn't have to be large or perfect to be successful.

I turned off the bike path just before it goes into the park across the street from our parish, and this is what I saw!



Someone made a sign! Lois painted it and put it up on Tuesday.

Not too long after I got to the church, Lois and Newlin arrived, followed shortly by Barbara with Gabriel her teacup Shih Tzu in tow. We did the last little bits of prep work, and we greeted the photographer from the Hour who showed up a few minutes before the scheduled start of the service.

10:00 a.m., scheduled time, and this is how many bikes were there:


That would be my bike.

We waited until a few minutes after 10, and then we blessed my bike. Lois decided to bless any vehicle that drove by the church. About 10:20 someone attending another meeting at the parish rode up on his bike. He'd ridden it today because he'd seen the sign. So we blessed his bike.

Lois continued to bless passing vehicles while Newlin and I took down the sign. Just as we'd folded it up, Louis and Andrew rode up. Here we are blessing the last two bikes of the day.


Was it a success? For the eight of us who participated, definitely. Are we going to do it again? Yes. In April.

I have a list, and this time when people say they're interested, I'll hand them an assignment!

Peace,
Jeffri

Mission Congregation September 13 Meeting

I'm a boomer, just (I have more in common with Gen X), so the previous post was interesting to me. Our last Mission Congregation meeting was right in keeping with the article by Dr. Kathleen Henderson Staudt linked in that last post. Do we focus on "saving" Grace Church for the sake of saving it, or will we have a purpose driven by the gospel of Jesus Christ?

We are on Chapter 2 of Listening Hearts by Farnham, Gill, McLean and Ward. The chapter is "Call to Ministry". Our discussion begins with those things that stood out for us in the chapter, which we may or may not have underlined. We don't record this part of the discussion. It leads us to deeper understandings of ourselves and of one another.

Some things in the chapter, however, which sparked comment were "Ministry comes from the same root as minus, which means 'less'. "
"You did not choose me, but I chose you." (John 15:16)
"Doing good things - volunteer work, for instance - may not be ministry if God is not the motivating force - even if the person doing them is a Christian."
"One task of the Christian, then, is to recognize, affirm, and celebrate Christ's reconciling action in others..."

The concensus of those present is this time of sharing ourselves in the context of discussing ministry and discernment and call is very satisfying.

We then were brought up to date on upcoming opportunities to minister with the community of Norwalk. The Blessing of the Bikes is on for Saturday September 20th. Publicity is in the works. A couple of groups will have tables for distributing information. Jeffri has not heard back from some of the groups he contacted but the point is to hold the blessing as the first Grace Church Blessing of the Bikes. For those who wonder why bikes, Grace Episcopal is located directly across the street from the terminus of the Norwalk bike trail at Union Park.

Next report was on the Thanksgiving Dinner at East Norwalk UMC, to which we are lending our hands and hearts. Their contact person will come to talk with people at Grace after church on September 28 or October 5. Before that, we will have at least a partial list of things from which we can choose as a congregation as our work. The dinner is held on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day.

I, your writer, then shared some of what I'm doing this year to work toward building up the people of Grace Church through spirit formation, education and worship, and to offer to the public those disciplines that help us live into the questions posed by following Jesus.

In discussing one of those offerings, the monthly Public Service of Healing, I shared with the group that I was thinking that Eucharist will not be included in this service: it will make the service accessible to more of the community, including non-churched persons, and it will not be mistaken for a service alternative to Sunday worship. The group agreed, and so there will be no Eucharist at that service. The order of worship will come from The Book of Occasional Services of the Episcopal Church, which includes the opportunity for laying on of hands and anointing for healing.

Other offerings are available at the "Worship and Events" and "Learning Opportunities" links on this website's home page (click "Return to the Home Page" at the upper left of this page and follow the link).

We are also committed to taking out the front pew on either side of the pews that face each other, and bringing the altar table down from the platform to the floor. This will make the altar more accessible to everyone who wants to serve around it, and to children. It will also give us a stagefor use by the community, and a place to array the trand new, up and coming bell choir of Grace Church. This will happen sooner rather than later.

Finally, we discussed one additional offering, which will be only for members of the parish, three "cottage meetings" in October to share with the congregation the status of Grace Church, put forward several options for the future of Grace Church, relevant to the article linked above, and offer possibilities for the membership to build and grow a future for Grace Church.

With regard to that article by Dr. Kathleen Henderson Staudt, the "radical community life" of which she writes is exactly what the Mission Congregation of Grace Episcopal Church is about, a community life that forms us for Christian discipleship. We pray, we study, we dig into our beliefs and thoughts, we laugh, we share concerns, we seek God's will in opportunities to serve while believing that anything we choose to do for the sake of the Gospel will bear good fruit, and next time we meet, there will be bread and wine to share informally.

The Mission Congregation meets the second Saturday of each month. Next gathering of the Mission Congregation is Saturday, October 11 at 1:00 p.m. All are welcome.

Boomers and the Future [of] Our Churches

In the Daily Episcopalian section of The Episcopal Cafe, Dr. Kathleen Henderson Staudt writes:

This radical community life is not what most of us expect or are called to commit to in our churches. We have many demands on our resources, depending on our callings in life, and including the needs of family and often other worthy service to the poor and dispossessed in the world. But the monastic model helps me to understand what I rely on my local church for. Church is where I go to worship weekly, and where the preaching, singing, Eucharist, and worship refocus and reorient my commitment to Christian discipleship. I do sometimes encounter contention and controversy there – often over issues related to our common life. It is hard work, dealing with conflict, like the work of a family or, I am told, a monastic community. But it is also part of how church life forms me for Christian discipleship. This church building has been “my Place” for prayer and growth over the years, the place where I have both found and offered support in times of crisis, where I have prayed over and buried good friends, where we have been reminded of the persistent presence of God among us at all turning points in life.

Take a minute or two to read the entire reflection. You might also want to check out her blog poetproph.

Mission Congregation Saturday May 31 2008

Dear friends,

For those who have not yet experienced a gathering of the Mission Congregation of Grace Church, here's what we did this past Saturday.

Our published start was 9:00 a.m. but we have plenty of "on board" conversation for everyone to get there when they are able and still be part of the opening.

This month, after we shared what our lives have been like in the past few weeks, an activity that was as much prayer as sharing, we began to think on the things about which we are passionate. For instance, I your writer, am passionate about art, music, worship and teaching, as well as a few other things. Since I was the person posing the question, "What are you passionate about? To what would you give your heart?", I have to admit I expect that question to percolate around in people's minds and hearts until our next gathering.

We then gave our time to updates on the exploration of the possibility of having a program which feeds children in need in the neighborhood in which the church is located. To that end, we had three reports.

Carol reported in absentia that Grace Baptist Church, which used to have a program for children, no longer has that program, so could not speak to it.

Gay explored St. James/St. Paul's New Haven's children's programs. Here is her report:

Saturday Morning Drop-in - Loaves and Fishes: During the Saturday morning food pantry, caregivers of children have to stand in line a long time for their groceries. They bring their children and the church provides some education and activities while the children's parents are in line, as well as sending the children off with a free book of their choice.

Mustard Seed Club - an after school program. We believe the church has at least one van to help with transportation, which answers one of our challenges: how to get children here and then to their next destination.

Light and Peace - worship on Tuesday evenings (except during the summer). The service is similar to Compline (Night Prayers), provided on two age tracks. The 3-8 year olds are in the Chapel and their presentation uses the Beulah Land felt board stories.
The 9-10 year olds meet in the Parish Hall, hear Bible stories, and during worship the children and adults sign one another's foreheads with the cross.
Both programs are for children with their adults.
After the two tracks are finished, all gather for an art project, their free-form response to what they have experienced in worship. Then before dinner, the children wash one another's hands - in memory of Jesus washing the disciples' feet before the last supper. Grace is sung and all eat together.
Dinner is provided by the youth group, or one or another service group from another parish.

In the summer Light and Peace becomes a three-week program.

Jeffri reported on his conversation with a parishioner who is in social services:
The question was who would we serve - who is already receiving food from the school program. The answer is every child of school age is covered, IF they meet the financial qualifications.

Those in the shortfall:
pre-schoolers who are not in Head Start
and those children whose families are just above the cut-off. A lot of these are single-parent families.

Our source can advise us on how to find out who the pre-schoolers are.

Or, alternatively, we might do something supporting single parents - work with the children while the parents meet in a way that gives those single parents some attention and some personal time. We could feed everyone, then the parents could meet socially or recreationally, or in whatever way they might decide they want the evenings to go (Saturday night at the movies?). The children's program could be structured similarly to St. James/St. Paul's Saturday food pantry program.

We had a great deal of discussion around these possibilities. In the end, the fact that there are so few of us leaves us reluctant to commit to anything until we explore other avenues of support. To that end, Gay will converse with the parishioner who led Grace Episcopal's former food pantry, and find out for us what similar programs are already being held in other congregations, to which we might give our helping hands and hearts. She already has invited us, many times, to consider, for instance, helping East Avenue United Methodist Church with their annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the poor. They always need help for that.

We recognize that cooperating with other Episcopal parishes as well as with other denominations in Norwalk with the ministries they are doing may be a stretch for Grace. However, as an editorial comment here, I suggest that this is what the Gospel asks Christians to do. Service to the poor and those in need is the expectation. Giving ourselves away to that service is the invitation Jesus extends. Having the program take place at Grace, or be Grace's idea, or Grace's possession is not necessary in order for us to serve the Christ.

Do we have the will to do this? Probably not yet. Can we grow the will to do this? Yes. With God's help.
Faithfully submitted,
Lois Keen, Priest

Mission Congregation of Grace Church

April 5, 2008

Change in emphasis for Grace Church’s Mission Congregation

Dear friends,

Stilson’s computer crashed soon after our last Saturday visioning meeting March 29th, but when it is up and running he will be providing his notes on the entire meeting, including the reports from those who had taken on exploring various areas of service to the community.

My part is to fill you in on the shift in emphasis that took place at the end of that meeting.

The agenda we were sent for the last meeting included on the last page a “problem statement”: why, when we have good worship, our finances are not yet in crisis, we are not going out of business, is our congregational participation static and our attendance declining? The background of the problem statement was that in the planning for that meeting I stated that while we were trying to find a vision outside of ourselves, a mission from God, it was clear to me that we already had a vision under which we were unconsciously working: To save Grace Church.

And in that way lay disappointment, for the paradox is that a church that has as its primary goal saving itself, is doomed to fail. “Those who would save their life will lose it…” said our Lord. And those churches that thrive are those that are seen to give themselves away. But our giving away of ourselves must be in response to the imperative of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not as a means to saving ourselves, our church.

This became more clear when, at our last meeting, we heard reports from those who had agreed to do some exploration into areas of need in the community. One of those explorations, to talk with current older members of Grace, revealed that the majority of the congregation are content with things as they are, that we are free to make any changes we want to, but that the congregation themselves are already happy with the things they are doing in their lives and to please not ask them to take part in our decisions.

We realized two implications of this:

Contentment with things as they are include the family atmosphere of Grace Church. This is a repeated theme here. Family thinking results in family size congregations, maximum Sunday attendance of 70, which, unless a congregation has massive endowments, results in churches that are not financially viable in today’s world. We have no money problem now, but soon we will if we keep thinking “family”. Sooner rather than later Grace will not be able to support a full time priest.
If Grace is to become a congregation that relates to and is essentially involved in the greater community of Norwalk, it will only be the 10-15 people who have been meeting every month for about a year doing everything. And quite frankly that was and is overwhelming.
While it is true that in most non-profits, including churches, most of the work is done by 10% of the organization, the work of revitalizing a non-profit such as a church is way beyond doing most of the regular work of keeping an organization alive.

I personally, also, am not sure keeping alive a church that is not engaged heart and soul in the community by all its members is a worthy endeavor.

At this point, Jeffri Harre realized we were in the very situation the people at 815 (international headquarters in New York City for The Episcopal Church) have learned about churches such as ours: When you have a small group of members that are hungering and thirsting for something more than contentment with the status quo, it is recommended they become a congregation within the greater congregation. (Hence the working name of Mission Congregation for our Saturday meetings until something better comes along.)

The purpose of the Mission Congregation is to live the life of the Grace Church we would want Grace to be, while honoring the wish of the majority of the congregation to be Grace Church as they currently experience and love it.

This will change how and why we gather. We have a vision, which is to be all that Grace can be. In getting to this point we shared some deep things about ourselves. Of the things we shared, from Alan Singewald’s report, we found a desire to return to an identity of Grace Church as a place that feeds others, but this time, not indirectly but directly, here at Grace. Some of us are already looking into how we might feed school children breakfast and send them off with a bag lunch in the mornings.

Gay King volunteered to work with me to design our next meeting. It will include the kind of exploration of scripture we are becoming accustomed to, sharing our own work, thoughts and feelings, and prayer together, as well as work. Focusing on being a place of feeding does not preclude other forms of “feeding” – education, worship, joining other Episcopal churches in southern Fairfield County in a Habitat for Humanity project, or, one-time services like a blessing of the bicycles, to tie in with our being one of the termini for the bike path.

In our last few meetings, beginning with the Vestry retreat, our gatherings around the future of Grace Church have felt more like real worship than business meetings. If you have not already experienced that sense, think about it now. This is not worship in the ordinary sense. It is truly the “work of the people”, which is what “liturgy” means. And as such, since all “worship” in the Episcopal Church is public, our Saturdays are open to any all who desire to come once or more frequently.

This does not in any way preclude Sunday worship for any of us. Part of the point is to continue within the structure of the existing Grace Church. We will work out what that means together.

If you have any questions, because you were not there at the last meeting, or if you were there and you still have questions, please do contact me so we can talk. This is a work in progress, and we are all part of that work together.

Peace to you all,
Lois Keen
Priest in Charge
Grace Church, Norwalk

Assets of Grace Church

“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

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.