The nursery renovation began with a 5-year-old.
Our church is nearly 200 years old, and some of the toys in the nursery surely witnessed the first service. We even considered carbon-dating.
But to be honest, our attention was on the adult stuff – updating the bathrooms, re-painting the choir room.
So it was a surprise to learn that our 5-year-old daughter had organized a bake sale to raise money to buy new toys for the nursery. She had made the rounds in coffee hour and had a sign-up list of treats. She made signs -- Bake sale 4 kids – and hung them around the church. She recruited other kids to help, called the adults the week before the sale to remind them, and made cookies with her grandma as her offering.
On the morning of the bake sale, she directed the placement of the tables and arranged the treats for optimal sales potential. If anyone failed to stop by the table, she made a polite inquiry, asking if they’d like to help buy new toys for the kids. I don’t think anyone turned her down.
At the end of the morning, the Sunday crowd of about 80 had donated nearly $500.
We organized a nursery committee, including the 5-year-old, to talk about renovating the nursery. Another couple who had lost a child earmarked the memorial money for the project. As a group, we talked about priorities: Safety, cleanliness and fun.
We pitched most of the toys and old furniture. We decided to use part of the money to hire an artist who painted a magnificent and inviting mural. And we purchased a pager system so parents could be contacted immediately.
And of course, we shopped for toys. Actually, I served as chauffeur and chief bag carrier, while the 5-year-old headed the shopping brigade.
Led by the determination of children to have their place in church, we celebrated the new nursery with cookies and milk.
Guess who is running Vacation Bible School at my church this summer? Yours truly. It gives me the opportunity to get back to basics on marketing that I used to advise other churches to use when I was the Missioner for Communications Ministry at the Diocese of Olympia. Here goes.
Theme. We picked Back to the Garden: Renewing God’s Earth because an environmental theme will be very attractive in our area. The RENEW curriculum from the Lutheran Church will provide great support materials as well as good graphics for our marketing.
Audience. Who do we want at VBS? We decided on 90 children spread out across grades Pre-K through 5th grade. We want to reach about 60 of our own children and 30 newbies. For the new ones, we want them to have a positive experience of St. Andrew’s that gives them an honest feel for our parish. Again, this is where the environmental theme is key since it is such an important part of our DNA at St. Andrew’s.
When I saw Ephraim taking pictures of Ms. Scott, my heart just melted,” said Lisa, the organizer of my congregation’s second annual “Ginormous Flea Market.” We were standing by a tree in the small garden watching a neighborhood boy run the “Photo Booth.” Ms. Scott was an active parish leader in her day, but now shows up to church with her walker, home health aide, and a smile. Seeing her on the garden bench getting her portrait taken by Ephraim was a precious sight.
Running the photo booth was supposed to be my volunteer role for the day, but I couldn’t resist handing over the camera, printer, and money jar to a curious, eager kid who happened to show up on Saturday. We’d never met before, but Ephraim hung around by the craft tables for a while in the morning, asking lots of questions about how to make the beautiful paper bowls and recycled plastic tote bags. As I sat on the ground making a sign for the photo booth, he gave advice on design and shared his hope that mom would buy him a camera soon.
“Want to be my assistant photographer today?” I asked. “Sure!” he replied.
My daughter was only four months old the first time I truly understood the challenge of raising PKs – priest kids.
I held her in my arms as we waited by the door for my husband to lock up the church. Her little face peaked out from a caterpillar costume. Across my back stretched butterfly wings. A Martha-Stewart idea brought to reality by my sewing whiz of a mother-in-law, the costume won first place at the church contest.
Like every mom, I was happy that she won – though she had no idea and was perfectly content with her pacifier. The ribbon will go in her baby book, I decided.
Another family walked out. The mom looked at us and under her breath, she muttered, “Figures she won first place. She’s the preacher’s kid.”
It was a sucker punch.
I’m not prone to casual weeping, but the tears welled up right away. I cried, not over a silly costume contest but rather for a new understanding of the thin space in which we would raise our children.
If they won a contest at church, it would be because they were priest’s kids. If they knew a Bible story, it was because they were priest kids, and if they didn’t, then something must be wrong. If they misbehaved, they would be judged more harshly. If they sat like angels, it would be taken for granted.
When I was five years old, my parents moved to a new church, and I lost a bet with a fellow Sunday School classmate. He told me that Wesley’s dad was the preacher. I didn’t believe it. In my small view of the world, preachers didn’t have families. They weren’t real people with obligations and relationships.
Preachers were on a pedestal.
I don’t want my children to be there too.
I’m a firm believer: Children should be seen and heard in church.
About eight years ago, we started an Episcopal church in a fast-growing area with few community buildings. Our only option for a meeting site was a small, one-room township hall with a mini-kitchen and restrooms. We couldn’t tuck the young children into a nursery, making the experience easier for both parents and kids, so we spread out a quilt in front of the altar. The toddlers played with cars and books. They colored and rolled around and jabbered, their noise woven into the movement of the liturgy.
I’ve been in many Episcopal churches where the only sounds are the high whine of a hearing aid battery and the thump of a walking cane.
My earliest church memory is from Easter 1960: I sang in the Cherubs’ choir at both the 9:00 am and 11:00 am services at William Street Methodist Church in Delaware, Ohio. I remember distinctly the musty smell of the basement room where moms handed around yellow choir robes to find ones to fit a roomful of variously shaped five- and six-year-olds.
I also remember clearly the wonderful breakfast we shared with the youth choir and chancel choir in the parish hall between services. We were worship leaders.
Built in 1888, our church building was a towering structure in town. It was a neo-Gothic castle where we young people ran wild and played mightily. A long-standing joke went that the Methodist’s waited until the Catholics completed St. Mary’s, then built their steeple three feet higher.
With Peter Drucker’s insights in mind, here are two “unexpected successes” to consider when discussing the role of young adults in the Episcopal Church: Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Urban/Rural Pilgrimages and Episcopal Service Corps’ network of service internships. Both are growing, both are being led by and engage young adults, and both are equipping folks to go out and beyond the red doors in service, on behalf of social justice, and grounded in faith.
If you know of a young adult who might be interested in spending a week or a year exploring these issues, please share these opportunities with them.
The Church instituted Ash Wednesday and the people responded with Mardi Gras. The church established All Saints Day and the people offered up Halloween. Easter is the church’s highest holy day but the people love Christmas even more. Who’s in charge here?
Liturgy translates as “the work of the people” so it seems clear that the people are in charge. Should the church go along or buck the trend?
It was a week of snow, ice, wind, and rain. Numerous flight cancellations and airport closures laid havoc across the country. Add to this job layoffs, pay cuts, and budget struggles. Not to mention planning for Lent and preparing a Sunday sermon. But nothing could deter 160+ Episcopal educators and faith formation leaders from gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina in the middle of February.
Individuals from a variety of Christian formation networks (from all nine provinces and Canada) came together for Tapestry, the annual conference of the National Association for Christian Education Directors (NAECED). Even before this 3-day event began, representatives from a number of networks gathered to meet one another and vision how collaboration can continue to grow and weave together the variety of ministries in The Episcopal Church that serve the mission of the church via Christian formation:
In his address, President Obama began with a nostalgic look back at an America that is no more: “Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn't always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you'd have a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion. Maybe you'd even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.” The church, too, has a nostalgic view of 1950s America when the church was growing and Sunday Schools full.
Around this time last year the Pew Research Center published a major study called Religion Among the Millennials. I downloaded the report and read it the instant the news flashed across my computer screen.
My interest comes from the fact that I am a Millennial. Born in 1982, I’m one of those young adults whose religious landscape has been dominated by the Christian right, the September 11 attacks, the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophilia and cover up scandals, as well as the ongoing conflict regarding the role of gays and lesbians in our churches. All of these events have shaped my own viewpoint of the world and this was my first chance to check in, numerically, with how everyone else was processing these experiences.
Playing Santa helps me understand Jesus a little better.
This isn't a debate about the commercialization of Christmas or whether we’ve spoiled our kids beyond all hope.And I know there’s so much more to my relationship with Christ than understanding what it means to be a gracious giver.
But when you’re Santa for your children, you spend hours in preparation: talking, shopping, chatting with other moms. You try to find that perfect balance of a magical morning, trying to get the most-wished-for presents without slipping into over-the-top consumption.
And yet for all that preparation, worry and work, Santa gets the credit.
We are one of the lucky Episcopal Churches to be blessed with an abundance of children. So far this fall over 150 kids have visited our Sunday School. This means we find 100 roles for children in our Annual Christmas pageant.
The buzz around the pageant begins in mid-November when the casting gets done. Next come the costume fittings. We end up every year with a full choir of angels.
We also invite the littlest ones to wear animal costumes of their choice to be part of the manger scene. We may be the only Pageant with a lobster.
St. Nicholas stopped by our church last night.
Although today is the feast day for the bishop, our church celebrated his vigil on Sunday evening with crafts, cookie decorating and lots of young kids squealing and chasing each other around the tables.
St. Nicholas made his grand entrance, and the room stopped. Eyes widened. A few toddlers cried. A sister taunted a brother : “I told you he was watching. You better be nice to me.”
The first semester of our experiment ends tonight.
My church is a typical county-seat congregation in the foothills of Appalachia. If only Christmas Eve were our typical attendance on Sunday mornings, we’d be a packed 150. Instead, most Sundays, we’re half that, with each family getting their own pew.
In the past five years, we’ve tried lots of techniques to build up Christian education. Sunday School – on Sunday morning – was a flop (before – and after – the main service). We tried a once-a-month Evensong, with activities. No traction. Our Beer and Bible study had been a hit for three years, but attendance fizzled.
Last school year, we picked up kids from school and brought them to our house for two hours of GodSquad. The kids loved it – but it happened in a vacuum, 20 minutes from church and away from all of the adults (save two teachers).
A lot. Ask Eric Hillegas, former associate minister at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Upham’s Corner.
Today’s new Fieldwork posting begins the story of how Eric is bringing his vision of free tutoring programs to an inner city neighborhood. As associate minister at St. Mary’s in the Upham’s Corner section of Dorchester, Mass., Eric saw a great need for programs to break the cycle of academic failure that often plagues inner city neighborhoods.
E-mail addresses are gold.
By Olympic award standards, the bronze medal goes to snail mail addresses. Cell phone numbers snag the silver.
But e-mail addresses rise to the top of the podium.
Managing the database for a congregation or a diocese is a huge challenge. It was hard enough when only physical addresses were needed. But communication methods have changed.
Over the last five months, we have made a concerted effort in my diocese to bolster our database with e-mail addresses. When someone registers for an event, we add the e-mail. When administrators send in leadership lists, we add the e-mail address. Sometimes I’ve even copied the email recipients from a bulk send and put them into our list.
When he didn’t win the pumpkin contest, I felt the tears sting.
For most of Saturday, we worked on Cinderella’s coach, pulling the slime out of the pumpkin, carving windows, fashioning a door (that really opened!) and decorating the coach as befits a soon-to-be princess.
My 6-year-old son was sure his creation would win the contest. So when it didn’t, he was crushed. And so was I. He was robbed. Hanging chads and ballot fraud.
At home, I talked about how much fun we’d had creating the pumpkin. And I presented him with a dollar-store plastic trophy: the Bibbidi Bobbidi BOO pumpkin won first place in our house.
I think he saw through the ploy but took the trophy anyway. The next morning, I saw he’d climbed on top of a chair and on the tips of his toes, placed the trophy beside his other treasured keepsakes.
Whenever I carve a pumpkin, I think of one of my favorite children’s sermons. The priest takes the pumpkin and carves it with the kids, talking about how God’s grace cleans – forgives – our sins. When we accept this grace, the light of Christ shines in and through us.
It’s a simplistic metaphor. I know that. But sometimes it’s the simple things that tenderize our hearts and transform our lives.
Hollow me out, O Lord.
The church van picked up the dozen or so students from the elementary school and brought them to our backyard, the kids starving for mid-afternoon snacks and a place to run off their energy.
After several tries to settle the group, we started talking about the upcoming All Saints Sunday. That's the title feast of the congregation so the kids were interested.
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