My dear family in Christ,
 
This week, we launched the latest course in our ongoing Living Christianity faith formation series:  an extended workshop focused on discerning our specific spiritual gifts.  As I introduced the course and laid out some foundational concepts, I realized that much of what we covered last Monday applies to the nature of just being Christian and trying to live a Christian life -- particularly, the work of discernment.
 
In The Episcopal Church, broadly speaking, we tend to associate the word “discernment” with some very specific activities:  rector searches, the elections of bishops, capital campaigns (or just general stewardship), &c.  But probably seven or eight times out of ten, when people in Episcopal circles bring up discernment, we’re going to assume that they are talking about exploring a potential “call” to Holy Orders (to priesthood, in the vast majority of cases).  Naturally, y’all will be able to think of exceptions, but I’m pretty confident in my claim that when most Episcopalians hear “discernment,” they think about a possible call to the priesthood.
 
That, my dear friends, is terribly unfortunate!  Not the call to priesthood itself, obviously -- we still have quite a priest shortage across The Episcopal Church; there are many more full time positions for priests throughout the country than there are priests to fill them.  What is unfortunate is that, in our boots-on-the-ground practice in our Church, we end up restricting the work and practice of discernment only to those folks who feel that God might be calling them to ordained ministry.  Now, why is that unfortunate?  Precisely because the work (and joy!) of discernment is what every single Christian is called, invited, and indeed commanded into in the sacrament of Holy Baptism!
 
It is not an overstatement to say that the entirety of the Christian life is meant to be defined and profoundly shaped by the constant, consistent, and ongoing practice of discernment.
 
Hmm.  After a blanket statement like that, I suppose I’d better get around to offering some concrete definitions (the former English teacher in me will only allow me to write so much before “defining my terms” as I should have done in the introductory paragraph…).  What do I mean by “discernment”?  Well, here’s the dictionary definition (from the website dictionary.com):

discernment [noun]
1. the faculty of discerning; discrimination; acuteness of judgment and understanding.
2. the act or an instance of discerning.

[to discern:  verb
(used with object)
1. to perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect; see, recognize, or apprehend:
They discerned a sail on the horizon.
2. to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different; discriminate:
He is incapable of discerning right from wrong.
(used without object)
3. to distinguish or discriminate.]
 
And here’s an Episcopal Church definition (from the website of The Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina):
 
“In recognition of our baptismal covenant, the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church provide guidelines for ministry of the laos (the people of God). The canons require each diocese to make provision for the affirmation and development of the ministry of all baptized persons, including assistance in understanding that all baptized persons are called to minister in Christ's name, to identify their gifts with the help of the Church and to serve Christ’s mission at all times and in all places. Specific roles express that identity in accordance with God’s calling to each of us to use our unique gifts in the service of God’s kingdom.”
 
So, to put it all together, all Christians, by dint of their baptisms, are called by God to perceive, apprehend, and/or distinguish, by whatever physical, mental, and/or spiritual “senses,” their unique, God-given gifts, and to discover the specific roles which express their identities in the use of those gifts as ministers in and of the Church and in service to God’s kingdom.  And the Church is instructed to make provision for this work of affirming and developing the respective ministries of all baptized persons (i.e., all Christians).
 
Whew!  That’s a lot much, isn’t it?  It is, indeed.  But it’s also extraordinarily exciting -- at least, that is how we ought to see it.  The work of discerning one’s spiritual gifts can be (always ought to be) incredibly inspiring, energizing, affirming, even healing.  Discovering your particular spiritual gifts is a process of connecting ever more deeply and specifically with the person, the identity, the Gift that God created you to be, that you already are (even if you don’t yet know it or fully understand it).  It reveals an intensely personal connection and relationship with our Maker, who not only made the heaven and the earth, but also and more to the point made each one of us, individually, each one a special, one-off, custom creation, called to particular roles and identities and ministries within the Body of Christ and in service to God’s world.  It’s not about the burden of work that we have to do; it’s about the ecstatic joy of getting to be what we were created to be.
 
So, in the short term, I hope those of you who were not able to join us last Monday for the kickoff of this latest Living Christianity series will be able to attend some or all of the workshops these next three Mondays (Jan. 20 & 27, and Feb. 3).  We’ll be rolling up our metaphorical sleeves and really digging into the hand-on practices of doing this kind of discernment.  It’s going to be exciting and very fun!  But I also hope that we as a parish will find more and more ways to integrate the ongoing practice of discernment into our daily, monthly, yearly cycles of life in Christ and in Christian community.  This kind of spiritual work is literally transformative, for individuals, for congregations, for communities, and ultimately for the whole world.  So join us, won’t you?
 
Yours always in Christ,
C+

My dear family in Christ,
 
When I was growing up and learning the unwritten rules of civil society, the number one, top priority, most important Prime Directive was that there were two topics that one is never to discuss in public:  religion and politics.  Interestingly, the two things that have our society most deeply divided at present are, well, religion and politics.  But I’m sure that’s just coincidence.  Er…
 
The notion, of course, was always that conversations on those hot-button topics always lead to disagreements, and disagreements lead to stress, conflict, and strife, and we’ll all just get along better if we never go there in the first place.  The thing is, as noble as it might sound, that notion is ridiculous.
 
Not talking about the things we may disagree about doesn’t magically make the disagreement go away.  Not communicating merely robs us of any ability to deal constructively with those disagreements that we already have. 
 
But there’s an additional side effect of decades of not talking about politics and religion, one that applies directly to church communities.  Avoiding such conversations in church communities creates the dangerously false impression that it’s possible to have a Christianity that is itself devoid of politics … and thus a Christianity that has nothing to say to or about the politics of our larger society.  In other words, a Christianity that is totally irrelevant to how we live our lives in this world.
 
As an ordained minister, I can’t tell y’all how many times folks have said to me (whether they were talking about me, personally, some other specific person, or ministers in general) that “preachers should keep politics out of the pulpit.”  In many places, that notion is widely accepted as self-evident wisdom and propriety.  But it makes me ask:  “How, then, is a preacher supposed to preach the Gospel?”  Especially, for example, the Gospel appointed for this coming Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Advent.  But more on that in a moment.
 
In August of last year, Scott Detrow of NPR interviewed Russell Moore, the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, about Moore’s book Losing Our Religion:  An Altar Call for Evangelical America.  In the interview, Detrow asked Moore why he (Moore) thought that Christianity in America was (is) in a state of crisis.  Moore replied:
 
Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching - turn the other cheek - to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.
 
You can find the entire interview online here:  https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america
 
My dear friends, the Gospel is inherently political.  It cannot help but be political. 
 
You see, the term politics, properly defined, is just the name we use for how a group of people goes about making group decisions (what the group will do as a group, what the group will not do, what the group believes is important to the group, &c.) and how the members of the group are going to behave and how they’re going to treat each other. 
 
That is what politics is, whether the group in question is a clique of friends, a family, a county commission, a school board, a Christian congregation … or a whole entire nation.  Any group of people, however small or large, has to have a way of making group decisions and a way of determining how the members of the group will interact with each other.  That means every group of people, however small or large, engages in politics. 
 
Now, the Gospels have some very specific things to say about how we are supposed to make decisions as a group of faithful Jesus-followers in covenant with God and with each other.  And about how we are to treat each other (and all our fellow human beings—our fellow God-image-bearers) in this world.  Just take a close look at the Sermon on the Mount, or Matthew chapter 25, or the portion of Luke appointed for this coming Sunday.  Luke’s Gospel for Advent 4 for contains the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, one of the most profound political statements in the New Testament.
 
To be sure, politics ain’t the main point of the Gospels, not remotely.  The main point is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is Lord!  And that God broke into this created world in the flesh and person of Jesus to save us and redeem us from our sin (both individual and collective sin!).  It is because of who and what Jesus is—because of who and what Jesus incarnate reveals God to be—that his teaching matters and must shape our politics.  Because God takes sides:  God sides with the lowly, the poor, the oppressed, those who suffer injustice, those on the margins, those who are vulnerable … and God calls us to side with folks in those situations, too.
 
The Episcopal Church has often been accused of “pandering” to “woke progressivism.”  All Saints has been accused of that a few times since we became officially inclusive and affirming of LGBTQA+ folks (and put up our rainbow signs).  Some folks have even argued that the Church is “dying” because it’s supposedly more concerned with left-leaning politics than with the Gospel.  But I don’t think that’s accurate.  If we are in fact dying (and that can be debated!), it’s not because of some alleged “woke agenda.”  It’s because we as a Church have not been clear and enthusiastic about the Gospel message that we have been entrusted to proclaim far and wide.  A Gospel message that is as relevant and as engaged in the real world where people live their real lives now as it was two millennia ago.
 
As we conclude our Advent preparations for the birth of God among us, let us pray to God to rekindle in us that same zeal that burned in the Apostles to proclaim the Good News boldly, lovingly, enthusiastically, joyfully, to a world that walks in darkness still, longing for the Light of Christ!

My dear family in Christ,
 
This past Sunday, 1st December, was Advent 1.  It marked, of course, the beginning of our annual journey through the season of Advent as we make our way towards, and make our souls ready for, the Nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ on the 25th.  But it also marked the completion of my fifth full year here with you all as Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church.
 
Advent, like Lent, is a good season for contemplating endings and beginnings, and the connections between the two.  The Anglo-Saxons had a saying:  “The end and the beginning are not always alike”—but they are inextricably linked together.  Every time one thing ends, another thing begins.  And every time a new thing begins, whatever came before either ends … or changes and grows into a new thing, itself.
 
The world looked rather different when I arrived at All Saints in December of 2019.  For one thing, I drove up through a terrible ice storm to begin my time here in a “new world” buried under vast drifts of snow.  It seemed as if Fate had got hold of a book called The Most Predictable Clichés of the Upper Midwest and brought the first few pages to life, just for me, this Southern ex-pat now come to the Frozen North. 🙂 I was quite amazed that Spring, when the sun came out and everything turned green!
 
And then Covid hit us.  Nearly two solid years of being shut out of gathering together to worship … or do anything else.  We responded, as this community always has, with deep faith and a “Well, I guess we’ll have to do a few things different now, so let’s get going…” attitude that helped us weather the global crisis amazingly well, for as excruciatingly hard as it was.  And we launched a dynamic online ministry & kept on going.
 
Reopening to in-person gathering was, as y’all remember, incremental and not easy.  Constantly having to discern what was safe, what wasn’t, and what was “safe enough” was no easy task, and we had a lot of disagreements in lots of different directions.  “Too many restrictions” … “not enough restrictions” … “can’t we just be done with this mess?” … “you do realize that Covid is still happening, right?” … and so it went.  But we managed by the grace of God to stay together, and even to grow our community, during those hard times.
 
But we realized that, upon reopening, really to grow our parish meant inviting more new people to come be part of our community.  And we realized that, in order to do that, we needed to be able to let people know, specifically, what kind of community we were inviting them to join.  We had some serious discernment to do, and we stepped up to and into that challenge just as we had with the challenge of the pandemic shutdown.  Through Zoom discussions and Bible studies and Vestry meetings and parish gatherings, we discerned God’s call for us to become, officially, as fully welcoming, inclusive, and affirming parish, ensuring that, at All Saints, all persons, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc., are truly invited and welcomed into the full communal and sacramental life of this church.  An incredible milestone in the history of All Saints.
 
So we have a little bit better idea, at least, of who we are as a worshipping community now.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ve started to get somewhat accustomed to this crazy Southern ex-pat who’s been sojourning among us for five years and counting.  Or maybe not.  Either way, we’re turning once again to a new set of present challenges … and opportunities.  Being an inclusive and affirming congregation means perhaps a bit more now than it did a year ago, with the recent “climate change” in the larger social and political environment around us.  Our commitment that All Saints is to be a truly safe place for all people, but especially for people who are members of marginalized and/or targeted groups is no longer as abstract and idealistic as it might formerly have seemed.  It has real-world consequences and carries real-world obligations.
 
But it’s also the right thing to do.  The Gospel thing to do.  And if what we’ve seen and experienced and learned of the Holy Spirit over the past two thousand years holds true, it might just be one of the ways that, as the Body of Christ in this place at this time, we help to shine a light in the darkness, that the darkness cannot overcome.  My dear friends, people need the light of Christ now as much as ever.  We need it, ourselves.  Our families, friends, and neighbors, and those who are alone, need it.  The people of Appleton, the Fox Valley, Wisconsin, the U.S., and the whole world need it.
 
From what I’ve seen firsthand in my time here so far, this parish community has always had a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ.  I haven’t seen that change in five years; I’ve only seen it grow.  And speaking of that, my heart tells me that the deeper and more fully we lean into that love of Christ, and the more courageous we get about showing it do the community & the world around us, the brighter Christ’s light will shine here, and the more our parish will thrive.
 
So let us not merely anticipate with eagerness the coming birth of Our Lord this Christmas; let us yearn after God, let us long for Christ Jesus to be born and nurtured in our hearts, so that we shall be moved to seek and nurture Christ in everyone around us.  Let us find a way to believe in miracles.  And let us be the miracle for all those who are hurt and lost and lonely in our midst.
 
Yours always in Christ,
Christopher+

My Dear Family in Christ,
 
Bishop Matt recently shared the following, somewhat lengthy, quote from Ethics, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
 
“The church confesses that it has not professed openly and clearly enough the message of the one God, revealed for all time in Jesus Christ and tolerating no other Gods besides. The church confesses its timidity, its deviations [referring to nationalism], its dangerous concessions. It has often disavowed its duties as sentinel and comforter. Through this it has often withheld the compassion that it owes to the despised and rejected. The church was mute when it should have cried out, because the blood of the innocent cried out to heaven. The church did not find the right word in the right way at the right time. It did not resist to the death the falling away from the faith and is guilty of the godlessness of the masses.
 
“The church confesses that it has misused the name of Christ by being ashamed of it before the world and by not resisting strongly enough the misuse of that name for evil ends. . .
 
“The church confesses that it has witnessed the arbitrary use of brutal force, the suffering in body and soul of countless innocent people . . .
 
“The church confesses that it has looked on silently as the poor were exploited and robbed, while the strong were enriched and corrupted.
 
“The church confesses that it has coveted security, tranquility, peace, property, and honor to which it has no claim, and therefore has not bridled human covetousness, but promoted it.
 
“The church confesses itself guilty of violating all of the Ten Commandments. It confesses thereby its apostasy from Christ. . .”
 
These, my friends, are … harsh words, to say the least.  Perhaps their aggressive tone is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Bonhoeffer was writing in the context of the rise of Nazi Germany, and in particular of the complicity of many German churches in openly supporting the rise of the Nazis to power.  But as you can see, he was not only calling out the complicity of the churches which openly supported the Nazi cause, but also the silence, the passive “neutrality,” the refusal to oppose actively the clear evils of Nazism in that present moment.
 
Perhaps Bonhoeffer’s more famous quote on the subject is that “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:  God will not hold us guiltless.  Not to speak is to speak.  Not to act is to act.”
 
Such talk can make many of us feel uncomfortable.  I’ll be honest ~ it makes me feel uncomfortable!
 
But there is something, I think, in the purity of this ethic, of this moral standard, that is not only compelling … but is also biblical.  It is also Gospel.
 
Consider Luke 10:25-37:
 
25 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
 
29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
 
The story of the Good Samaritan is, as you know, a parable about mercy, empathy, compassion, and justice.  About what it means ~ in God’s eyes ~ truly to be a “neighbor” to our fellow human beings.  It makes concrete what love ~ again, in God’s eyes ~ actually looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like, etc.
 
But we fail to grasp the full import of the parable if we do not also see that it is a scathing indictment of those persons ~ and institutions ~ whose supposed function and purpose it is to embody and enact the love and mercy of God in this world, yet which fail to achieve that purpose … or, worse, choose not to try.
 
Here at All Saints Episcopal Church, we have made a conscious choice and taken on a shared, intentional commitment to build and to be a community of Jesus followers that is welcoming to, affirming of, and safe for all persons.  That commitment guides the way we receive visitors, and also the way we treat and care for each other as members of this parish family, certainly.  But it also lays upon us an obligation to speak up and speak out, in our larger community and society, on behalf of and in solidarity with any and all persons who are marginalized; oppressed; suffering from injustice, bigotry, prejudice, and hatred; at risk of being denied basic human rights; or are targeted by people in power.  We are called to be a voice for people who have no voice, to use our place and our privilege in this society to work towards inclusion, affirmation, and justice for groups of people who are being excluded, dehumanized, and denied justice.
 
In other words, we must not only believe in and cherish the Gospel inwardly; if we really want to follow Jesus, we must also seek to embody the Gospel outwardly, actively, tangibly, in the world around us.
 
And this is not a new thing.  It was not a new thing in Bonhoeffer’s day, either.  It has been central to the witness and ministry of the Christian faith since Jesus himself became incarnate in real, human flesh and gave his life, a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, showing us “the way, the truth, and the life.”
 
It’s a tall order.  It’s not comfortable.  It ain’t remotely easy.  Of course, Christianity was never meant to be easy.  It is meant to bring us ever more deeply into the joyful and abundant life God has always intended for us to have.  It’s as simple, and as difficult, as loving God, and loving people.
 
As 2024 begins to draw to a close and we start looking towards 2025, let us commit to seeking out, eagerly, new and bold ways to be, for Appleton and the Fox Valley, the active and engaged Body of Christ at work for God in this world.

 My dear family in Christ,
 
It’s a hard day, I must confess, to be trying to compose my bi-weekly message to the parish.  This election cycle just concluded has been particularly brutal for many of us ~ mentally, emotionally, spiritually ~ myself definitely included.  I’m old enough to have lived through many presidential elections now, but it’s difficult to recall one which truly seemed to play out along the lines of a cosmic contest of powerful primal forces, the way this one has felt. 
 
Regardless of where you locate yourself on the American political spectrum (or whether you do), the deep dividedness of our society, the differences that have less to do with particular policy positions and more to do with existential (and irreconcilable) worldviews and values has left so many of us feeling beaten, broken, hopeless.
 
Some folks are no doubt happy about the results of the election.  Others are surely relieved that it’s “over.”  Of course, for folks in vulnerable populations ~ women, people of color, LGBTQAI+ folx, non-Christians of all varieties, immigrants, it’s hardly over.  In many ways, it’s just beginning … or beginning again. 
 
Established rights and protections under the law are no longer necessarily secure, with the change in national leadership and the different set of values and priorities coming with that change.  The domestic and international order of the past four years is now much more uncertain than it was a few hours ago. 
 
As a result, it may well feel as if we awoke this morning in a very different world than the one in which we fell asleep last night.  It may feel like reality has fundamentally shifted underneath our feet.
 
The good news, and the bad news, is that this is not so.
 
The world that stands revealed today is in fact the same world that was real yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.  All that has changed is that it now stands revealed.  What I mean by that is that the majority of citizens ~ the ones who carried the day in the election ~ did not just magically appear in our midst overnight.  They’ve been here all along.  The reality we woke up to today is the same reality that existed yesterday. 
 
The difference is that, today, we are less able to pretend otherwise.  We are less able to hold the notion that most Americans, when presented with a clear choice, would embrace the fundamental values of empathy, compassion, respect for human dignity and the value of human life, and reject the path of rage, hate, dehumanization, demonization, violence, apathy, and a deeply callous inhumanity.  The people have spoken, and that illusion is gone.  But it was in fact an illusion.  The reality underlying it has not changed.
 
Make no mistake:  the effect may be no less devastating, no less a gut-punch, for the realization that the only real difference is that we see more clearly now than we did before.  It is no less appropriate, no less justified, to grieve and grieve deeply.  For even the loss of an illusion is still a loss.
 
Be as kind and gentle with yourselves as you can, through this harsh awakening.  It’s okay not to be okay.  It’s okay to need time to reel, to lament, even to rage against what shouldn’t be.
 
But let us covenant with ourselves, our God, and each other not to stay in that state for too long.  Because the truth is we have not so much lost the things we feel like we’ve lost, but rather have been shown that those things we treasure have not really yet been achieved.
 
We don’t live in the world that we thought we lived in.  Grieve at this discovery, this revelation, yes.  But we must hold fast to that vision of the peaceable kingdom, because that vision is still true.  Compassion is still true.  Justice is still true.  Truth is still true.  Love is still true.
 
We stand this morning in the midst of a stark, nigh crushing revelation about the state of things.
 
But we do not stand alone, and this story is not yet over.
 
You are all in my prayers.  If you need to talk, please reach out to me:  920-266-9262.  Many, many people are struggling deeply today, and many of us feel like we have lost any lingering thread that remained of something we might call “faith.”  If that’s where you are, please know that you are not alone!  Many, many people are right there, right now.  Even pastors and priests.  It is Golgotha, the place of the skull, where light and love and even hope itself hang bloodied and murdered upon the cross at the hands of brutal empire.  Many people are feeling exactly what you're feeling, and it is a deeply Christian feeling, for what that's worth.  The darkest of Black Fridays.
 
The folks who were there on Black Friday two millennia ago could hardly have believed that Sunday was going to be the first Easter.
 
All we can do in the darkness is hold fast to each other and try to remember Whose we are, yesterday, today, and always.
 
God bless you all.  You are in my prayers.
 
C+

My Dear Family in Christ,
 
It has recently been suggested to me, ostensibly in jest, that “no one knows what the rector is doing.”  Good-natured humor (at least, so I hope! <gulp>) aside, it’s a topic perhaps worth addressing.  Pastors, much like teachers, sometimes fall prey to the notion that we either do not exist outside of the relatively few hours in which we are visible to the public, or on the other hand that we simply sit in our respective boxes (offices or classrooms) in between services or classes like automata plugged into our recharging devices.  (Oh, if only!)
 
Today, I want to share with you a little bit of what’s been going on in rector-land these past several weeks.  It’s been a busy time, but then it generally is.  Seems like things started to get busy here around Advent of 2019, then ramped up significantly when Covid hit, and since then … have only continued to get busier!
 
But before going on, let’s take a look at the parts of my weekly schedule that are more or less regular.
 
My work week begins of course on Sunday.  As we’ve recently returned to a two-service schedule, I celebrate the Mass at 8:30 and again at 10:30, and at present we’ve got coffee and fellowship time after each service.  Sunday afternoons ~ as long as there is no pressing pastoral or priestly need ~ tend to go towards family time and the time-honored tradition of the “clergy nap.” 
 
It may sound a bit strange to say, but something they didn’t tell us about in seminary:  standing at God’s holy altar, at the fulcrum between heaven and earth, and holding that space where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, both the sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are re-membered in the present moment … is not a thing to undertake lightly, and it does rather drain you!  By the time I make it home after doing so twice back-to-back, I generally need some time to recover.  (That’s also why Sunday is generally not the best time to talk “business” with the rector ~ my mind and soul are focused primarily on the altar on the Lord’s Day.)
 
On Mondays, I host a weekly Bible study from 11:30 to 1:00, via Zoom.  This is a ministry we began during Covid and it has been going strong ever since.  Each week, we explore the readings appointed for the upcoming Sunday, and these sessions never fail to astound me with the insights and perspectives that come out.  The format is informal discussion, and though ~ when it’s helpful ~ I try to provide some historical, linguistic, textual, or theological context, what we mostly end up doing is sharing our personal perspectives and life experiences as fellow Christian just trying to understand our faith a bit better.  It’s less academic and much more personal & spiritual.  If you haven’t tried it and you’re free to Zoom at that time of day, please consider joining us.  Monday afternoon is for catching up on “business,” and on Monday nights at 6:30, the ongoing Living Christianity program has been running since June.  We finish up around 8-ish, sometimes 8:30, so Mondays are one of my late-night days during the week.  I sometimes take appointments before the Bible study Zoom, so Mondays can also be rather long days, as well.
 
On Tuesdays, I celebrate Mass at 9:30 in St. Mary’s Chapel for a small but very devoted group of parishioners.  Afterwards, I have office hours from 11:00 until 12:30 or so.  I try to keep the rest of my Tuesdays open for meetings, pastoral visits, appointments, or any of the other dozen things that tend to come up all the time. 
 
When possible on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, I try to hold some “office hours” downtown at the Copper Rock coffee shop.  They have excellent (free) wifi, so I set up my laptop and work remotely for a couple hours.  The back of my laptop has a full-size sticker with an Episcopal cross logo and the text:  “I’m a priest.  Ask me anything.  Seriously, interrupt me!”  It works a treat ~ I’ve had dozens of conversations with all sorts of folks over the past couple years since I’ve been doing this.  Some folks just stop to thank me for being out in public “in uniform”; some folks have had pretty serious life-crisis situations they needed to talk about; and some folks just have questions.  In any event, I find it a great opportunity to tell new people about All Saints just down the street.
 
Wednesdays are my other late-night days, so I begin Wednesdays with a weekly staff meeting at 11:00 unless something has come up that requires an earlier start to the day.  There is also a standing weekly meeting between our two Wardens and myself at 4:30, followed by office hours at 5:30 and Mass at 6:30.  A note about the weekday Masses:  they tend to be a bit less formal and more intimate than the principal services on Sunday, and the homilies are designed to be conversational and interactive (for those who are comfortable chiming in, of course).  If you’d like to experience Holy Eucharist in a closer, more personal setting than we can often manage on Sunday mornings, I highly encourage you to attend either the Tuesday morning or the Wednesday evening services.  On Wednesdays, we usually finish up between 7:45 and 8.  Fifteen or twenty minutes to close down & lock up the building, and I get to go home.
 
On Thursdays, the fixed point in my schedule is our second weekly Zoom ministry:   the Christian formation series Faith Talk, which runs from 12:30-2:00.  This one also got started when Covid first shut us down and kept us from gathering in person, and it, too, has continued ever since.  Topics vary widely from week to week, but our focus is always the points where our individual lives and experiences intersect with each other and with our shared faith tradition.  The places “where the rubber meets the road,” so to speak.  It’s a safe and welcoming place to ask any and every question that you perhaps have never dared to ask out loud before, and also to challenge and explore every aspect of Christianity in a supportive and encouraging community.  Again, highly recommended!  The rest of my Thursdays, morning & later afternoons, I try to keep open for meetings, pastoral visits, etc.
 
Fridays are my “Sabbath,” my weekly day off.  Note:  I will always respond to pastoral emergencies as fast as possible and to the best of my abilities, even on Fridays.  But on Fridays, I will generally not respond to “rector business.”  So if you suddenly find yourself in the hospital or having an acute existential crisis on a Friday, CALL ME!  But if you need to talk to me about a budget issue or want to pitch me an idea for a new ministry program, I probably will not be getting back to you about that on a Friday.  (Of course, between church business and family business, my last four Fridays have been filled up and have not been Sabbath days for me, which does happen to priests fairly frequently, but in general, I do try pretty hard to keep my Fridays sacrosanct in order to make sure that I can be refreshed and ready to serve you all fully.)
 
Saturdays are “on call” days, reserved for church functions and activities that cannot be held on weekdays ~ vestry retreats, some Mosaic task force meetings, conventions, parish events, funerals, weddings, etc.  If we don’t specifically have church business happening on a given Saturday, then it becomes a day for family time, since my family has to give me up at least two nights a week and for a large chunk of my Fridays and Sundays.
 
Then, I start all over again!
 
So, that’s a rough outline of the ideal for how a week is “sposed” to go for the rector.  It’s the nature of the business that things rarely go exactly to plan, but that’s at least the plan.
 
That’s hardly the whole job, though.  That’s just the skeleton.  Regular weekly business also includes responding to requests from folks in the downtown community for assistance; pastoral visits (to home or hospital) either for pastoral care or to share Communion (or both) with folks who aren’t able to come to church on Sundays at the moment; handling funerals, weddings, or other requests for Episcopal services; Executive Team and Vestry meetings; meetings with various ministry teams within the parish; meetings with various diocese-level groups (at present, primarily the soon-t0-be-renamed Mosaic Task Force for Racial Reconciliation and the newly created Mission Council for Region B of the Diocese of Wisconsin); connecting with clergy colleagues in the diocese (some of whom owe me a lunch, and to some of whom I in fact owe a lunch!); sermon preparation; my own practices of prayer and study (which honestly should receive a larger portion of my weekly time, but that’s a work in progress…)
 
These things fluctuate week-to-week and month-to-month.  In the past month or two, for instance, I’ve had to field a sudden, dramatic increase in the number of people from the downtown community who’ve come to our church looking for some sort of help with gas, groceries, and/or other necessities.  Up until recently, I had been seeing an average of three or four people every two to three months, and I’ve been able to respond to these requests out of the “rector’s discretionary fund.”  (The RDF is a canonically mandated bit of money to be set aside by the parish to allow the rector to help folks in exactly these kinds of emergency situations ~ the offering from the collection plates on one Sunday out of each month goes to the RDF.) 
 
But in the past couple of months, I’ve had somewhere between fifteen and twenty different folks approach me for assistance.  This aspect of our parish’s outreach is thus taking a bit more management now than it has previously.  Just FYI, to make sure that I continue to be able to help, with the resources that we’ve got, I am limiting each individual to one instance of assistance every three to four months.  The idea is to prevent the whole RDF going only to one or two people when there is so much more need out there.  And for long-term assistance, we direct folks to Pillars, the Salvation Army, LEAVEN, and other municipal and community resources who are better equipped to offer more than just minor, emergency help.
 
Recent weeks have also seen Arden Kuehmsted’s funeral, the first diocesan convention for the recently unified Diocese of Wisconsin, and the very first installment of All Saints’ newest ministry, our Open Mic night for parish and community artists. 
 
Each of these events, of course, is much more than just what happens on the day of.  Funerals can take a week or two of planning ~ at least, if there’s to be any process of pastoral care for the family.  The diocesan convention was a two-day affair (Friday & Saturday), but Mosaic was expected to have a display table to set up for the duration of the convention, so that took some prep beforehand.  And I’ve been proposing an open mic night for the past several years; it was truly a blessing to discover that Oliver and Seth were so willing and eager to work with me to make it happen.  Even so, we first met to get the ball rolling more than a month prior to the inaugural event itself and had been working on it together ever since.
 
A half dozen pastoral visits and pastoral conversations with various parishioners and folks from the community rounded out my weekly schedules in the past couple of months.  And that’s pretty typical ~ and a good and joyful thing!
 
Hopefully, this article demonstrates that the iceberg principle definitely applies here:  there is always so much more going on behind the scenes than is typically visible on the surface.  Of course, that is true for absolutely every single person who does anything for our All Saints community!  It’s one of the many ways we are so deeply and truly blessed in this parish, and a great opportunity for us all to cultivate gratitude for each other.
 
I hope this has been helpful to anyone who’s found yourself saying “I wonder what the rector’s actually doing?” 
 
Maybe next time, I’ll try to tackle “What ISN’T the rector doing?” ;)
 
Yours in Christ,
C+

All Saints.  All Welcome.  All Needed.
 
My dear family in Christ,
 
The “long green” of the Season after Pentecost draws to a close.  Soon, we will embark upon a new Church year as we enter the expectant, hopeful season of Advent.  This time of year is always a period of liminal space -- we are no longer exactly where we were, but we are not yet where we are going to be.  Likewise with our parish -- we are no longer what we once were; we have not yet become what we are going to be.  The very definition of liminal space.
 
Liminal spaces and in-between times are sacred.  Our central act of worship, the Eucharist, takes place in a timeless space in between the here-and-now of our mortal lives and the eternity of the heavenly banquet that awaits us in the next life.  Time spent in between is time spent becoming.  Liminal spaces are the places where we are most open and receptive to the life-giving, world-changing presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  Such times and spaces can be exciting and magical. But change brings uncertainty, and sometimes it’s hard to remember to trust God through it all.
 
Of course, All Saints has a long-established practice of trusting God through challenging times.  The fact that All Saints is still here testifies to that!  This year, particularly, I have perceived a genuine sense, a real and inspiring faith, that God is not yet done with us.  My dear friends, as we launch this year’s stewardship drive, will you commit to join me in pledging that we, also, are not yet done with God?
 
Remember our theme:  All Saints -- All Welcome -- All Needed.  These phrases have never been more true.  We are All Saints Episcopal Church.  We are committed to welcoming all people.  And now, more than ever, every single one of us is needed to help realize God’s vision for this parish.  The attached pledge card will help you discern just how God is calling you to give of your time, talent, and treasure.  My friends, consider altogether your time, your talents, and your money, and you’ll see how great a treasure God has entrusted to our care, for the building up of God’s kingdom in our corner of the world and beyond. 
 
Consider as well that God doesn’t need our treasure.  It is we who need to give!  In order to become a butterfly, the caterpillar must give up its whole self in the liminal space of the cocoon.  We can scarcely imagine the wings that God has in store for us on the other side!
 
Peace & blessings,
Chistopher+

For information about & options for making your financial contributions, please visit the All Saints Episcopal Church website at:
http://www.allsaintsappleton.org/giving-at-all-saints.html
 
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:34)
 
And as you prayerfully explore the many ways in which you can contribute your time and talents to the life and mission of our All Saints community, please consider these areas of opportunity & aspects of our parish life with which we always need your help:
 

• Pastoral Care & Lay Eucharistic Visits
• Christian Formation & Education (share your knowledge with us!!)
• Parish Event Planning & Engagement
• Liturgy Planning (Special Services)
• Online Tech Support & Digital Outreach
• Communication, Branding, & Advertising
• Music – All Voices, Instruments, & Varieties!
• Worship Service
            Livestreamers
            Altar Guild members
            Ushers
            Acolytes
            Lay Readers & Intercessors
            Eucharistic Ministers (Chalice Bearers)
• Parish Governance & Administration
            Vestry members (& Vestry Clerk & Vestry Treasurer)
            Finance Ministry Team
            Stewardship Ministry Team
            Building & Grounds Care Team
            Office Assistance
• Outreach & Volunteer Opportunities
            Pillars, Salvation Army, et al.
• Almost anything else you can imagine -- let’s hear your new ideas, y’all!

 
But most of all, what All Saints needs is you!  Each of you is a treasure-trove of talents, abilities, knowledge, experience, and interests, blessed with many gifts that God has given you to share for the building up of God’s Kingdom in this particular corner of the world.  If you’ve got a notion, concept, or idea that isn’t listed above, please call the office, or message me at [email protected], and let’s make it happen!

Allhallowtide
Allhallowtide, Hallowtide, Allsaintstide, or the Hallowmas season is the Western Christian season encompassing the triduum of All Saints' Eve (Halloween), All Saints' Day (All Hallows') and All Souls' Day, as well as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (observed on the first Sunday of November) and Remembrance Sunday (observed on the second Sunday in November) in some traditions.  The period begins on 31 October annually.  Allhallowtide is a "time to remember the dead, including martyrs, saints, and all faithful departed Christians." 
            ~ from Wikipedia
 
My dear family in Christ,
 
We draw near to the next holy time in our Church year.  Though it is not a formally established liturgical season like Lent, Eastertide, Advent, or Christmastide, it is nonetheless a time of special observance that has been acknowledged as sacred and marked by practices of devotion, penitence, worship, and baptism since ancient times.  In our Anglican tradition, especially ~ perhaps as the Church in England (which predates the Church of England by centuries) had been influenced by the Celtic cultures of the British Isles ~ Allhallowtide is often understood to be a time when the so-called “veil” between this mortal life and the life to come becomes somewhat “thinner” than it is throughout the rest of the year.  Certainly, in the West, it seems natural and intuitive as we move into the season of harvest and the transition between the growing season of summer and the darker, colder, less vibrant season of winter to contemplate our mortality and the ultimate impermanence of the material world and our material lives.
 
All Hallows’ Eve
The vigil held in preparation for the observance of All Hallows’ (that is, All Saints’) Day developed alongside the development of All Saints’ Day itself.  Holding a vigil prior to a holy day of feasting or celebration is itself an ancient practice in the Church, the best known contemporary example being the Great Vigil between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.  Early Christians having continued to follow the Jewish custom of marking the beginning of a new day at dusk rather than at midnight may have been an influence on the custom of holding a vigil (the term itself coming from Latin in the sense of “keeping watch”) the evening before the main observance.
 
The vigil held on the eve of All Hallows’ eventually gave us the English term Halloween, from All Hallow’s E’en.  The English language has a long and glorious tradition of squeezing words together to form a new word, and that’s what we did with Halloween.  It’s possible (according to Wikipedia) that the modern custom of trick-or-treating might have arisen from the practice of baking and sharing “soul cakes”:

The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria.  Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. This was called "souling."  Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat, or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives.  As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms.  Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).  While souling, Christians would carry "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips," which could have originally represented souls of the dead; jack-o'-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits.
             ~ From Wikipedia
 
While both the origins and the current liturgical practice of All Hallows’ Eve are rooted in the somber contemplation of our mortality and the remembrance of those Christian souls who have passed into the nearer presence of our Lord, it is nonetheless wholly appropriate and quite okay for Episcopalians to enjoy Halloween.  It shouldn’t need to be said, but just to be clear, trick-or-treating, costume parties, scary movie marathons, and the like are good and joyful things to do, even as we prepare ourselves for the more solemn observances to come.
 
And for the record, just to be abundantly clear, there is nothing evil or satanic or otherwise diabolical about Halloween!
 
All Saints’ Day
All Saints’ Day, traditionally celebrated on November 1st in the West, is one of the seven principal feasts of the Church.  It developed in the early Church initially to commemorate the deaths of the holy martyrs.  By the Fourth Century, there were frankly too many martyrs to commemorate each one’s death separately, so the idea emerged to have a single major feast to commemorate them all. 
 
We need to take a moment to let that sink in.  Three hundred years into this new faith, so many people had given their lives for Christ—not merely in abstract devotion only, but also in actual fact:  willingly, literally dying for Christ—that it was not feasible to hold annual memorials for each of them individually.  The calendar simply wasn’t big enough.
 
From our corner of the world, in our time within history, here in this place, it is hard for most of us, myself included, to imagine, much less really to know, what it’s like to be a Christian in a time and place where you can be killed—executed by the state—for being Christian. 
 
I’d wager that many of us in this country and in this culture, when we think about what it might cost us to offer up our lives to Jesus Christ, think mainly of reorganizing our priorities, giving up certain things (maybe), taking on “difficult” goals like being kinder and less selfish in our dealings with other people.  And to be honest, I truly hope that you and I won’t have to think about much else other than that.
 
Because there are places in the world even today where simply gathering to worship Jesus Christ really does mean risking one’s actual life, just as it did in the early days of the Jesus Movement, under the shadow of the Roman Empire.
 
That is the testimony of the blessed martyrs, the saints whom we remember on this feast day.  The word “martyr” comes from the Greek word for “witness,” and in the early Church, it was believed that those who remained faithful to Christ in the face of suffering and death had offered to the world the highest and purest possible witness to the truth of the Gospel.
 
And that is what we commemorate and celebrate at the Feast of All Saints.  If it sounds like a big deal, it is!  It hearkens back to the origins of our faith tradition and invokes the very heart of the Gospel.  For us here in this parish, moreover, it serves as our “patronal feast.”  Since we are not dedicated to a single, particular saint, we wouldn’t normally think of ourselves as having a specific feast day for our “patron,” but since we are in fact dedicated to the entire body of the saints in light, I’d say this is also our feast day!
 
All Souls’ Day
All Souls’ Day is something a little bit different from All Saints’ Day.  The celebration of All Souls, observed on November 2nd in the West, emerged in response to a slightly different but equally important need in the church:  the need to remember and celebrate the lives of countless “unknown” baptized Christians in every generation who lived and died in the faith of Jesus Christ. 
 
“Unknown” in the sense of not having become famous as hermits, mystics, or martyrs on a grand scale, but known to each of us as parents, children, extended family, friends, neighbors—all of the children of God whose lives intertwine with ours in the great Communion of Saints.  Generations past and generations yet to come, all part of the “great cloud of witnesses” to the Gospel in their ordinary, individual lives.
 
In many places throughout the various Anglican communions around the world, and especially here in this country, All Souls’ Day is often folded into and blurred together with the observance of All Saints’ Day.  The All Saints liturgy will in such cases include a reading out of the names of those in the parish (and those connected to folks in the parish) who have died in the preceding year.  It is a good and holy practice, and it is something that has also been a tradition here and will continue to be for as long as we gather here to worship. 
 
Blessings,
Christopher+

“What’s so funny about peace, love, and scientific understanding?”
 
My dear family in Christ,
 
Like many of us these days, I live with an addiction or two.  Most are harmless (or mostly harmless):  food, television, rock and/or roll.  Some of you know that I also nurse a social media habit.  Not proud of it, necessarily, but there’s no sense not being honest about it, either.
 
Now, in my (admittedly questionable) defense, I do try to use my social media platforms to do more than just share pictures of cats.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I simply don’t have any cats.  But I also try to engage in some aspects of what we once called “the public discourse” in our society, particularly when topics happen to float across my feed that touch on matters relating to our Christian faith tradition.
 
I’ve recently shared a couple of reflections online related to the science of biology—one on the particular topic of the complex relationships between genetics, sex, and gender expression; the other touching on evolutionary biology, specifically the origin and evolution of the human species as we know it today.  What, you may ask, do either of those conversations have to do with our Christian faith tradition?  Well, on the surface, perhaps nothing.  Yet, there are huge swaths of the ostensibly Christian landscape out there in our culture where it is widely, though wrongly, believed that in order to be a good, faithful Christian, one has to reject the clear evidence of biological science on both points.
 
In other words, there are a lot of folks who are actively teaching people that if you “believe” what science proves to be true about gender, or about human evolution, then you cannot possibly believe the Bible to be “true” and therefore you cannot be a “real” Christian.
 
(Of course, when we talk about facts that can be proven or disproven, “belief” is not the correct term to use at all.  Likewise, we often make the mistake of erasing the difference between “facts” and “truth” when we talk about Scripture, thinking—falsely—that the details in a passage of Scripture must be literally factual in a scientific sense in order for the Bible to be “true.”  That is obviously not the case, and Jesus proves time and again by teaching truth by means of parables that he just makes up on the spot.  I’m not going to comment on the bit about “real” Christians…)
 
My dear friends, such assertions are not only patently, demonstrably false but also actively dangerous.  Any approach to religion that requires would-be members to reject reality in order to “embrace the faith” is already several steps down the road towards being a cult to begin with.  Moreover, Christianity, specifically, has a long and glorious tradition of scholarship and scientific endeavor.  Indeed, as our modern university system evolved from the High Middle Ages into the Renaissance, students were once required to study all the natural sciences before being allowed to attempt the study of theology, itself once considered the queen of the sciences.  It was believed that one could not properly understand Christian theology if one did not first have a deep grasp of the natural world.
 
Worse still, in order to arrive at the conclusion that a person is required to choose between being a faithful Christian, on one hand, or accepting the things that scientific exploration has proven to be true, on the other hand, more often than not requires Christian Scripture to be mangled beyond recognition.  It requires that portions of the Bible which were from the beginning written as allegory, symbolism, poetry, and myth (in the grandest, truest sense of the term) to be crushed into simplistic and nonsensical texts devoid of any truth or meaning beyond the crudest and most literal reading.  (At the same time, many of the groups who insist on such literal readings of Genesis and other portions of the Bible also insist that we not take texts like Matthew, chapter 25, literally at all!)
 
Now, let’s be as charitable as we can be.  Let’s assume—and I truly believe this is a good assumption to make—that these ideas, as wrong as they are, come from a place of good intentions.  Folks want to be faithful.  Folks want to lift up Holy Scripture and say (and know) that the Scriptures are true.  Y’all, I aspire to both those things, myself!  I want to be faithful to Christ.  And I know that the Scriptures are, in fact, true.  This all fits together, because as John tells us in his Gospel (chapter 14, verse 6), it is Jesus himself who is “the way, the truth, and the life.”  If we are to be Christians, we must be people devoted to truth.
 
But that’s where many folks go off the rails.  They think that it’s either one thing, or the other, and if the choice is between God & salvation, on one hand, or scientific facts on the other, they enthusiastically choose God & salvation.  Well, as far as it goes, that’s the right choice … but it’s a false dichotomy to begin with.  The very notion that such a choice exists, much less has to be made, is just flat wrong.
 
I believe that Pope John Paul II spoke wisely and rightly in 1996 when, speaking on the subject of evolution, he told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that, “truth cannot contradict truth.”  If we, as Christians, believe in the truth of Scripture because we believe that Jesus is truth, then we must also accept what scientific examination has revealed to be true of the created world in which we live, the very world which was made by, in, and through God in Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit:  “All things came into being through him [Christ], and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:3).
 
Our understanding of the material world must be informed by our faith … and our understanding of the Faith must take into account what we know of the created order.  The science of biology has revealed that all living human beings are of one biological species.  So when our Scriptures tell us that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, that means that not only our oneness but also our sacredness, our shared spark of the Divine given us by God, transcends all seeming differences and apparent barriers of race, nationality or culture.  And we must act accordingly, seeking and serving Christ in all persons.  Likewise, genetics has proven that even something as seemingly basic and fundamental as “biological sex” (much less gender identity) is extraordinarily complex and truly difficult to define, far from being simple and binary.  And that fact has to have an impact on how we understand such key aspects of our faith tradition as the sacramental rite of marriage, among other things, and it must spur us to examine more deeply any lines of Scripture that we previously thought said otherwise.
 
My friends, these are difficult ideas to consider.  But be encouraged by the fact that our Christian faith tradition has a long and, honestly, glorious tradition of faithfully wrestling with the highest, deepest, most difficult, most challenging concepts in human history.  Episcopalians have in the past been known to brag that our branch of the Faith does not require you to “check your brain at the door.”  Let’s do better than that.  Let’s actually steer into the difficult questions; let’s wrestle with the facts that make us uncomfortable, and the Scriptures that give us pause or make us shake our heads.  Jesus went to the cross for us.  We can, at the least, love him back with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

My dear family in Christ,
 
As we continue to gear up for the launch of our 2024 Fall Program Year, I continue to be encouraged by your enthusiasm and deep commitment to the ministries of All Saints.  Our weekday Eucharists (Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. and Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m.) have each developed into intimate communities around their respective services ~ come try one out to see what I mean.  Meanwhile, our newest program, Living Christianity on Monday nights, has been well attended thus far, both for our first series (on theological reflection) and our second (on Christian meditation).  A third series in the program is now about to begin ~ see the announcement elsewhere in this newsletter.  Our sidewalk ministry during the Farmers’ Market is a great success, and our weekly Zoom offerings (Bible study on Mondays at 11:30 and Faith Talk on Thursdays at 12:30) are still going strong after more than two years now.  But perhaps most importantly, a parishioner recently shared with me her impression that our parish feels “spiritually alive” (her words) now, and what an amazing testament to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit amongst us that is!
 
Our principal worship on Sundays must have something to do with that feeling, I think.  Since I came back from my vacation in July, it’s been a pleasure, a delight, and a privilege to move back into our time-honored liturgies with all of you.  Our Sunday morning gatherings have felt, to me, truly life-giving.  I hope that’s been y’all’s experience, as well.  And I truly hope that at least some of that feeling comes through in our livestream for everyone who participates in worship with us from afar.  In fact, aside from some technological issues that we’ve struggled with (the hearing aid loop suddenly not working & sound issues with the livestream, both of which I hope are now resolved), Sundays have been so good that I hate to bring it up, but Sundays are about to change a little bit.
 
On September 22, we return to our familiar two-service schedule:  a Rite I spoken service at 8:30 a.m., and a Rite II service with choir & music at 10:30 a.m.  That was the schedule we used prior to going to a single service at 9:30 this past June, as an experimental “summer schedule.”  The experiment, I think, has been overall a success.  A number of folks have gone out of their way to tell me how much they’ve appreciated seeing so many more people in the pews with them, not to mention reconnecting with long-time members of our congregation whom they had not seen for so long because they went to different services on Sundays.  On the other hand, a number of folks have shared with me that the summer schedule did bring some hardships, as well, and did prevent some folks from being able to attend worship in person.
 
This is a perennial tension in any parish ~ the attempt to find the “perfect” service time that works for every person in the parish and creates hardships for none.  I bring it up now for our parish because I want to invite you to notice what, if anything, changes as we go back to the two-service schedule:  notice how the services you attend feel.  Notice who’s there in the pews around you.  Try to see our church as though you were a stranger visiting All Saints for the first time.  How does it strike you to see how many pews are filled?  Or how many aren’t?  How does the liturgy of whichever service you attend speak to you as a long-time member of the parish?  How, on the other hand, would that same liturgy feel to a new visitor who just walked in off the street?
 
I invite you to reflect on these questions in part because the fall is a time when we’re likely to get more visitors coming to check us out than we might at other times of the year.  Because we are making (and need to make) a concerted effort to start growing our parish.  And because, as I mentioned before, we are in a real moment of spiritual alive-ness here!  We want to do everything we can to feed that energy and give the Holy Spirit as much to work with as we can.
 
So what I’m really inviting you to do is to hold on somewhat loosely to our “regular” service schedule, and let’s see how well it works moving forward.  There are all sorts of approaches to arranging services that we have not tried yet (or at least recently, since I’ve been here).  We’ll be on this two-service schedule for the foreseeable future ~ let’s go into it with a “let’s see how it works” frame of mind.  It may well be that by doubling our Sunday services, we’ll end up doubling our attendance at worship.  Wouldn’t that be amazing?
 
On that note, I’ll leave off with this reminder:  when studies have been done, the statistics have shown that when folks are asked what got them to start attending whatever church they attend, the most common answer is “A friend invited me to come.”  That’s the main reason, by an overwhelming margin.  So as we change to our Fall service times, don’t forget to invite people to come to church with you, to whichever service you’ll attend.  It will make a huge difference.
 
Thank you all ~ each of you ~ for everything you do to make All Saints the incredible spiritual community that it is.  Your faith is inspiring!  Now, in the words of the song that Anne and I once sang to you:  “Go tell somebody!” : )
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

My dear family in Christ,
 
We are gearing up for a most exciting Fall this year, my friends.  While our official kick-off date of 22 September might seem a tad late in the season to be beginning, things are already in motion “behind the scenes” that will make for a Fall program that should be not only interesting, uplifting, and meaningful, but also a whole lot of fun!
 
Up first, our ongoing Living Christianity: a How To program has already been up and running for many weeks now.  Currently, Karl Bjornerud is leading a wonderful exploration of meditation in the Christian tradition.  If you haven’t yet joined in to see what this program is all about, this series is a fantastic introduction and will run for two more sessions (on the 9th and 16th, as we’ll be closed for Labor Day).  And on 23 September, we’ll begin a new series:  Anglicanism 101, a class designed to be both an introduction to The Episcopal Church for newcomers and a refresher course in the basics of Anglican Christianity for all of us.  (The plan right now is to run this series twice a year going forward, once in Fall and once in Spring, since the same series will also serve as preparation for Confirmation.)  Make plans to join us, and bring ALL your questions!
 
Next, save the date of 11 October, when we will host a coffee-house style Artists’ Open Mic Night, the first of what we hope will be many more to come.  We’ll get the Palmer room all gussied up for the occasion, and artists both from the community and our congregation will be encouraged to sign up for a time slot to do your thing, whether that be singing an original song, reading or reciting of poem or short piece of prose, exhibiting your visual art, or even performing a dance.  Performances will run in five-minute time slots from 7 p.m. till 8, followed by a time for casual gathering and fellowship.  We’ve already got a couple of dedicated volunteers working hard to arrange the logistics for this event, but we could definitely use more help!  If you want to get involved, please contact Fr. Christopher asap!
 
Also in October is the annual Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service put on by the City Park area churches, and for which this year All Saints will be the host church!  It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to invite our brothers and sisters in Christ from the neighboring congregations into our parish home for an event that is always well-attended and deeply appreciated by the community.  More details will be published as the planning comes together for the event, so stay tuned!
 
Last thing ~ for now! ~ is a reminder of what our Senior Warden shared with us after the recent Vestry meeting:  we really want to celebrate our “namesake” feast of All Saints this year in a big way.  In fact, we’re working to put together a series of celebrations and services for All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day (and, of course, All Saints Sunday, as well) that will be rather like an Autumnal equivalent of Holy Week and the Triduum leading up to Easter in the Spring.  If you’ve got ideas for how we can make these celebrations truly special, please share your thoughts with the church office and/or with Fr. Christopher, because plans are being made even now.
 
Y’all.  Y’all!  This Fall is going to be a wonderful time to be part of this incredible faith community.  I can’t wait to celebrate our shared lives together in Christ with all of you.  Thank you for everything you all do to make All Saints what it is.
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

My dear family in Christ,
 
Greetings, salutations, peace, and blessings!  I’m recently back from my vacation month, and I’m excited about everything that’s coming up for the Fall Program Year for 2024 here at All Saints!  But before we get to that, I must repeat in print the thanks that I’ve previously expressed verbally to all of you who stepped up and stepped in and gave your support to the lay-led services that offered such beautiful and meaningful worship at All Saints whilst I was away.  Y’all are awesome!
 
Indeed, just this past Sunday, we had a young person visit and worship with us.  She’s about to go off to college in New York and wanted to check out a number of different churches before she goes.  She filled out one of our visitor info cards, so I emailed her on Monday to thank her for visiting us.  She replied:  “Thank you so much for having me, it was a truly beautiful service and it opened my heart so much. I really do hope to come back at some point and join you all again, your community is so wonderful, the people that make it up are so kind.”
 
I’ve spoken repeatedly this year about what I have felt to be the Holy Spirit’s urging our church family towards a spiritual revival; from everything I’ve heard since returning (and from what I’ve seen of the livestream videos), and from what I’m seeing first-hand now that I’m back, I strongly suspect that such a revival is already well underway in this congregation!  I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the Spirit leads us this fall and beyond…
 
So, looking ahead:  Sunday, September 22, will be our official “kickoff” day for our Fall Program Year.  We will return to our two-service format for Sunday mornings:  8:30 a.m. Rite I spoken service and 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music & choir.  
 
We’ve got a number of new program ideas in the works to launch this fall, including the first installment of Anglicanism 101, a small series that will run twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring.   It will be a combination of an inquirers’ class, an introduction for newcomers to The Episcopal Church, and a wonderful “refresher” for lifelong Episcopalians who’d like to explore just why we do what we do the way that we do it.  Look for more details about that series in the very near future.
 
I’m also kicking around a few ideas for expanding our Wednesday evening Eucharist service.  For instance, we’ve got a number of musicians in our parish who’ve expressed some interest in helping to add music to our midweek worship ~ if you play and/or sing and would like to be part of a music team for Wednesday nights, please let me know.  Let’s be creative here.  Instruments and styles that you might not think of when you think of “church music” could just be perfect for this service.  Let’s talk about it!
 
But what I’d really like is for us to be able to offer a meal each Wednesday before worship.  For one thing, we’ve seen that whenever we’ve done so in the past, attendance at worship has doubled (or more).  For another thing, I believe this would be an excellent way to offer a church experience that would be meaningful and valuable to the communities around us, particularly the students at Lawrence.  What college student couldn’t use a free home-cooked meal once a week, guaranteed?
 
The catch, of course, is that I, myself, can barely “cook” a bowl of cold cereal, much less an actual meal.  So to make this idea happen, I’m going to need help from some folks who do actually know what they’re doing in the kitchen.  Ideally, we’d want to have a rota of cooks so that no one person would have to be “on” for more than one Wednesday every 4-6 weeks.  I know it’s a big ask, but it would be a ministry that could really help grow our parish community.  Please contact me with any questions, and let’s see if we can get this going!
 
Other surprises are also in the planning stages for this Fall Program Year, so stay tuned for more information to come.  And if you have ideas for what you’d like to see at All Saints, either this fall or in the coming year, please reach out and let’s talk.  As I said, I’m excited about where the Spirit is moving us ~ let’s go!
 
Peace & blessings,
Fr. C

My dear family in Christ,
 
By now, you’ve probably heard me plug our new Monday night offering, Living Christianity:  a How To, at least a couple of times.  But I’d like to use my newsletter column today to share with you what we’ve been doing so far in the first mini-course of this ongoing series.  For the past four sessions, we’ve been practicing a process of Theological Reflection that I first experienced back in the 2010s in the Education for Ministry program ~ EfM, for short.
 
EfM is a program administered by The School of Theology of the University of the South, Sewanee ~ my seminary alma mater ~ primarily for lay folks who seek a deeper knowledge of an engagement with their Christian faith, from an Episcopal perspective.  And Theological Reflection is a cornerstone of the EfM program.  Essentially, TR is a formal, structured process of asking “Where is God in this?” ~ whatever “this” might happen to be.  It is based on a few presumptions:  first and most important, that God is always trying to speak to us, at all times and in all places; second, that discernment, while always personal, often works best in the context of compassionate and loving Christian community; and third, that the connections between our individual experiences, our shared faith tradition, and the larger culture(s) in which we live are dynamic and interactive ~ that the different aspects of our lives exist in constant conversation with each other.  The structure of TR helps us both to tease apart and also to find the links between the various facets and categories of our lives and experiences.
 
Whew!  That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?  Well, for what it’s worth, it’s the kind of thing that makes much more sense after you do it a few times than it does just reading a description of it.  So, what exactly have we been doing these past few Mondays?  Well, we’ve been exploring what EfM calls the “microscope method” of Theological Reflection.  The process begins with a focal point ~ in this case, someone in the group volunteers to share the story of a personal experience they’ve had in the past.  (That’s a rule, actually:  present situations that are unresolved and/or ongoing are not allowed for TRs; TR is not therapy, and it’s not designed for folks to work out their problems in the present.  So the incident offered for reflection has to be in the past, something that’s over and done with.)
 
The volunteer briefly tells the story of that single experience.  The rest of the group may then ask questions for clarification of details ~ just the “journalism questions,” at this point:  who, what, when, where, and how.  We deliberately hold off from letting ourselves ask what it all meant or trying to interpret the incident in a larger way.  After any needed clarifying, we then as a group look more closely at the incident to identify the moment of “highest energy,” the point in the story that is the most intense, compelling, or interesting.  That, of course, is subjective, but it’s usually not too hard to come to a consensus.  Once we do, that single, individual moment out of the original story becomes the focal point for our TR ~ that’s the bit that we put “under the microscope,” so to speak.
 
Having identified that one moment to focus on, we go back to the original volunteer and ask, “In that specific moment, what were your thoughts and your feelings?”  And we list them, separately, on the chalkboard.  It’s sometimes tricky to separate thoughts from feelings, but it’s important, because from the lists of thoughts and feelings, we then turn to the other members of the group and ask:  “Can you think of a specific time in your life when you had those specific thoughts and those particular feelings?”  With that question, we move beyond the limits of one person’s individual experience and start to make more universal connections.
 
Once we’ve had a few minutes to share our own experiences of the thoughts and feelings at hand, we then work together to create an image or metaphor ~ completely independent of anyone’s individual experiences ~ that captures and expresses the thoughts and feelings that we’ve all just connected with.  At this point, the hapless facilitator is tasked with, um, attempted to draw said image or metaphor on the chalkboard … whether or not he has any artistic ability whatsoever.  Er.  (A bit of laughter often ensues.)
 
For the rest of the TR, we explore the world of the metaphor we’ve come up with.  In particular, we examine it in term of Creation (life & existence), Sin (destruction & disharmony); Judgment (epiphany & realization); Repentance (change); and Reconciliation (restoration, healing, new life, &c.).  It’s in this step that we learn and practice the art of seeing our worlds and us, ourselves, in and through the archetypes of the Christian paradigm.  And while this step often results in keen and even surprising insights, I think its real value is in training ourselves, through practice and repetition, to understand and know that all stories are part and parcel of THE story, the story of God’s self-sacrificial love for us made incarnate in Jesus Christ and revealed through the Holy Spirit.
 
But we don’t stop even there!  The last portion of the TR calls us to examine the story of the metaphor through four distinct lenses:  the tradition, the larger culture, our individual experiences & actions, and our abstract positions or beliefs.  We ask, “What does the 2,000 year old Christian faith tradition say about the world of this metaphor?”  The answers could be lines of Scripture, verses from hymns, bits of liturgy, even particular doctrines.  We ask the same question of the larger culture/society in which we live ~ what does it tell us about the world of the metaphor?  It’s really interesting to see the ways in which the tradition and the culture agree … or contradict each other.  We go back and reconnect with our individual personal experiences, both the original focal point and other incidents that have come to mind throughout the process.  And lastly, we consider whether, through this reflection, any of us has identified a position, belief, or conviction related to the world of the metaphor.
 
It’s important to know that, especially with that last step, the purpose is not to generate some sort of broad consensus that we all share.  Often, one person’s “I believe that…” statement with be diametrically opposed to that of another group member.  And that is OKAY!  Again, the purpose is not to agree; the purpose is to discover!
 
As you can see, it’s a somewhat involved process, but done faithfully (and with a good sense of humor), it bears much fruit.  It has been thus far an absolute delight getting to share this practice with our Monday night group.  We have a lot of fun along the way, even as we’re doing some serious and faithful reflecting.  If you have not yet had a chance to come check it out, fear not ~ we’ll be sticking with Theological Reflection for a few more weeks, at least.  We’ll do so partly because we’re having such a great time with it, but also because it’s a practice that offers a stellar foundation for Christian living in general.  In addition, I think that after each mini-course we do for this program, coming back to TR afterwards will be a great way to stitch together all of the various things I’m planning for us to explore.  Say we do a mini-series on Anglican prayer beads; after practicing that for several weeks, we might do a TR on our experiences of using the prayer beads.
 
Pursued faithfully, Theological Reflection becomes a way of living our Christian faith, even in the seemingly mundane day-to-day details of our ordinary lives.  We eventually begin to perceive that, in fact, there’s no such thing as ordinary, that each of us individually and all of us together are extraordinary, miraculous, exquisite creations of an amazing and loving God.
 
So come check it out if you get the chance ~ Mondays at 6:30.  Hope to see y’all soon!
 
Peace & blessings,
Fr. C

My dear family in Christ,
 
Recently, I re-shared on one of my social media accounts a quote from a colleague and fellow Sewanee alum, the Rev. Boyd Evans, that I thought particularly relevant to the state of the Christian faith in our American culture.  To my surprise (and it’s always at least a little to my surprise to discover that every single person on Earth does not in fact see every single thing exactly the same way I do), my sharing of Fr. Evans’s quote led to a bit of controversy in the comments section.  Some compelling and interesting points were raised by some good friends who took issue with the quotation, and that indicates to me that there’s some good “faith talk” to be had in exploring these ideas.
 
Here’s the quote from Fr. Evans:
 
“Christianity was never about individual salvation.  It is well past time for us to get over this notion.  If you don’t believe that your salvation is bound up with your neighbor’s, you have entirely missed Jesus[’s] message.”
 
Now, we’ve talked in a number of different sermons, as well as in our Zoom Bible study and Faith Talk sessions, about the communal nature of the cultures in which both Testaments of Holy Scripture came to be produced.  Both the ancient Hebrews and the ancient Greeks put family and community first, and the individual second (or third…).  That is, of course, painting with a broad brushstroke; there were exceptions, and “community/family first” was not an etched-in-stone, inviolable law.  But the fact remains that it was characteristic of both cultures that one discovered and understood one’s individual identity primarily in terms of one’s family and one’s community.  “Who I am” was a question answered in the context of “who are my people” ~ or, better yet, “to which people do I belong?”
 
To be sure, the ancient Hebrews understood things like justice in communal terms:  if one individual in my community is the victim of injustice, then my whole community does not have justice, and I, as a member of that community, am likewise a victim of that injustice.  The Greeks, as well, placed emphasis on community, as can be seen in the philosophies of, for example, Socrates as recorded by Plato.
 
From such cultural perspectives, the notion that salvation could be something to which an individual could attain, regardless of the state or status of that person’s family or community (i.e., his or her “people”), would have been nonsensical.  And yet, in so much of contemporary American Christianity, that does seem to be the way the concept of salvation is presented, is understood, is ~ to a real extent ~ practiced.  We tend to commodify salvation, to turn it into a product or service that one person can possess or access without regard for or connection to anybody else.  “I am saved; as for the person next to me, who can say?  That’s up to God, and anyway, it’s none of my business” seems to be the popular understanding.
 
But a number of my friends took issue not only with Fr. Boyd’s quote, but with the kinds of explanation that I just mentioned, above.  One of them responded by asking, “So, individuals don’t matter, then?  Can God not save an individual?”  More than one person raised the concern about corporate culpability:  “Does that mean, if my family or my community is evil and unrepentant, I’m going to go to hell, even if I’m a good and faithful individual, myself?”
 
Personally, I didn’t see anything in the initial quotation to imply either of those meanings, but I have to admit that they are good, valid questions.  So, what do we do, then?  How do we respond?
 
Well, to clarify, I am not claiming, nor will I ever claim, that there is anything that God “can’t” do.  Full stop.  I don’t think the question here is about what God can or cannot do.  I think the question is, rather, about what it means to be human.
 
What I am saying, and what I believe Fr. Boyd is saying, is that we as human beings do not and cannot even really exist as individuals totally separate from other human beings. Our interconnectedness is not an abstract ideal to aspire towards, but rather a material fact of our present existence. In light of that fact, it’s simply not feasible to consider just my individual salvation one way or the other as if I existed in isolation in some sort of individual vacuum. It just doesn’t make any sense to think about salvation in such terms.
 
And it’s important to point that out emphatically because Western culture for centuries has elevated ~ really deified ~ the principle of individualism so much that it’s now gotten beyond the level of caricature. Western individualism has so distorted our subconscious conceptions and perceptions, of ourselves and of each other, that we’re often in active denial of the fact that we’re connected to each other at all.
 
And that’s a perspective that is so utterly alien to that of either Testament of Holy Scripture that our perspective actively prevents us from understanding the Bible accurately.  So again, it’s not about what God can or cannot do in terms of saving people. It’s that we in our culture are simply put unable to read the Bible correctly when left to our own cultural devices.
 
And that is dangerous, to be honest.
 
Likewise, it’s not “the group instead of the individual”; it’s that the individual is subsumed within the group, and the point of Jesus’s salvific atonement is the redemption and reconciliation of all humanity with (and within) God…
… whereas postmodern American Christians have a lamentable tendency to view salvation as we view every other “consumable” good in our culture, whether it be good, fashion, housing, education, etc.:  as a matter of individual benefit and/or privilege. I.e., “my salvation is my own, and as long as I’m saved, I might feel bad for someone else, but that between them and God, and in any event it ain’t none of my business, and it certainly ain’t my problem.”
 
If that is indeed how we look at salvation, even (especially) subconsciously, then I think we’ll have a devil of a time (that phrase chosen very deliberately!) actually grasping what Jesus it teaching us, and what He’s calling us to move toward and live into.
 
The other thing I think we need to consider is that “bound up with” and “depends upon” are not the same thing, just to clarify further.  To say that our individual salvation is bound up with our fellow human beings is not at all to say or to imply that our individual salvation depends upon any other human being.  The only One on whom our salvation depends is Jesus. But that same Jesus doesn’t allow us to imagine our own salvation in isolation apart from our fellow human beings.
 
Perhaps that is one of the greatest Mysteries of the faith ~ namely, that Jesus Christ did absolutely and in actual fact go to the Cross and sacrifice His life for me, lone me, an individual sinner, in an intensely intimate and personal fashion … and that is exactly what He did for every other individual, and also exactly how He effected Atonement for all humanity and indeed all of Creation at the same time.
 
Maybe we cannot really understand it fully as limited, individual human beings.  Maybe all we can truly, authentically do in the face of such a magnitude of grace is to shout ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!
 
Happy Easter, y’all!
 
Fr. C

My dear family in Christ,
 
Alleluia!  He is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!
 
We are now well into the great Fifty Days of Easter, and despite some fits and starts (and stops, and restarts), it appears, at least as of today, that we might even be on the verge of Spring.  Alleluia, indeed!
 
In the previous column, we considered the shape the disciples were in when the risen Jesus Christ appeared to them after the devastation of the crucifixion.  In particular, we looked at their need for recover and healing before they could take up their new vocation as apostles.  I mentioned that there were two stories from Scripture that have been on my mind of late:  the first was from John’s Gospel, the story of the man by the pool of Beth-zatha whom Jesus asked, “Do you want to be made well?”; the second, our subject for this column, is from the Second Book of Kings,  the story of Naaman of Aram and his encounter with Elisha the Prophet.
 
“Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.’ So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, ‘Go, then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’
 
“He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his skin disease.’ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his skin disease? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’
 
“But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.’ But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” (2 Kings 5:1-14)
 
This passage offers a contrast to the one from John’s Gospel.  Unlike the man at the pool of Beth-zatha, Naaman is not physically hindered or prevented from accessing the healing he seeks.  Indeed, he is not only given permission from his king to go to a foreign country to be healed, but he is also given a royal letter to give to the king of that foreign country, formally requesting that he be healed.  In view of the length of his journey and the size of the retinue he brings with him, Naaman does not need to be asked whether he wishes to be made well.  He is not in despair or on the brink of giving up.  In fact, circumstances seem to be conspiring in his favor:  the Prophet Elisha himself actually sends for Naaman to come see him so that he may be healed (and so he will “learn that there is a prophet in Israel”).
 
No, Naaman has a different problem.  His difficulty is not gaining access to healing; his difficulty is trust.  When Elisha tells him ~ indirectly, through his servant ~ simply to go to the Jordan River and wash seven times, Naaman cannot accept it.  But his reaction goes beyond mere disbelief … he gets angry.  In his anger, he inadvertently reveals what is keeping him from trusting Elisha. 
 
He first rants that he had thought that, for him, the prophet himself would have come out to do the healing himself.  After all, Naaman was an Important Person, the commander of the army of Aram, in Israel with the blessing of his king.  And Elisha doesn’t even deign to come out of the house, but sends a messenger, a servant, to tell Naaman what to do?  How insulting!
 
Furthermore, he’s astonished that the prescription is just to dip into the Jordan a few times.  There are rivers in Aram that are perfectly good ~ far better, in fact, than any in Israel!  Why should he have had to come all this way when he could have just as well gone swimming at home (in those better rivers)?  And how could something so simply and easy possibly cure such a serious illness as his?
 
So it’s not just a lack of trust, and it’s not just disbelief.  It’s also ego.  It’s also pride.  Elisha has not shown him the deference that Naaman believes he’s due.  Nor has Elisha taken his illness as seriously as Naaman thinks the prophet should have; if he had, he would have prescribed a more intricate and demanding ritual to make him clean.
 
But that’s not how healing works.  To seek healing is to be called to a place of humility.  It is to put our trust, to put ourselves, into the hands of another.  It is to relinquish our illusions of being in control.  And when the healing we seek is to come from God, it is to accept that we are no more (or less) important than anyone else.  Interesting, then, that it is Naaman’s servants and underlings who manage to convince him to go back and trust the prophet, to humble himself and submit to the instructions Elisha gave him.  Naaman does so and is healed.
 
The man at the pool of Beth-zatha was neither prideful nor arrogant.  The obstacles that had kept him from receiving healing were different than those of Naaman.  But the two figures do share something in common:  the healing they each experienced came to them in forms that neither man had imagined.  At Beth-zatha, Jesus healed the man without his putting so much as a toe into the healing waters that he’d been trying to reach forever.  Naaman expected Elisha to come out and make a show of calling on the name of God and placing his prophetic hand upon the wound to heal it.  For the man who could not walk, simply standing up seemed a preposterous notion, as merely dunking himself a few times in the Jordan did to Naaman.
 
Can we, today, find a way to accept that the healing God has in store for us will come to us in ways and shapes and forms and experiences that seem equally preposterous?  Could we go beyond merely accepting that?  Could we perhaps learn to expect it?
 
My dear friends, I think we should expect it!  We are here because we are followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  All of Scripture, and the whole history of the faith, demonstrates again and again that God’s people must expect two things:  1) God’s gonna show up in the most unexpected places, at the most unexpected times, and in the most unexpected ways; and 2) God’s gonna keep God’s promises, no matter how preposterous or crazy or impossible that may seem to us. 
 
We’ve been through a lot as a parish these past four years and change, and y’all had already been through a lot when I first got here.  We need some healing.  Let us seek healing with the diligence of Naaman, and let us respond to Jesus with the faith of the man at Beth-zatha.  And let us continue to expect God to show up, right here, and do great things!
 
Peace & blessings,
C+

My dear family in Christ,
 
Alleluia!  He is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!
 
Now we live in the time of Resurrection.  Alleluia!  But what does that mean?  What do we do with this incredible, life-changing, world-shattering Truth that we have all just witnessed a week and a half ago? 
 
It means that we are now called and appointed to go out and tell the whole world the Good News!  And yet … that’s not the first thing that Jesus’s disciples went out and did, is it?  No, before they would be ready to take up their calling as apostles ~ as ones who have been sent out ~ they first needed to process the incredible, unfathomable things they had been through.  And, let’s be honest, they needed some healing.  The road to Calvary, to the Cross and the Tomb, had taken a toll.  Even the risen Jesus still bore the wounds of that journey, after all.
 
Last Sunday, we heard how Jesus appeared to the disciples in a locked room where they were hiding, in fear for their lives, in the aftermath of their leader’s brutal execution.  We heard how Jesus showed them his still-wounded body, because they needed to see, to know, that he really had died, and that he really had been raised.  Jesus even made a second visit to the same locked room a week later because one of them, Thomas, had not been present to receive that healing, to experience that transforming encounter with the risen Lord.
 
Jesus knew that his disciples were not yet ready to be sent out as apostles.  He would therefore appear numerous times to various groups of people before finally ascending to the Father some forty days after his Resurrection.  Even then, it would still be another ten days before the gift of the Holy Spirit would descend upon them on the Day of Pentecost, transforming them from a band of survivors into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church whose ministry we share today.
 
Clearly, a lot can happen in forty or fifty days.  And, in that light, I have been reflecting on the process of healing and just how transformative the experience of receiving healing is for us.  Two stories of healing have been on my mind and heart lately, passages that we have not heard recently in our Lectionary.  I’ll share one of them with you now, and the other in my next column.
 
The first is from John’s Gospel (chapter 5, verses 2-9):
 
 “Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The ill man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”
 
It’s the conversation before the healing, the exchange between Jesus and this suffering man, that is so compelling in this passage.
 
The man had been suffering for many years, and he has been doing everything he can, in his impaired state, to pursue relief and seek healing.  Jesus clearly understands fully the nature of the situation, too.  Yet the first words that Jesus speaks to this man who has been suffering for so long are:  “Do you want to be made well?” 
 
The answer should be obvious.  Is obvious, in fact.  So much so that the man never even bothers to say “yes”; he simply points out to Jesus that he cannot get down into the healing waters on his own.  Satisfied, Jesus heals him instantly, taking away the cause of his suffering and, at the same time, obviating his need to get down into the healing waters of the pool.
 
So why does Jesus ask the question?  Why that question?
 
The fact that the man does not answer with “yes” might give us some insight.  As just mentioned, the man instead describes essentially his own helplessness, his own inability to heal himself.  Perhaps that is what Jesus is really asking:  “Do you understand that you cannot on your own make yourself well?”
 
If that’s the case, then this whole scene has something critically important to say to us, in our own day and age.  Something important to say to you and me, here, now, at All Saints Episcopal Church in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, in the spring of A.D. 2024.
 
As we face our own challenges in our parish and our community, have we stopped to confront the question Jesus asks:  do we want to be made well?
 
We should not jump to answering that question too quickly.  Remember that an answer of “yes” seemed even more self-evident for the lame man at Beth-zatha than it might for us, so let’s not take it as given.  Let’s take time really to think about it, really to pray about it.  Let’s actually put ourselves in the shoes ~ rather, on the mat ~ of the man in the Gospel passage …
 
Are we doing in this moment everything that we can in our present circumstances to get ourselves into a place of healing?  Do we have faith that healing is really possible?  Are the obstacles to our healing external problems that are beyond our control, or are some of them the result of our own choices?  Have we acknowledged, even to ourselves, that we need to be healed?
 
We should note that there is an implied “now” in Jesus’s question:  “Do you want to be made well now?”  Are we ready to experience the healing that God offers us right now? 
 
Likewise, are well ready, in this moment, to put our full trust in Jesus Christ?  The lame man in John’s Gospel has bent all his effort, for a very long time, towards getting down into those healing waters in the pool.  When Jesus offers him the healing he has long sought, the man seems to think that Jesus is offering to help him get into the pool.  Jesus’s healing takes a radically different form, one the man could scarcely even have imagined as a daydream:  Jesus just tells him to get up and walk.
 
And the man has the faith to do just that, despite his long-held expectations of what healing would look like for him.  Do we have that kind of faith?  Do we even think of faith in that way?
 
If not, can we imagine what our faith community might look like if we did?
 
Peace & blessings,
C+

Follow-up to our Family Meeting
 
In both our Annual Parish meeting last January and our more recent Family Meeting on the 17th of this month, we gathered together as a community and shared some wonderful food and fellowship.  We also first began, and then continued, the process and looking closely and honestly at what’s working in our parish … and at some of the things that aren’t.  We’ve named and appreciated the abundance of resources, gifts, and blessings that we enjoy as a worshipping community. 
 
We’ve also begun some important conversations about the significant challenges we yet face as we move forward into 2024 and beyond.  And we’ve started to name out loud and share with each other the things we love, the things that frustrate us, the possibilities that excite us, and the treasured aspects of our church community that we fear to lose.
 
The meeting itself felt a bit uneven, at times; that’s to be expected when there are different perspectives to be shared and discussed, all the more so when we’re talking about something ~ our very parish family! ~ that we all love so deeply and want so passionately to see grow and thrive.  A little tension, in that light, is a wonderful indicator of the fact that we all care so intensely about this parish, this precious thing that we all get to be part of and which has been entrusted into our faithful care.
 
Three huge takeaways from these meetings for me have been 1) the fact of deferred maintenance, 2) the need for deep healing, and 3) the energy and enthusiasm that spontaneously welled up at the March meeting during the small-group breakout conversations.  I’ll have more to say about deferred maintenance and deep healing elsewhere.  For now, I want to emphasize that, overall, there was a clear, vocal mandate from the assembly that we need to take action.  
 
In response to that mandate, I made a promise that, coming out of this latest meeting, I would, in consultation with the parish leadership, come back to y’all with a short-term action item, a middle-term action item, and a longer-term goal for the parish.  The Vestry indeed has taken up that work as of our March meeting.  In the short-term especially, however, we need to capitalize on the incredible energy that came up in the small-group discussions on the 17th.  I am therefore going ahead and sharing my proposals for two areas of action and a goal for the parish …
 
Short-term action:
 
In the immediate short term, it’s clear that we need to create many more face-to-face opportunities for folks to engage in focused conversation together in small, informal groups.  Obviously, the major challenge is finding times when people can actually get together.  To that end, I propose that we use the two midweek time slots already on our calendar ~ Tuesday mornings at 9:30 and Wednesday evenings at 6:30 ~ for a variety of offerings, including but not limited to Holy Eucharist.
 
While we need to make sure that we continue to offer midweek Eucharists at least one Tuesday and one Wednesday in each month, on the other days we could host in-person Bible studies, Christian formation sessions, Anglicanism 101 classes (both for newcomers and for folks who want a refresher or just to know more about our particular flavor of Christianity), discernment workshops (not just for discerning calls to holy orders, but for discerning any aspect of God’s will for your life).
 
For folks who are not free on Wednesday evenings, I propose to offer Monday evenings, as well, for any or all of the above.
 
But we don’t even have to limit these small gatherings to the things I just named.  Circle Songs, for example, will be moving from Sunday afternoons to a weeknight.  We could other evening gatherings for shared artistic expression, acoustic instrument improv sessions, and/or respectful conversations about the things going on in our world that … challenge our faith.  We could have small group prayer gatherings, meditation workshops, lectio divina, etc.
 
One thing I really want us to get going is a support group for folks who are struggling with having faith at all, especially in these challenging times.  Something like “Agnostics Anonymous,” a place where it would be utterly safe to talk out loud about what you believe … or don’t believe.  It would have to be a covenanted, confidential group, and I as priest would not be allowed to visit, except by express invitation of the group in advance, so folks would be completely safe to be honest and open. 
 
Middle-term action:
 
In the slightly-longer short-term ~ i.e., the middle-term ~ we’ve got several plans already underway:  to have a presence at the Farmer’s Market this season; to participate in Appleton’s PRIDE event again with our own booth/table/tent, as we did last year; to host musical concerts to which we can invite the larger Appleton community; and, on a somewhat related note, to host the first of what will hopefully become a series of coffee house style “open-mic nights” wherein our folks can showcase their many and varied artistic talents and original creations ~ the hope is that such a thing might grow into a real community event beyond just our own parish.  Please stay tuned for more information as these ideas come closer to fruition.  And please let the office, the Vestry, and/or me know of what other ideas you have for community engagement!
 
Goal:
 
“All Hallways Bright and Beautiful”
 
For a concrete, tangible goal, we should commit to brightening and beautifying our hallways and corridors by Advent 1, 2024.  Our sanctuary and chapel worship spaces are already gorgeous; our hallways, especially the long corridor leading from the Washington St. entrance, not so much.  Between the bare cinder block walls, the dark green tiled floors, and the dim fluorescent lighting overhead, these hallway spaces, while comfortable to folks who are long familiar with them, are not as inviting and welcoming to new folks visiting our spaces for the first time.
 
I’m currently working with our sexton, Andrew, to see how we can make the overhead light fixtures brighter.  But given the artistic abilities and talents for craftwork of the people of this parish, I am convinced that it we put our heads together, roll up our sleeves, get creative, and get to work, we can transform our hallways into warm and welcoming spaces that make people want to come inside and stay with us.
 
Artwork, quilts or tapestries, murals, designs ~ we could do all sorts of things with the cinder block walls.  Donations of rugs and carpets could give the hallways a much more welcoming feel, though of course we would have to be careful to make sure such things don’t become obstacles or safety hazards.  Lamps and table displays here and there, in addition to brighter lights overhead, could transform how our spaces feel dramatically.
 
But that’s just off the top of my own limited head, so to speak.  I’m excited to hear the creative solutions that you all come up with!
 
And as always, I encourage ~ no, I implore ~ you to reply with your own thoughts, ideas, concerns, and solutions!  Whenever you have something to share, a question to ask, or an idea for the parish, please say something to me; to Pete Gilbert and/or Stephanie Gadzik, our Junior and Senior Wardens, respectively; Emily Gilbert, our parish secretary; and/or any member of our Vestry.  We all not only want but also need to hear from you!  After all, we’re all in this together.
 
Peace & blessings to you all!
 
Christopher+
920.266.9262
[email protected]

PARISH FAMILY MEETING
17 March 2024
 
Prayer for Spiritual Growth
Gracious Father,
We ask spiritual growth
for ourselves, our families and friends,
and especially for our family of All Saints. 
Grant us growth in understanding and willingness
to be your Body in this world. 
Empower us to live the mission of Christ: 
to preach, teach, heal, and make disciples. 
In joyful thanksgiving for the blessing
of your presence in our lives, compel us to share you
with everyone we meet.  May our numbers increase,
our commitment deepen, our lives be joyfully yours. 
Make us a God-centered people.
In Christ’s name we pray. 
Amen.
 
My dear family in Christ,
 
As many of you already know, this coming Sunday, we will have a single worship service at 9:30, followed by a shared potluck meal, followed by a conversation ~ hopefully several conversations, actually ~ picking up where we left off in our annual parish meeting at the end of January.  Lots of folks have, understandably, been asking what the plan is, not only for Sunday’s meeting, but also for the life of our parish moving forward.
 
The first question is a bit easier to answer than the second.  So here’s a rough overview of the plan for Sunday:
 
After we’ve moseyed down from the Sanctuary to Kemper Hall and had a chance to get a bite to eat, I’ll call the (slightly) more formal portion of the gathering to order.  We will share a prayer (the Prayer for Spiritual Growth, above), and I’ll offer a brief presentation to clarify and expand upon some of my remarks from the January meeting, including additional insights many of y’all have shared with me since that meeting.  We’ll also go over some “ground rules” to make sure that everyone who wishes to speak gets multiple opportunities to do so, that no one falls through the cracks or gets “talked over,” and that the whole environment feels safe, respectful, open, and welcoming for everybody.
 
From there, we will break out into small groups (4-6 people per, depending upon how many folks attend the meeting) to explore a few focused questions in more depth and detail.  After each small group session, we will come back together to share (voluntarily, of course) any insights, ideas, concerns, questions, etc., that came up in the breakout groups.  After two breakout sessions and group sharings, we’ll conclude with a full-group conversation to recap what we’ve discerned, and to identify 2-3 short term goals for action ~ in other words, we’re going to go ahead and decide specifically what to do next, coming out of this gathering.
 
For homework:
Here’s an assignment for you, to help you prepare for Sunday ~ go ahead and be thinking about the questions we’ll be exploring in our two breakout sessions (listed below).  The more thoughts you can put together in response to these prompts beforehand, the more productive our time together will be.
 
Breakout Session I Questions:
 

1. What do you, personally, most LOVE about All Saints parish?
2. What frustrates you more than ANYTHING about All Saints?
3. What are you most afraid to lose going forward?
4. What are you most excited about moving forward?

 
Breakout Session II Questions:
 

1. What is the primary purpose of a Church community?
2. How (& when, where, &c.) do you experience the Living God at All Saints?
3. What is your personal sense of mission (i.e., why bother doing Church at all)?
4. What are you willing to sacrifice for God’s mission in Appleton?

 
I’m very much looking forward to our time together this Sunday!  See y’all soon!
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

I’m Pete Gilbert, a random parishioner and your newly-elected Junior Warden. You may wonder (as I do): “what the heck does a Junior Warden do?” Mostly, the Junior Warden “works closely with the Rector and Senior Warden in providing overall leadership in the congregation.” Here at All Saints, the Junior Warden also coordinates “church property-related issues.”
 
That means that when you notice that a faucet’s leaking or it’s too cold in the church or maybe we should paint the door to the belltower or there’s a cracked window in Kemper Hall – you contact me. If you see something, say something; I’m in the church directory.  I’m also in regular communication with the Church Secretary, if it’s easier to tell Emily.
 
My job then is to work with the many smart and talented people around this joint to see what we can do about our maintenance and upkeep issues. As you can imagine, I already have a long list of projects that need work, but the goal is to do what we can to make our beautiful building and grounds the best they can be. Does that sound reasonable? In any case, as always, I’m grateful for all you do for All Saints.

SAVE THE DATE: 17 MARCH 2024 ~ PARISH FAMILY MEETING

SINGLE, COMBINED SERVICE @ 9:30; MEETING TO FOLLOW
  
 READ ON FOR THE WHAT & THE WHEREFORE:
  
The liturgical season of Lent is very nearly upon us, y’all! Lent is a time in the Church year distinguished by a special focus upon sin (both our individual, specific sins, and also the general sinfulness of the human world in which we live), repentance, penitence, penance, self-denial, as well as study of the Scriptures and the Christian Tradition.  It is sometimes considered to be a sad season, but that is mainly due to our fondness for our favorite sins and the discomfort we feel when we name and face our sins and feel called to repentance and penance. 
 
Which is too bad, really, because above all, Lent is a season of hope. Hope of a turning, a change of direction in our lives. Hope of reconciliation with people from whom we’ve been come distanced or estranged. Hope of restoration to grace and holiness through prayer, fasting, penitence, and forgiveness.
 
Lent can be a time of mourning; it is certainly a time of letting go; more than anything, it is a time to recognize that one’s old life is over, and that the only way to new life is through the Cross.
 
Well, that sounds very poetical, doesn’t it? In reality, it’s going to be hard, messy, probably painful, certainly filled with disagreement and tension, but also peppered with grace, healing, reconciliation, and love.
 
In other words, it’s pretty much gonna be a family affair.
 
And that’s why I’m calling our next parish-wide gathering, on 17 March 2024, a “Parish Family Meeting.” We’ve got a lot to talk about. A number of hard decisions have to be made, both short-term and long-term. Along the way, it is all but guaranteed that something (or someone) will make each of us feel angered, or hurt, or baffled … But I’m also betting that something (or someone) will make each of us laugh unexpectedly, or perhaps cry, as we feel fully seen and embraced. Just like family.
 
More details will follow as we plan the logistics of the meeting. And there will be structure, as well ~ we’re not just going to have a free-for-all! So be on the lookout for forthcoming announcements. Meanwhile, put Sunday, 17 March 2024, on your calendar and please plan to attend. We’ll do the same thing we did for the Annual Meeting: a single, combined service at 9:30 with the meeting to follow in the parish hall.
 
I hope that this meeting will be the first of several that we’ll hold throughout this year as we seek to discern God’s will for All Saints and to walk the Way of the Cross together. In the meantime, please continue to reach out to me via phone, text, and/or email; let’s keep the conversation going!
 
Peace and blessings in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
C+

My dear family in Christ,
 
As I sit down to pen my first newsletter column of 2024, the blur of Advent-Christmas-New Year’s-Epiphany is already behind us.  Just barely behind us, is how it feels to me, and yet we’re already on the threshold of our Annual Parish Meeting.  The nature of our Church calendar is that by the time the dust starts to settle from all of the end-of-year liturgies and services and celebrations and gatherings … we’re already a pretty good ways into the new secular year, almost before we know what hit us!
 
We’ve got a lot going for us as a parish as we move into 2024.  Thanks to the incredibly hard work of your outgoing Vestry and to the devotion and faithful discernment of all of you, we enter this new year with a much clearer understanding of who we are as a welcoming, inclusive, and affirming community of faithful, Episcopal (Anglican) Jesus-followers, as articulated in our formal Statement of Direction.  As an organization, we adopted a set of parish By-Laws, for the first time in not-so-recent memory, to structure how we do what we do, in keeping with the canons of the diocese and the national Church.  Thanks to your extremely generous support, we have managed, even in times of increasing austerity, to decrease the deficit in our operating budget, bringing us much closer than we’ve been previously to a truly balanced budget.
 
Through it all, we have continued to welcome new folks into our parish family.  We have continued to celebrate the holy Sacraments that are the heart of our Christian faith tradition.  We have continued to honor and worship our God and to seek and serve Christ in all persons, guided by the Holy Spirit.
 
All of that is true.  It is also true, though, that we face a number of seemingly daunting challenges in 2024.  It is a fact that we are a smaller parish after Covid than we were before the shutdowns necessitated by the pandemic.  We have fewer people and tighter resources with which to be the Body of Christ in Appleton, Wisconsin.  The work that we did last year to discern who we are as a community of Jesus-followers was monumental, but it was truly only the first step of the discernment work we yet must do.  Now that we have a clear vision of who we are, we face questions of vocation—we must, in prayer and faith, both individually and in community, seek to understand the specific work God is calling us to do, in this place and at this time.  We’ve confronted the question of who we are; the next questions are about our mission:  what are we to do?
 
Some of these questions will be hard to ask, and even harder to answer.  Such discernment will require us to face our own fears, hopes, and expectations—both conscious and subconscious—about our beloved All Saints Parish.  As I alluded to in a recent sermon, our parish is not now what it has been in the past.  Moreover, things cannot remain as they are at present.  Together, however, with our shared faith, commitment, and love, I believe we can embrace the new life that is even now being stirred up among us by the Holy Spirit.  It’s scary—I’m not going to lie about that.  But so is every great, exciting, life-changing opportunity.  I believe that God loves All Saints at least as much as we all do.  And I am very much looking forward to finding out what our God has in store for us in 2024.
 
And I really, really want to hear from all of you as we begin this next leg of our spiritual journey together.  Please “holler at me,” as we say down South, and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what you’re excited about, what you’re afraid of, what you hope to see as this new year unfolds.  Email me.  Call me or text me on my Pastoral line--it’s NOT just for emergencies, y’all!--and let’s keep the conversations going, both before and after our Annual Meeting on the 28th.
 
I hope to hear from you all soon!
 
Peace and blessings, my dear friends,
 
Christopher+

My dear All Saints family,
 
Here we are in the third week of Advent, careening towards 4th Advent this Sunday morning. And then, by some miracle of quantum mechanics and “timey-wimey stuff” (for any Dr. Who fans out there), we’ll rocket through the fourth week of Advent in a mere few hours, arriving at Christmas by 7:30 that evening.
 
Whew!
 
So, then, the important question is … what do you want for Christmas? : )
 
The older I get, the harder that question has become to answer. Early on, it was pretty easy: “Not socks!” After A.D. 1977, things got a little more specific: “Star Wars toys, please ~ any Star Wars toys!”
 
These days, my priorities seem to have shifted a bit. I remember with no small degree of longing that time when my sister and I gave our father ~ at the time, the Academic V.P. of a community college in southern Georgia ~ a clear glass, empty jar with a rather artistic hand-made label which identified the contents as “PEACE & QUIET.” 
 
In point of fact, as my Christmases have begun to add up, I’m less and less interested in objects at all, however cool or clever such objects may be. In part, that’s probably because, having thrown myself into guitar as an obsession hobby at the age of 15, my “toys” have become way too expensive for Christmas presents… 
 
But whatever the reason, today I am much more interested in exchanging those gifts which are even harder to package than peace & quiet: things like time ~ moments with those around me that can be truly content, wordless, utterly un-hurried; things like connectedness ~ opportunities to be with the people whose presence, whose existence, nourishes and rejuvenates me, without having to do anything; things like love ~ not to put too fine a point on it. 
 
St. Paul’s famous meditation on the nature of love is oft associated (rightly) with weddings, but it applies here (and everywhere) with just as much relevance: 
 
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Cor. 13:4-8a)
 
Y’all, I can’t think of anything more profoundly countercultural in these present days of stress, strife, anxiety, hurry, conflict, uncertainty, isolation, loneliness, despair, loss, and pain … than love, the kind of love that rises to the definition St. Paul offered to the believers in Corinth. May the gift of this love abound for you all this Christmas, as we prepare to receive yet again the greatest gift this world has ever seen, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
 
What more could we possibly ask for?
 
Merry Christmas, everyone!
 
Christopher+

My dear family in Christ,
 
In my sermon this past Sunday, the first of Advent, 2023, I mentioned in passing that the day marked not only the beginning of a new liturgical season, and not only the beginning of the new Church year, but also the beginning of my fifth year at All Saints as your rector.  Though I hadn’t put much thought into this anniversary at the time, over the past few days it has occurred to me that the moment deserves a bit more reflection.  It’s been, after all, an “interesting” four years ~ in just about every possible sense of the word.
 
Advent 1 of 2019 was, as I recall, rather colder and snowier and just more winterier (that’s a word now) than last Sunday was.  An abrupt, if educational, introduction to life in the Upper Midwest.  The people (y’all, that is) were on the other hand extraordinarily warm.  I remember feeling immediately welcomed into this community.  So many of you made it a point to come by the office, invite me to lunch, to find some hospitable way to get together so we could start getting to know each other.  And I was very much looking forward to working my way through the whole parish that way as I began to find my footing here (always tricky in wintertime, as I’ve since learned…)
 
Of course, that’s about the time that Covid hit us.
 
I know I’m leaving out a lot, but, honestly, my memories from December, 2019, to early March, 2020, are a bit blurry.  Things moved so quickly …  from my first Sunday, through the season of Advent and into the Christmas season, to Epiphany, and then to officiating at my first annual parish meeting at the end of January … that I hardly had time to start learning my way around town before February.  We had a retreat for the new Vestry on the second Saturday of March, and later that afternoon, I got word from the diocese that all our churches were to be closed to in-person worship, starting the next day.  So then we stayed home for almost two years.
 
There is no need to recount, and I certainly do not want to relive, our experiences of being shut down and sheltering in place, of translating “church” into an online experience, of partially reopening, of taking three steps back for every one step forward.  Enough to acknowledge that we probably have not even catalogued all the various scars we all acquired during the worst of the pandemic, much less having started to heal from them.  Rather, as I reflect on this anniversary of my joining your community, I’d simply like to share a few observations ~ my first impressions, really, of All Saints, which the past four years have demonstrated to be true.
 
First, the people of All Saints parish are a deeply faithful people.  Even before I got here, I realized that this must be the case ~ Bishop Matt had explained some of the history of the parish to me as I was discerning a call to come here, which, as many of you remember first-hand, was “a lot much.”  A less faithful, less devoted, less loving congregation would not likely have survived the things that this parish has endured, and that was before Covid was a thing.  As I’ve gotten to know more of y’all individually these past few years, I have been privileged to see how deep your faith goes here.  And it continues to inspire me each week, each day.
 
That is not to suggest that All Saints is without problems or challenges.  We were facing a need to revitalize and grow our parish family even before Covid hit.  Today, we are smaller in number than we were when I first arrived.  But I am not distressed by that fact:  for one thing, a number of other parishes in the diocese ended up having to close as a result (either directly or indirectly) of Covid, and we’re still here; for another thing, even during the worst of the shut-down, we still managed to add new people to our community; and for a third thing, what we might at the moment be lacking in numbers, we more than make up for in faith in Christ and devotion to this parish family (see above).
 
Lastly, when I first got here, it struck me that there was not a single challenge facing this parish that was not simply a local version of one or another of the crises facing the entire Episcopal Church across the country.  In other words, it seemed to me that every obstacle, issue, or challenge before this parish was a smaller-scale instance of the obstacles, issues, and challenges before the entire denomination as a whole.  Four years in, I believe that first impression has been confirmed over and over.  And while it may be disheartening to realize that our whole denomination if facing some serious challenges at present, it is comforting to me to know that there’s nothing wrong with All Saints that is specific to All Saints.  Our difficulties are systemic and large scale, and are not due to any peculiar weakness or failing on our part.
 
Despite my own weaknesses and failings, you all have welcomed and supported me in ways and to a degree that is deeply humbling, and you have welcomed my family into your own with love and enthusiasm.  I know I can speak for them when I offer my ~ our ~ most sincere gratitude.  We came here, literally, because God called us to come here.  But y’all have made answering that call both a joy and a blessing.  It is a privilege to be able to share ministry and the love of God with y’all ~ thank you so much!
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

“Followers of The Way”
 
In the interest of beginning to set the stage for the impending season of Advent, let’s reflect upon some of the most foundational terms and concepts from our shared religious tradition as 21st century Western, Anglican/Episcopal, American Christians … and let’s start with the most basic, the most fundamental term of all:  religion itself.
 
So, what is religion?
 
Many of you know that I am a cradle Episcopalian; I grew up in this Church, as I grew up in the United States and in the South, in the downward slope of the 20th century.  All of those factors have shaped who I am and how I see the world around me, the things I presume to be true on a subconscious level. 
 
So I grew up thinking that “religion” meant “church” and “worship” and that it was something that happened “occasionally” … once or maybe--maybe—twice a week, at most.
 
On a side-note:  I also grew up as the original Star Wars trilogy was first dominating popular culture, and I remember being rather confused when the characters in those movies referred to the Jedi order as a “religion.”  What? I thought.  They don’t go to any church!  They don’t have any rituals or hymns or anything!   How can that be a religion?
 
I think perhaps if I had grown up in and around the Mediterranean Sea in the centuries immediately before, during, or immediately after the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, I might have inherited a very different notion of what religion is—and then maybe the Star Wars reference wouldn’t have confused me so much.
 
You see, there is an ancient understanding of religion that is much bigger, much deeper, and much more interconnected than modern American pop culture might have us believe religion should be.  This ancient concept of religion goes beyond defining religion as (merely) a philosophy or a set of teachings (although many of the philosophical schools in ancient Greece would strike us today as having more in common with religion than with academia), or even a set of rituals or ceremonies.
 
The ancients in many cultures (including those of what we now call the Near East) defined religion as a complete way of living.  And that included many things which we, as modern Americans, tend to separate into distinct categories:  philosophy, history, culture, family & kinship, metaphysics, food preparation & diet, law, biology, astronomy, ethics, worship, politics, poetry & literature, subsistence & economics, etc.
 
All of these aspects of human existence were integrated into one interconnected world view that shaped every action, every choice of how to order one’s life, from sunrise to sunset, so as to live in right relationship with each other and in right relationship with the heavenly realm.
 
The followers of religious teachers were called “disciples” because to follow such a teacher meant to be “disciplined,” to live one’s life deliberately so as to emulate the teacher as closely as possible.
 
Now, to be fair, I don’t think for a minute that everyone in the ancient world lived such a dedicated and disciplined life.  In fact, most folks probably didn’t.  But for someone to go to the trouble of converting to a particular religion probably did mean that such a person would be taking on a new way of living, and therefore would be making a much bigger life-change than we today would associate with simply joining a church. 
 
We know that in both Jewish and early Christian communities, there were folks who hung out on the edges of those groups—interested in the religion, but not fully committed to that total life change I’m talking about.  But these were the folks who were not yet converted—they had not yet accepted, for example, the circumcision or baptism required for full membership in those groups.  For the folks who had undergone those rituals and accepted full initiation into those groups, however, I think it was much harder at that point for them to be, well, casual about their religion.
 
I’ve even read descriptions of ancient Christian baptisms in which the candidate is asked if he or she is ready “to die with Christ”; if the answer is yes, then the candidate is plunged into darkness as well as being plunged underwater—without knowing what’s coming next.  After being immersed three times (in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), the newly baptized person is then brought up into the light and partakes in his or her first Eucharist—another mystery that he or she was not allowed to have any knowledge of prior to baptism.
 
It is intriguing to consider what modern American Christianity might look like if that were the way we all had to come into the faith, is it not?
 
Well, we need not go to such extremes.  Still, what I’m inviting all of us to contemplate this fall as we approach Advent is this:  to what extent does our Christian faith really pervade and infuse our lives?  Are we Christian primarily on Sunday mornings, and maybe for a little while on Tuesday mornings or Wednesday evenings, perhaps?  Are our worship services and rituals exist as ends in and of themselves, or do they serve as a means to some greater end?
 
These questions are not meant to be rhetorical; they need answering, and each Christian must answer them for himself or herself.  But they are neither meant to be answered quickly or superficially.  Rather, they represent opportunities to spend time in focused prayer and in conversation with God.
 
The Christian religion is about ordering our lives, day to day, week to week, year to year, moment to moment, so that we are constantly seeking encounter with Christ: in the inmost depths of our being; in relationship with each other; in sacrament, prayer, and meaningful engagement in the world; in both tranquility and transformation. 
 
Christian faith is not merely a set of philosophies or teachings (although the teachings are crucial!); it is meant to be a way of life.  The first Christians called the religion The Way for this reason.  And they called themselves followers of The Way.
 
Deep study of Scripture, regular participation in corporate worship and individual devotion, and the ongoing attempt to ever mindful of Christ within us, Christ in others, and Christ in the world around us … these are the building blocks of The Way, and it is the mission of the Church—of all baptized Christians—to demonstrate this way of living in the world, to invite everyone to share in it, to teach it, and to support each other in our efforts to come closer to Christ and to live out our faith in the world.
 
It ain’t easy.  It was never meant to be.
 
That’s why we need each other on The Way.
 
Christopher+