Click to open this week’s Weekly News: January 2, 2011 in PDF format. This file will give details about upcoming events at Christ Church.

If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

I pray that you are having a joyous Christmas holiday and season.  Why not join us on New Year’s Eve at the Church for a celebration to bring in 2011?  This is a new endeavor, sponsored by our Spiritual Life Commission, and its goal is to provide a place for members to gather and enjoy the fellowship of the evening.

Join us December 31, 2010 from 9:00PM – 1:00 AM January 1, 2011 in the Lower Level of New Brick for potluck appetizers and desserts. BYO beverages, please.

As we enter the New Year, we give thanks to God for all that has been accomplished at the Church and in the lives of those this Church touches.  A part of the great mystery is that the work we do as individuals, the good works we accomplish as a parish and the prayers we extend throughout the world change people and change lives!  This is a glorious testament to the power of God’s Spirit working in us and through us.

What a wonderful occasion it was to celebrate the ordination of Gina Arents to the priesthood on December 18^th.  We will now begin to share the celebrating responsibilities week by week.

And if your tradition includes New Year’s Resolutions — make sure being with your Church family on Sunday mornings is one of them.

See you in Church!

Sharing the Love of the Risen Christ,

Richard+

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: December 26, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: December 19, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

Today is notable for freezing winds blasting past the church buildings, winds that cause everyone who opens a door and steps outside to grab their coat and start swearing.  Where I grew up, this sort of wind was called a “lazy wind,” because it’s too lazy to blow around you; it goes straight through you instead.

Wind has been on my mind lately, not just because of the weather, but because we often think of the Holy Spirit as a wind from God, like the wind that blew over the waters at the creation of the world. In a few more days, Bishop Rabb will sing a very old hymn, with words that date back to the ninth century, praying for the presence of the Holy Spirit during my ordination to the priesthood.  Our theology understands the Holy Spirit to be the active agent in the sacrament of ordination, and I have to admit, I am praying that the Holy Spirit will not arrive with as much force as today’s winds.

At my ordination to the deaconate, I was quite unaware of what ordination might convey, and so I was caught by surprise when I started noticing changes in myself, changes that sometimes affected parts of my self that previously I had been unaware existed.  A few years later, when I went to talk to a new class of deacons, a week or so before their ordination, I compared these changes to walking about in an attic room in the dark, discovering the new positions of things taken for granted, by bumping (or crashing) into them in the dark, a process that can take a few months before everything settles into place.

About six months after this particular ordination, I asked one of the new deacons to come talk to a group of people discerning a possible call to ordained ministry.  He told them that he had been warned of possible changes in his spirit and his life, but that he hadn’t noticed any such changes.  Then he spent the next thirty minutes talking about all the ways in which his life had changed!

As we move into the Christmas season and open our hearts to the Christ child, I pray that you will find the Spirit moving gently in you and calling you ever deeper into relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, and that He will send his Holy Spirit into your lives in wonderful and inspiring ways.

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: December 12, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: December 5, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: November 28, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.

Advent is the beginning of a new Church year and the mark of the most hectic season of the year.

On Sunday, November 28^th , we begin the season with the lighting of the Advent Wreath Candle.  This Advent we will have a special “visitor” from the Christmas story appear each Sunday in Advent to light the candle for us.

On Sunday, December 5^th, the Rev. Canon Scott Slater will be with us as he visits parishes in his role as Canon to the Ordinary (Executive Assistant to the Bishop).  Canon Slater will preach and celebrate at both of our services.

On Saturday, December 18^th, at 1:00pm in New Brick, we will celebrate the Ordination of Gina Arents to the priesthood.  Bishop John Rabb will be with us and we look forward to your presence as well.  A joyous reception will follow in the lower level.

And on Sunday, December 19^th, we will be decorating the Church for Christmas after the service of Lessons and Carols.

And don’t forget – one final coin jar is being requested from each and every family during the month.  The basket will be placed by the font.

See you in Church!

Sharing the Love of the Risen Christ,

Richard+

Click to open this week’s Weekly News: November 21, 2010 in PDF format. If you can not open the link, please click the title of this post above first.