Enough time has gone by since Holy Innocents closed that I think I can now deal with telling the story of the last 2 services held there. There aren’t many photos, because I was struggling with the settings on the camera and also because much of the time, I was holding either a hymnal or the Book of Common Prayer. Christmas Eve was pretty but… it’s already faded into a sort of mish-mosh of previous years. However, a couple of things stand out. First, someone forgot to clue Fr. Steve in on using the little hand-candles for a candlelit portion,…
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Third Coast International Audio Festival // Chicago Public Radio This week we bring you an award-winning world premiere: Rebecca Sheirs The End as Beginning: An Audio Exploration of the Jewish View of Death. The trilogy blends interviews, personal reflections, and music, and focuses on death and the Jewish tradition. The work is an explanation, an illustration, and an investigation all in one — and it balances these elements so beautifully that "Honoring the Body: Taharah" the second segment won the 2006 Third Coast Festival Directors Choice Award. I have experienced some of the things described in Part One as a…
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The Braid Blog – Two Communities Coming Together To Make… » One Bread, One Body December 31 When we go to our regular schedule on January 14, the 9 a.m. liturgy will be close to what the Holy Innocents’ liturgy has been, and the 11 a.m. liturgy will be similar to what St. Nicholas has done. In the months ahead, I will tweak both liturgies some, to make them even stronger vehicles for worship and especially to make them even more inviting to visitors. The 9 a.m. tweaking will be minor – singing the psalm and one or two more…
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This is an example of the kinds of things we're going to be moving from Holy Moly to St Nicholas. It's one of the Stations of the Cross that was made by one of our parishioners, and I think it represents Jesus falling the first time on the long walk to Calvary. If you look closely, you can see two honkin' big wood screws going right up His robe. Also, it's really battered and like all the rest, really dusty and cobwebby. The ladies from the Altar Guild no longer dust these, because they regularly got pulled from the wall…
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My little Episcopal parish, Holy Moly, is closing at the end of this month. I'm part of the lay leadership; I'm involved in this process. If you had told me 5 years ago when I reluctantly agreed to be on the Bishop's Committee that I'd be part of the stubborn remainder that had to come to this decision and actually deal with the physical and emotional and spiritual challenges that come with closing a church, I'd have said "no way. Not gonna do it." Well, here I am, in at the death. In my time, I've attended probably 50 normal…
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So, the big visit today was a success. All the pictures are on a Flickr set here. We did go out into the neighborhood around St Nicholas to distribute shopping bags for a toy drive, and Bp. Scantlebury was a good sport about going door-to-door. We even had a couple of reporters there taking pictures for local papers. This picture shows the baptistry of St Nick’s, with their fancy running-water font. Originally, this was an altar that was cut down and refashioned, and the worship space is completely flexible. Today, for example, all the chairs had been re-arranged to face…
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One Utah » Blog Archive » I Forgot to Eat Ice Cream: Thoughts on Community In the course of the post, I ran across a mention of a book I read about a year ago, when I was trying to figure out what people were looking for when they were thinking of joining any kind of social group. Bowling Alone, by Robert D. Putnam I needed the reminder. I've been meaning to mention this book to Steve, our vicar at church… which at least for the moment will be known as St Nicholas with the Holy Innocents, but it will…
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I just received a bulletin in the mail for Holy Moly and St Nicholas – it’s the Advent newsletter, which is traditionally mailed out just before the beginning of the season by someone at St Nick’s. Something caught my eye, and I went looking for a definition. At the outset, we are going to seek to develop two strong liturgies — a more mainstream one i n the tradition of Holy Innocents and a more inculturated one using the platform of the current St Nicholas liturgy. Which of course, confuses me – there is no such word. Yet, the word…
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Posted by a commenter at Father Jake Stops the World I've lost track over the years of the citation, but there was a book published in the last generation that reviewed growing congregations across denominational lines (including Episcopal churches). That study found five factors as important: 1) good preaching; 2) good music; 3) good adult Christian education; 4) opportunities for hands-on service ministries; and 5) small group interactions. (Interesting, considering the attention it has always gotten, that Christian education of children wasn't afactor.) As a frequent supply priest over the years, I've been really surprised and saddened at the…
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Father Jake Stops the World NYT: How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country? KJS: About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children. NYT: Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children? KJS: No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion. I'm a childfree, environmentally aware Episcopalian,…