God's Abundant Grace

“We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of
God that has been granted . . .” 2 Corinthians 8:1

The apostle Paul begins most of his letters with some salutation that refers to the great grace of God that has been granted to believers, and the beginnings of 2 Corinthians 8 is no different. Christians have received a great grace through Jesus Christ and those of us who follow in footsteps of the apostles are also called to share the grace we have been given with others. At Christ Church, one of the many ways we see this grace being shared is in the Church School.

Adults who teach, mentor and lead worship with our children each Sunday morning are doing their very best to share the grace of God with the youngest members of our parish family. These adults serve as stewards of the faith that they graciously share and pass on to our children. Christians are formed. None of us becomes mature in the faith without the assistance of others sharing our experiences of what it means to follow Jesus. We would not have our faith without the faithfully stewardship and witness of those who work with our children Sunday after Sunday.

Being a steward of the faith is a calling worthy of respect and support. We tend to think that to teach Church School, we need to be great repositories of information about Christianity. Folks tend not to want to teach because they feel they don’ know enough; we get confused over which prophet came first, what an epistle actually is and in which Gospel can you find the parable of the leaven. None of this is required, nor is it important in the long run. Teaching in the Church School is a leap of faith made out of what we have experienced of God’s grace and goodness in Jesus. Our thankful hearts and a willingness to share them is all teaching is about. The rest of it comes with good curriculum materials (which we have) and support from the Director of Family Ministries (all it takes is a phone call or an email). As in most of Christian life, the Holy Spirit meets our intentions and once we commit to sharing the faith, what we need to do so is provided for us.

So as you think about how you can be a faithful steward of the grace you have been given in Jesus over the next few months, please give prayerful thought to teaching in the Church School. We still have openings to teach in the 3rd & 4th grade and I am looking for one more teacher in the 5th and 6th grade. We also can always use volunteers to fill in on a Sunday morning when a teacher is absent or to help out with a special craft or outreach project. And as you continue to pray about how you might be a faithful steward, please remember Kim Lysaght, Diane Gaitely, Patty Smith, Barbara Diener, Melyne Nagel, Kim Rutherford, Kevin Ruddy, Joe Barr, Nancy Lankford, Ginny Yerardi, Bob Keener, Sarah Heath, Dusty Hecker and Joe Leghorn in your prayers. These stewards need your support in prayer to be faithfully with our children each Sunday.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

"We Will, with God's Help

One of my very favorite moments during the Baptism service is when the congregation is asked, "Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?" And we answer back, "We will with God's help." When we take part in a baptism as members of the Christian family, we become responsible for forming the faith of that new Christian in our parish family. As the service then moves to the part where the baby or children or family walk down the aisle and are greeted by the congregation, we tend to focus on how cute the baby is and not think so much about what we have just promised to do.

But long after the baby has gone home and changed out of the christening gown, we remain charged with the responsibility of helping that child of Christ grow into a mature faith. It is an awesome responsibility - and one that is also full of fun and wonder along the way. None of us really believe that we are mature enough in the faith ourselves to form the faith of others - and who among us really is? But the Holy Spirit rests on each of us and works through us whether or not we have theological educations and completely understand what we profess to believe ourselves.

We must nurture our faith and give the Holy Spirit something to work with. Attending Bible study, reflecting on the weekly lessons, daily prayer and meditation, talking with our partner or another member of the Church are all ways in which we can invite the Holy Spirit to help our faith grow. But that is not enough. No matter where we are in our faith journey, we are also called to share what ever we know and have experienced. Whether we are two or ninety-two, a Christian has been touched by God's love in Jesus and can share that with others.

The Church School is one place where we make manifest our promise to"support these persons in their life in Christ." To pass on our faith to the next generation requires adults who are living out their baptismal promise in an intentional and specific way by committing to teach. At Christ Church, we are blessed with many adults who do just this the seventeen Sundays a year that Church School meets. Some of them are very experienced Christians who are easy about sharing their faith and comfortable with questions. Many of them arrive on Sunday with curriculum materials clutched to their chests, hope in their hearts and a prayer on their lips. And no matter what they know or don't, the Holy Spirit works through them, and our children learn that not only do they matter to God, they matter to these adults who take the time to be with them on Sunday mornings. After almost twenty years as a professional Christian educator, I have come to believe that this is the only Church School lesson that really matters - if they leave here on Sunday morning knowing that God loves them and so do we, we have been faithful to our vow to support them in their life in Christ. The tools for living out that love come along through constant exposure to the great stories of the Bible, from participation at worship, from sharing laughter and fellowship with others who are hungry for the Good News of God in Christ and who are trying to figure out what it all means together. A Church School teacher needs only a willingness to be a channel of the Holy Spirit. We all know more than we think we do and teaching Church School lessons is a good way to figure out what we already know and fill in some of the blanks of what we don't.

So - here is my invitation to you to prayerfully consider joining the Church School teaching team and support our young Christians in their lives in Christ this fall. We still have spots that only YOU can fill. I will guarantee that you will have fun, learn more about your own faith and meet some pretty awesome Christians there. And really, where else in your life can you play with glitter glue and model magic?

Faithfully,

Elizabeth

Help Wanted: YOU May Be Just Who We Are Looking For!

Wanted: Enthusiastic, Loving Mentors in Faith For Our 3rd & 4th Graders

We are looking for three to six folks who will share fun, faith, and fellowship with an exuberant group of 3rd and 4th graders (many of them boys) who love experiential learning, games, snacks and movement.

Support provided:
- A flexible curriculum that is user-friendly and provides multiple approaches to sharing the Gospel message.
-On-going consultation with the Director of Family Ministries.
-A well-stocked supply closet.
-All the Goldfish crackers you can eat.

Time Commitment:
-Church School meets from 9:50 to 10:40 on Sunday mornings.
-Church School meets 17 Sundays from September –May (3 meetings in September, 2 meetings in October, 2 meetings in November, 2 meetings in December, 1 meeting in January, 1 meeting in February, 4 meetings in March, no meetings in April, 2 meetings in May).
-Church School is taught in teams. Two teachers need to be present each time class meets. The more of you there are, the more you can rotate who is leading class when.

Responsibilities:
-Getting to know class members.
-Sharing the lesson each week (can be done by telling a story, playing a game, acting out the lesson, etc. – the more movement the better)
-Helping class members learn a bit about the liturgy by training them as acolytes during class time.

Skills needed:
-A love for God and for the children in the class.
-A desire to share your faith through the ministry of being present.
-A sense of humor helps along with a willingness to be flexible and go with the flow.

This is a group who enjoys being together and who really likes hands-on, experiential learning. They are eager to share their thoughts and questions, want to help and belong, and are looking for good male role models in particular. Are YOU who this group needs?

We cannot run our Church School program in the Fall without volunteers. If you would like to learn more or would like to offer your gifts for this ministry, please contact:

Elizabeth Windsor, Director of Family Ministries
781-444-1469
elizabethwindsor@ccneedham.org

Holy Spaces, Holy Places

I try to live my life always connected to the holy. A lot of the time, life gets in the way of that. I feel myself fragmented by the urgency of something else that must be done and I tell myself I'll get around to this later. But from time to time - and right now is one of those times - I find myself filled with an intense yearning to be deeply connected to and immersed in, my connection to God.

By being immersed in the holy, I don't mean a false piety or a "holier-than-thou" attitude. Rather it becomes my heart's desire to spend more time open to where the Spirit is in my life, listening to and sharing with Jesus and simply be present to and in awe of what God has done for me and mine.

Like all of you, I live a busy life full of commitments to family and friends and work and community. Often times, I am too busy to do much about this yearning for connection when it floods me. But this time around, I am really trying to pay attention to what I might do to respond to this sense of urgency and desire to spend time with God.

Tom and I share a rich and deep spiritual life together. We often pray together, as well as for one another, and I was sharing this sense and hunger with him last night. After we talked and prayed for a while, we decided we would find a corner and make an altar - a place that would center our prayer, remind us daily of our need to be connected to God and draw us closer to God and each other and our family.

I have a hope chest that holds my boys first pairs of shoes, their baby blankets and other treasures of their lives that we thought would be a good altar. On it we have placed things that speak to us of the sacred: a rock a Christian wise woman brought me back from Iona, an insense burner given to Tom by his mentor in faith, the small New Testament that belonged to the grandmother who taught me how to share God's story with children and gifted me with my vocation, the dried petals of the first roses Tom gave me, a clay mold of Scott's (Tom's son) handprint, the icon of Mary of Magdalene my spiritual director gave me, the small, palm-sized stuffed fish that Alex handed me as I went out the door in labor with his brother.

As I looked at these small treasures after we had placed them there, I realized that each item was an "outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual graces" (to paraphrase the Catechism on the Sacraments) - signs of the sacramental connections we have to each other, to our children and others who love us. As Tom and I continued to reflect, we realized that what is missing from our altar is a cross for the center- because each of these sacred and holy connections made visible on our altar is grounded in a relationship with Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus is the thread that ties everything together. So this weekend, we are going to look for a cross that will center and anchor this holy place we have made for holy space in our lives.

I wonder what you would put on your altar? Would you share that with me and the other readers of this blog.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Ordinary Time

The Season After Pentecost which begins after Trinity Sunday is sometimes referred to as "ordinary time." It is "ordinary" because the weeks that follow are not associated with a specific liturgical season such as Lent or Epiphany. There are no over-arching themes for these weeks of the Church's year which makes them "ordinary." The liturgical color for the Season After Pentecost is green - and because this season coincides with Spring and Summer in our hemisphere, it has often been connected to growth in the Christian cycle. It is also a long season, lasting until Advent begins again.

Lessons each Sunday focus our attention on our relationship with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and one another, and on the Church and its mission. As the season often coincides with our vacations, it is also a season where we can reflect on the gift of time God gives to each human life.

Time is something we pretend we are in control of in the post-industrial West. We think about "managing our time," "making good use of our time" and "not wasting time." We are busy people, families and communities. But as much as we feel we are in control of time, time still remains God's, not ours.

Jeremy Taylor, an early anglican divine wrote:

"There is too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a vain-glorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust interests; but for the obtaining of virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and modesty, for the acts of religion, God gave us time sufficient."
- Jeremy Taylor The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650)

"Ordinary time" is the perfect time for us to reflect both on how we use time and how we can simply be in time. We are so busy most of the year pretending we control time that we forget that we have allowed time to control us. The slower pace of the summer months gives us times of refreshment - times to "be" rather than "do." I love to just sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in and out in their timeless fashion. As the days lengthen, I find myself more drawn to watching the sunrise or the sunset, to simply sitting still and breathing. I don't have to look for God the way I do when I am flying from task to task, but sitting still and letting the ancient rythyms of the creation envelop me, God finds me. I am easily in touch with the incarnate Jesus who fills my soul without my searching for him. All I have to do is stop managing time and, instead, be in time.

So - I invite you to join me in ordinary time, doing ordinary things and finding the rythym of the holy so close that all we need to do to find it is breathe.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Meditations on Motherhood (a few days after Mother's Day!)

You may have heard me say it - my children have been the best teachers of faith I have ever had. As I think back on all the things I have learned about God from being a mother, I see how being Alex and Josh's mother has changed the way I understand God, shaped the way I live out my faith and kept me continually focused on what really matters. Here are some of the things I have discovered on my journey as a Christian mother:

Life is washable: To quote the Prayer Book, "this is a true saying and worthy of all to be received." A little soap and water can cure a whole host of things, and what it can't doesn't really matter. Green footprints on the carpet (Alex put food coloring in the dog's water one St. Patrick's Day morning, spilled the water, stepped in it and THEN came to tell me he had made a mess!) DO come out with a bit of elbow grease. Sin is a bit harder, but baptismal water is REALLY effective. The major learning here was to relax and enjoy the gift God gave me in my children, not worry about the furnishings or the mistakes.

God's love really is THAT big: I grew up with the notion of God as a stern and judgmental father. In that euphoria that followed the birth of each of my children - as I was overwhelmed with unconditional love for these small and amazing beings - I realized that if I loved my children than much, how much more did God love me and them?

The small stuff MATTERS: Not things like taking out the trash, but ants and butterflies and blueberries ripening on the vine. Both of my boys are explorers who marvel at things I take for granted everyday. My boys have taught me that the sacred is revealed in the business of birds building a nest and leaves changing from bud to full blown (did you know that the new leaves of Japanese maple trees feel like raccoon's paws? I didn't, but Alex thought they did!). Josh's class is watching worms become butterflies and he announced, eyes full of wonder as he got off the bus yesterday, "Mama, we saw a MIRACLE today!" How much of God's goodness and creativity I would have missed had I not had these guides to point them out along the way.

Forgiveness is more than possible: As I think about the ups and downs of family life, I know both how important and how possible forgiveness is. I am often overwhelmed with gratitude for two boys who can forgive the flaws of a menopausal, most of the time tired and often times cranky mother. They not only forgive me, they love me anyway and because of it all. They have been wonderful role models to me in how to live a life of forgiveness. I find it easier to forgive because they so generously and regularly forgive me.

These are just a few of the things my children have opened my eyes to. I'll bet you have stories like mine where because of something your children did or said, you suddenly saw faith with new eyes and recognized God's presence in a new way. Would you share those stories with us?

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

HOORAY! It's Pentecost!

When we think of the major Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter are at the top of the list. We tend to forget about Pentecost which is one of the three most important celebrations of the Christian Church - we wouldn't be a Church without it!

We celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, May 11th this year (the date always changes because it is fifty days after Easter)On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples, giving them the power to preach, teach, heal, serve and love in Jesus' name. The Holy Spirit's presence within us and among us is how we are empowered to do the same.

The Holy Spirit can be hard to explain to young children. It is a more an intangible "thing" than a concrete object. The Holy Spirit is like the wind - we can't see wind, we can only see the leaves it blows. The Holy Spirit is like the wind. We can't see it, but we can see what it does. When we see someon caring for another person, cleaning up litter in the park or sharing a kind word, that is when we see the Holy Spirit in action.

"Spirit Bubbles" are a Pentecost tradition in my house. On the Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit among us, my children and I head outside after Church with our bubbles and we blow them. As the bubbles rise on the wind, we offer up our prayers for each other and those we are worried about. We shout out our thanksgivings and laugh together. And then we finish with this prayer:

I am an Alleluia!
I am a Wonder!
The gifts of your Spirit, O God, make me so!
With these gifts, I can live your life, Jesus.
I can be fully alive!
Amen!

So this Pentecost, I invite you to share in our tradition. Head outside with your bubbles and shout your praise to God together! And be sure to wear red to Church on Sunday! Red is the color of the tongues of fire that came upon the disciples as the Holy Spirit descended on them and it is a color of passion in the Church. So wear your red to Church and we will be a living, breathing representation of the Spirit!

Happy Pentecost!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth