December 15, 2011
Service Times: 8 am Highlands Chapel; 10:00 am St. Dunstan's Church
In This Issue
Next Sunday's ReadingsOn Sunday Brother John read a meditation on the Annunciation, the visitation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary telling her that she would conceive and bear a son who would be the Son of God. John’s sermon was a wonderful meditation on the significance of Mary, the young woman who said, “Yes” to God. If you missed this sermon, you can still hear it on our web site at http://sdchp.org/sermons/. This Sunday we will hear Luke’s version of the story. We are almost there. We have almost reached Christmas. The readings and music of the season are building to a wondrous crescendo. In addition to the annunciation story we will hear the Choir sing the Magnificat, Mary’s beautiful song of gratitude to God. You won’t want to miss these readings or this Sunday’s worship!Click here to see this coming Sunday’s Readings. Last Sunday's Sermon: Pregnant with God
This sermon is a beautiful meditation on the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the Theotokos, or God Bearer. Brother John uses the image of Mary, pregnant with the Messiah to describe our own call to carry God to the world. Every parent (or child, really) knows that we ultimately have to give our children to the world. Our role is to nurture and prepare them to be a gift and contribution to the world. John beautifully describes our mission, given by Christ, to carry God to the world in a very similar way. The Essence of ChristmasFor a long time, I have had a dear friend named Ann. She and I taught school together for many years, and became good friends as we worked to educate the young people in our 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. We had challenges and joys, as does any teacher, as we worked with our students.Ann, like me, is a grandmother and adores her grandchildren. She is also the person who introduced me to the Prayer Shawls, which are now an integral part of our ministries here at St. Dunstan’s.  Ann has an adorable four year old grandson, Andrew. She called me the other day to share something that Andrew had told her and I want to share it with you. As all of us are preparing for the coming of the Christ child, this four year old said it so well. His comment was: “God is the spirit of love, and if you make bad choices, He will send a baby to straighten you out.” The width and depth of this child’s remark is beautiful, and speaks to something that all of us need to remember.We all make bad choices at times, but we know that God is with us and will help “straighten us out.” We at St. Dunstan’s Church are blessed not only with that knowledge, but with the knowledge that we support each other. Things may not always go the way that we want them, but if we work together, then we can make the best of any and all situations. Please don’t let us get caught up in our own personal agendas, but rather work together for the good of our church. We are many people in our congregation and we are here because we love God. We will be faced with challenges such as a tight budget, differences of opinions, and probably things we haven’t even considered. We are also faced with a wonderful future. We are here for a short while and we will endeavor to live our time to the fullest. Let us share the good news of our salvation with each other and with the world. We have so many ministries that are actively participating in helping others, and there are opportunities out there that we haven’t even touched yet. If we make mistakes and poor choices along our journey, let’s remember the words of a precious little four year old boy. “God is the spirit of love, and if you make bad choices, He will send a baby to straighten you out.” As we live in the season of Advent, may we give thanks for that baby and for the love of God. Wishing you a thoughtful and prayerful Advent season, Blessings, Mary E. Pacher
You can now follow my postings on our web site and respond with your thoughts, inspiration and comments. Youth NewsSunday - December 18thYouth Group - We will spend the time from 10:00 to 11:00, going over our readings for the CHRISTMAS PROGRAM for Dec 24th. Each family has a copy of the script. Please go over it ahead of time so you are familiar with your parts... Sunday School - We will complete our study of ADVENT from "The Seasons of the Spirit" and have a Christmas party.... ANY SUNDAY SCHOOL and YOUTH GROUP MEMBERS who are in the Christmas Pageant, please plan to stay until 12:30 on December 18th, so that we can PRACTICE the PROGRAM. It will be our only practice and everyone needs to attend. Any questions or concerns? Please check in with one of us! Ann-Patrice and Sandy SAINTS ARE US The strong silent type - St. Joseph of Nazareth was a craftsman and carpenter, a dedicated husband and father. Being a young vital man he provided for his family, taught the first born son his trade, as well as how to be an honorable man and a faithful Jew. In every true sense on the role he was a father to Jesus. He was the guide for Jesus through all of the life changes from being a boy to becoming a man. He loved his wife Mary, protecting her from harm and providing her a home to raise their family. A true man of God, he was open to mystical experiences, accepting his role in gentleness and humility. Joseph is the patron saint of working men, husbands and fathers. Many legends have grown up around him, but the one title that is true and fits him is "Abba". The Church celebrates the life of St. Joseph on March 19th each year. The New Testament references to him are found in: Matthew chapters 1 and 2; Luke chapters 1,2, and 3; John chapters 1 and 6. Next week we will explore the Holy Days in the Church year around the celebration of Christmas. Be blessed in the remaining days of Advent. Brother John, O.C.P. |
Blessings and Gifts First, before I get to the main topic of my article, I want to encourage you to come to worship this Sunday, December 18th. This 4th Sunday of Advent will be the last time that our beloved Deacon Jerry Garman preaches before he leaves to be reassigned to Trinity parish. The music, prayers and readings for Advent 4 are some of the best we have all year as we prepare for the great celebration of Christmas. After the 10 AM service we will celebrate Jerry’s time with us in a special coffee hour gathering. We will give Jerry special gifts and wish him well as he moves on to the next phase of his ministry.This past Saturday your vestry and I gathered in the beautiful, wood paneled conference room at the Diocesan House offices. Over the course of the day, with the guidance of Bishop Cabby Tennis, we identified the great blessings and gifts that our congregation has received (and given) this year. The list we generated is included in Liz Hinkofer’s article below. After we finished creating this list we gathered in a semi-circle and then each of us read an item from the list until we had read the entire list to one-another. As we did this exercise, and over the course of the day, we were filled with a commitment and resolve to share this good news, this list of blessings and gifts, with all of you. This has been a good year in the life of St. Dunstan's Church, and your vestry and I are dedicated to communicating this message. You are probably also aware that this has been a challenging year financially for our congregation. As described in our Treasurer’s messages, our income has fallen behind what we budgeted, based on previous years, and that has led to a deficit. Our expenses are also lower, but not enough to make up the difference. Rather than spend a lot of energy worrying about the problem, the vestry is dedicated to solving the problem. The way through this is to keep moving forward, doing God’s work and sharing the Good News with more and more people. There was a time about a decade ago when St. Dunstan's Church enjoyed over 200 families participating in our worship, prayers, fellowship and ministries. Shortly before I arrived we reached the lowest point with about 90 families. Through your efforts, the very efforts that generated the list of wonderful things happening in our congregation, we have grown to 107 pledging families in 2011. The enthusiasm and abundance that comes from this growth and our continued devotion to doing God’s work will lift us through and above the challenges we face today. Now is the time to support St. Dunstan's Church with a generous Christmas contribution. Your generosity now will allow us to enter 2012 without the burden of a deficit from 2011. In fact, part of the deficit we have now was created by the deficit at the end of 2010. We don’t want to roll that problem forward again. Tom Paulsen, our Treasurer, estimates that we will face a deficit of $27,000 at the end of this year. That includes $12,000 we owe on our diocesan assessment and another $15,000 he estimates as the shortfall in our income. Please give generously now to support our continued vitality and growth in 2012. Over a third of the pledges we have received for 2012 are increased over what was pledged for 2011. That is a wonderful vote of confidence in our congregation and I thank all of you for your generosity. Change is always hard. We are experiencing change as we strive to grow in our faith, in our membership, and in the difference we make in the community. The increased pledges are a strong vote of confidence in our common ministry. If you have not pledged yet, please read Liz’ article with its list of blessings and then make a generous pledge for our growth and vitality in 2012. If you have already pledged, please consider increasing your pledge to support St. Dunstan's Church as we nurture the growth and vitality we experienced in 2011. Yours in Christ, Fr. David Click here to respond to this post at Fr. David’s Blog. Community EngagementA need for "JOSEPH". We are in the midst of practicing for our Christmas Pageant. We have every cast member accounted for EXCEPT for Joseph. Our show this year involves both the youth of the parish and the Choir. Is there anyone in the parish who would like to play the part of JOSEPH? No lines needed - just presence "on stage". Please check in with one of us if interested! Ann-Patrice Riccardo and Sandy Lamb.VOLUNTEERS for Sunday School. There will be a note coming out for VOLUNTEERS in the SUNDAY SCHOOL for the months of Jan., Feb and March. It will be sent to our current list of volunteers, but if there is anyone out there that we have not asked, and you are interested in stepping in to volunteer for a couple of Sunday's over these next three months, please let one of us know! THANKS in ADVANCE! Sandy Lamb and Ann-Patrice Riccardo Prayer Shawl Ministry- Calling all knitters and crocheters. Do you desire to help those in need of comfort but don't know how? Here is an opportunity to use your needlework talent to make a prayer shawl for our ministry. See Susan Vanek for details or email susanv@aceweb.com.
Winner of the Homemade Quilt. Congratulations to Sharron Goff for winning the beautiful homemade quilt at the St. Anges Guild’s Wassail Reception that followed last Sunday’s Lessons and Carols service. Thank you to everyone that came and made it a beautiful event. Upcoming EventsCelebrate Deacon Jerry's Ministry. Please join us for a special celebration of Deacon Jerry Garmin's ministry to our congregation after the 10:00 AM service on December 18th at St. Dunstan's Church on 145th St.Invite your friends, family & neighbors to St Dunstan’s Christmas Services. Celebrations will start on Christmas Eve with a 4:00 pm family service that will have a beautiful Christmas Pageant. There will be a 10:30 pm Christmas Eve service at the Highland’s Chapel. Our Christmas Day service next Sunday will be held at the regular hours and locations of our normal Sunday services. Stewardship Campaign: if you have not turned in your pledge for 2012, please do so as soon as possible. The vestry will be drafting the budget for next year this December. Vestry CornerCounting our Blessings: As this year winds to a close, I think we all want to look back over this past year and consider all that we have accomplished. Last weekend the vestry worked with Bishop Cabby Tennis and composed a list of all the good things we have going on at St. Dunstans.Before I begin to recount that list I want to thank Tim Drewes, the Choir, the bell ringers, the other readers, and everyone involved in Lessons and Carioles last Sunday. If you were not able to attend, I am sorry to say you missed an exquisite program. St. Agnes provided a lovely reception afterward. We are so blessed to have so much talent and hard working caring people in our midst. This list of good works is something we should all be proud of. I want to share this list with you in no particular rank of importance, as this was a brainstorming session. This list is a testimony to the work all of you have been doing.
Liz Ten Rules of Respect: Last Sunday, the vestry adopted some changes to our methods of communication as a Vestry to you. We decided on these changes, together after attending a mini retreat led by Bishop Cabby Tennis. Our goals for the retreat were to assess what is working well and what is not working at St. Dunstans, to examine effective leadership and partnership, and to hopefully find some tools that might be helpful to us all, going forward. After much reflection, we all felt this was a change we wanted to implement right away. We spoke to you briefly during the announcements at both the 8:00 service and the 10:00 service about our decision to remove the suggestion boxes from both the chapel and St. Dunstans. We will replace the boxes by following the 10 Rules for Respect that had been shared by Bishop Rickel with the Diocese. I miss spoke and referred to these as the 10 Rules for Communication when I was speaking during the announcements. The 10 rules have been printed and are on the table under the bulletin board in the Narthex. Please pick up a copy if you like. I have since discovered that these rules are in wide use by a number of different denominations. Here are the rules: 1. If you have a problem with me, come to me. (privately) 2. If I have a problem with you, I will come to you. (privately) 3. If someone has a problem with me and comes to you, send them to me. (I will do the same for you) 4. If someone consistently will not come to me, say “Let’s go to Greg together. I am sure he will see about this. ( I will do the same for you) 5. Be careful how you interpret me, I would rather do that. On matters that are unclear, do not feel pressured to interpret my feelings or thoughts. It is easy to misinterpret intentions. 6. I will be careful not to interpret you 7. If it is confidential, don’t tell. If you come to me in confidence I won’t tell unless a) the person is going to harm himself/herself, b) the person is physically going to harm someone else, or c) a child has been physically or sexually abused. I expect the same from you 8. I do not read unsigned letters 9. I do not manipulate; I will not be manipulated; do not let others manipulate you. Do not let others manipulate me through you. I will not preach “at you.” I will leave conviction to the Holy Spirit. (She does it better anyway) 10. When in doubt just say it. The only dumb questions are those that don’t get asked. Our relationships with one another, at the end of the day, are the most important things so if you say you have a concern, pray, and then (if led) speak up. If I can answer it without misrepresenting something, something, or someone, or breaking a confidence, I will. In recent months the Vestry has been trying very hard to do a better job at hearing the concerns and comments of everyone. To that end we had added suggestion boxes in both the chapel in St. Dunstans. Our hope had been that, by providing this avenue for people to use, that we would hear from more of you, and that we would be able to answer concerns and give explanations in a very detailed and thoughtful manner that would be meaningful. The result of having these suggestion boxes was far different. While there were a few people who did submit notes for us, and we did read and consider all of them as carefully as we could, the boxes only seemed to create more controversy and divisiveness. Through our work with Bishop Tennis we came to realize that this was because these notes and letters really did not represent any kind of true dialogue. After all, it could be weeks from the time a note was left in the box and when it was read by the vestry. If the note was signed, it would be assigned to someone who would do their best to answer. Some of the notes referenced events that had happened long before some of us were even on the vestry. The sender of the note would always get a thoughtful reply, but often weeks after sending it to us. Because these replies were being written to try to convey a response from the whole vestry, and not from the source of their concern, they often ended up as being perceived as vague and did not seem to satisfy those who had written us. We are confident that removing the boxes will be a positive change for all of us. I was even directed to some scripture by someone when talking about the 10 Rules of Respect at coffee hour last week. I would like to share these with you. From Matthew 18 If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. From Timothy 5 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. Liz Our Gates. Recently our Jr. Warden, Lyn Donivan, suggested that we leave our gates open during the day and early evening for the Christmas season. The idea was that we want to be an inviting place for people to visit during this holy time and this is one of the ways that we can do that. Your vestry discussed this suggestion and agreed to follow through with the idea. Through the Christmas season, the gates are being deliberately left open from the morning, until early evening. Our Jr. Warden lives close by church and will swing by and close them shortly after dark each day. We will consider continuing this practice after the holidays depending on our experiences this month. |
