Community News

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Bishop Porter Taylor - Yearning To Be Made New

Let’s be honest. It’s hard to get into the customary pre-Christmas frenzy. When I read that 795,000 people have died from Covid in this country alone, it’s hard to get excited about what’s under the tree. Then there are the worldwide deaths and the mess in Washington.

I will admit my playlist is retro because I have never gotten over the sixties. However, some years ago I found a singer named Ted Small. One of his songs has this line: “When gravity is getting you down, look up.” While walking around the neighborhood this week, I listened to this song, and I thought of the words in our Eucharist, “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.” I realized I need a reorientation.

Father Nick on the Joys of Day School Sunday

It is Day School Sunday this week! Hopefully, we’ll get a few families to join us on Sunday morning from the Day School to celebrate our shared community together. I have loved my time at St. Luke’s since I arrived last January, and the Day School has been an exceptionally bright spot, so I thought I would walk you through a typical Wednesday morning.

Father Nick Wishes You a Holy Advent

Advent is here! Many Churches treat Advent like a mini-Lent where the emphasis is on penitence as we try to make our paths straight for the coming of the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, I love penitence, but I think this misses the mark a little bit for this season. Advent is about excitement and expectation of the unknown as we prepare for the incarnation of God in the world. As we read the beginning of the Gospel story, we are invited to suspend our knowledge of how the story ends. We do not yet know about the miracles, the passion, the cross, or the resurrection. This coming Sunday, we only have the voice calling out from the wilderness urging us to repent of our sins and prepare the way of the Lord. The Lord is coming, and we do not know what will happen when the Lord arrives, so we have to be prepared.

Bishop Porter on the Faithful Perspective of Thanksgiving

There’s a reason we call the second half of the Eucharist “The Great Thanksgiving.” We come to receive the sacraments from a position of thanks because we recognize that all of life is a gift. “All things come from Thee O Lord and of Thine own have we given Thee.” All things. The Great Thanksgiving isn’t merely a section of the liturgy; it’s a stance or a perspective we are invited to take in order to focus ourselves on God and not ourselves nor those we may wish to blame for the current condition. Joanna Macy, the co-author of Active Hope, writes, “Gratitude pulls us out of this rat race. It shifts our attention from what’s missing to what’s there.”

Father Nick is Grateful for God's Provisions

Leandra and I have become surprisingly competent adults since our child was born. We were ok before, but now we are cleaning, organizing, hanging pictures, and bill-paying machines! Video games and bingeing television have been limited to about an hour and a half of freedom a night, for which we feel tremendously grateful. On Monday, we will get the opportunity to return to my parent’s house, a living monument to when I was terrible at being responsible, and I cannot wait.

Father Nick on the Importance of Congregational Singing

Kate and I had a good conversation about singing in Church last week. We were considering including the words and not printing music in the bulletin. That may or may not happen, but the conversation around it has been bouncing around my head all week.

Everyone was much better at singing at one time because if you wanted to hear music, you had to sing or play an instrument. It meant that most Church-goers, even if they were not in the choir, had some idea how to read music, and there was significantly more participation. An unexpected consequence of recorded music is that people suddenly could hear flawless music whenever they turned on the radio and became shy about making mistakes. It may explain a common sight you’ve seen in Episcopal Churches, the choir belts it, while most of the congregation is shy to lift their voice and sing to God.

Father Nick's Encouragement

There is this misconception that Jesus was this serene, near-emotionless presence of calm in a sea of sin and anxiety. If you go back and read the Gospels, Jesus expresses all of the emotions that we feel regularly and then some. He feels love when people show deep faith. He occasionally tries to get away and rest, gets frustrated, and even indicates outrage and flips over some tables.

I think there is this misconception that we should strive to purge stress from the holiday season. Around this time of year, I get bombarded with tips to make it through the holidays with as much serenity as the emotionless Christ of our popular imagination. As well-intentioned as this advice may be, it ultimately causes me more stress because now I am failing the impossible task of not feeling pressure in an innately stressful time.

Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson: A Meditation on Rewiring

In the house that is the Diocese of Virginia, we know that we have a solid foundation, and we know that as long as we remain firmly tied to the rock that is God in Christ Jesus, we’re on firm footing. If we remain grounded in Christ, anything that is amiss can be fixed, updated, removed, or renovated.

We can take our time with some things, budgeting time and money as we go. Other things that turn up in our house inspection require immediate action, like it or not, because they pose a clear threat to the safety and soundness of structure. Everything may look just fine, but some hidden issues can be lethal. One of those issues is wiring.

Bishop Goff: A Meditation on the Feast of St. Luke, the Physician

Luke 4:16-21

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Whenever people go out in Jesus’ name to do the things he did, to continue the work of justice-making and peace-building or the ministry of proclamation and evangelism, the scripture is fulfilled. Today this scripture is lived out in our sight by people in this very room.

Father Nick on Traditions

When we were growing up it was assumed that we were going to Church every single Sunday. We often hated it, but we went without fail, even on vacation. As we grew up together, we went through periods where we felt cynical about Church, and others where Church meant the world to us. When we felt cynical, we would find ways of entertaining each other that included tripping each other on the way to communion, flicking each other’s’ ears during the sermon, and competing who got to put the check in the plate.

Father Nick on Stewardship

Dear St. Luke's,

It sure feels awkward talking about money in Church. Money often feels morally dirty, and the mention of it from the pulpit can send images of jailed televangelists into the congregation's minds. We spend all of this time convincing people that we are here to serve, and when we admit that we need money too, everything else feels fake. But of course, we need money to pay staff, do ministry, keep the lights on, and be the place where people go for meaning and help. To complicate things even further, Jesus talks about money all of the time, and he probably didn't do it to make people feel good about their wealth.

Father Nick on Church Community

Dear St. Luke’s,

The Church is many things for many different people. For most, the Church has some element of worship, doing good, and spending time together. Some may be more drawn to leading worship, whether lay reading or singing in the choir. Others may feel more called to serve the needy, which could mean visiting homebound members or working with the homeless. Regardless of what we do, we must do it with others, making fellowship an important part of a healthy Church.

Father Nick on Giving Thanks

Dear St. Luke’s,

I am often surprised by what turns out to be easy and what turns out to be difficult. This past year and a half, I feel like the simplest things all of a sudden became a significant challenge. I am personally tired of hearing “unprecedented” in terms of doing Church, and find myself overusing the analogy of swimming through Jell-O for doing things that seemed all too easy just two years ago. If you are wondering, I have never swum through Jell-O before, but I imagine it to be cumbersome if not impossible.

Fr. Nick on Rituals and Traditions

Dear St. Luke’s,

Ritual and tradition are so very important. Not so much as something to appease or satisfy God, but to give us here below a chance to make meaning in our lives. I think there is good reason that people of all faiths and cultures tend to gather around a ritual when a child is welcomed, a couple gets married, or when someone dies. We have this compulsion to put these ineffably massive moments into some sort of context, and to do so within community. In many ways the past year has put us in a state of arrested development by taking away our ability to do ritual.

Father Nick's Weekly Message

A few things happened this week where someone claimed, “you should put this in the e-news”, so I decided to consolidate all of these notices into a big reflection, so please excuse this bulleted list:

Someone attended the 8:00 am service this past Sunday, unaware that they were sick with COVID. The situation is well under control, and the chances that someone was exposed is nominal.
This Sunday is our big kickoff for Sunday School programming! I have been working closely with our Children's ministry to get ready.
We hired three people in the last two weeks!
One ministry we have put work into, but haven't quite locked down yet, is the Adult Forum.... I will be the first speaker on September 26th.
Do you feel like there is nothing at St. Luke’s for you? Please, seriously, give me a call, because you are the person that I want to hear from the most.

The biggest thing this week is the twenty-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I have heard from so many of you and how you were touched by that day, and I am still humbled how much that event still affects the world. I am genuinely lost for words when I think about it, which shouldn’t be surprising because I have been so consumed with the list above that I haven’t given myself time to let the reality of that tragedy seep in.

This time is exciting, cripplingly scary, exhausting, sometime rejuvenating, and we are always called put those things aside to look beyond ourselves. We must take time to remember those who died twenty years ago, and if we do not, then we cannot strive to make the world a better place in our present day. The task of being a faithful follower of Christ takes on countless forms, but it always involving taking the time to put all of those worries that weigh us down before the table of God.

A message from Fr. Nick regarding our new program year!

Dear St. Luke’s,

I am nervous and excited as we prepare to start our program year. There are many good things in our near future. I particularly excited to see our education programs come back to life, and for our building project to come to fruition. More than anything else, I am looking forward to getting into a rhythm with you, so we can focus on the important things and spend less time worrying about the important, but more mundane, aspects of being the Church. Before we get into that rhythm, we need to figure out who we will become, and so it would be helpful to figure out who we are spiritually and practically. I am far from an expert on our financial reality and the history of our staff, but I thought it would be helpful for me to explain the situation as best as I am able.

A Word of Farewell from Fr. Chip

One of the greatest and most precious gifts to be received as a Priest is to be held in the hearts of those to whom you minister. Not every pastoral relationship is easy. The strain of difficult times and the chances of life can sour even what is good. So to be held in love by the laity of a parish is a beautiful thing.

A gift like that is not to be taken lightly.

Thank you St. Luke’s.

A Letter to the Parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

Locally and globally things are moving at a rapid pace. I am overwhelmed, excited and a bit nervous as we move into our first program year at St. Luke’s. While our ministries come alive, history is being made almost on a monthly basis. In the shadow of these massive events, the challenges we face can feel trivial. I have been struggling to wrap my mind around all of the big things happening at St. Luke’s, while I often find myself grieving the state of the world. With the smallest and biggest things, I am trying something different; I am trying to listen more and to listen better. I find the more that I listen, the more I realize how small I am compared to our world, our country and our Church, and this realization can be liberating and be motivation to do more for others.

A Letter to the Parish from Fr. Nick

Dear St. Luke’s,

I have had a very eventful, joyful and hopeful couple of weeks. My time has been spent coordinating with our lay ministers about getting our ministry going this year, I have had the opportunity to reconnect with dear friends for the first time in over a year, and I even got to ride a rollercoaster with my brother. All of this has filled my heart, but it has made time a limited commodity. When I arrived for the vestry meeting this past week my head was spinning from changing gears from being family focused to Church focused, and I was eager to make sure that I had my ducks in a row during the meeting. I was trying to do the whole “calm presence”, but I’m pretty sure my anxiety was shining through. When 7:00 pm came along we asked Chip to open us in prayer. After an appropriately sanctified pause Chip began praying with the words, “Almighty God, we give you thanks for short prayers.” And everyone enthusiastically responded with “AMEN!”.

A Word from Fr. Chip about Awareness

The word Awareness has become linked to an ethos of: topics that deserve to be better understood. We might all agree that “________ Awareness Month” is going to be filled with factoids on TV and special marketing campaigns around whatever topic fills in the blank.

We have just as surely all heard from someone that, “I wasn’t aware of that” as their excuse for something they did or didn’t do.

So what does it mean for us as Christians to make a spiritual practice of awareness part of our lives?