Community News

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Be okay with not being okay

Friends,

It has been about a year since my wife’s scans began to come back as “inconclusive”, but the various techs and doctors told us not to worry too much and said that she is so young and it didn’t look like cancer. At home I echoed this sentiment and tried to quiet my wife’s growing anxiety. This Easter Season will mark one year when the tests stopped being inconclusive, and we knew she had cancer, and that our lives would be forever changed. There were stages through this whole process. The worst was the month when we didn’t know her stage or prognosis. Getting her official diagnosis was surprisingly joyful, because her stage and type meant she would almost certainly make it through, though she would have especially intense treatment. Once we got the prognosis and plan, we did all of the preparation for chemo, which was surprisingly intense. After treatment got going we were essentially along for the ride down a path with many stages, each with its own challenges and complications, and all we could do was hold on. In the beginning I knew that I wasn’t ok, but so much time has gone by it is… curious…disturbing… maybe “interesting” is the right word? I’m disquieted with how normal it all feels. I still know that I am not okay, but it’s more of an afterthought than something on the forefront.

Reading Scripture Faithfully: A Messy Journey

Last night I had the realization that I didn’t know how to articulate my belief on whether or not the Bible is literally the word of God. As our make-up confirmation class was winding down, we got a series of very good questions, and I believe I answered faithfully, but even as I was uttering my answers, I knew it was woefully insufficient. As always, I realized a better thing to say several hours after it was too late.

Holy Eucharist

A monumental shift is about to occur in our worship on Sunday mornings. We are going back to the common cup!! Starting this Sunday, you will have the option to drink from the chalice if you feel so called. If you are really confused as to why I’m making a big deal out of this, let me give some context.

We believe that participation in Holy Eucharist is the primary form of worship every week, and it is not a private affair. Our worship is public and it is communal. Consuming the wine, either through drinking or intinction (dipping) from the common cup, is one of the ways in which we live into this belief. Even during the pandemic, Bishops made it clear that we could not use individual cups that are common in other Churches, because we did not want to give any ground from this outward and visible sign of our communal worship. During the Eucharistic Prayers the wine is blessed in one chalice and one flagon that is shared with everyone. We are one people with one salvation, so we eat the same bread and drink the same wine.

Come and Smell the Ginger

Friends,

Right now, all I can think about is confirmation, Lent, and the Bishop’s visit on March 30th. I think this is understandable, considering I am directly responsible for those things, and I believe this is our big chance to bridge the gap between the church and the diocese, we can set ourselves up for prolonged growth, blah blah blah. Though my focus is understandable, the Church is not all about me and when I get tunnel vision like this the wonderful things happening around me can become muted.

Two Sets of Two Rules

Friends,

Something I harp on constantly with anyone that I might feel is uncomfortable in Church is the two rules, which are:

1. Whatever you are doing, do it slowly.

2. Pretend like you know what you are doing.

There are additional rules that, like, “if you see someone doing something wrong, don’t say anything, unless someone will get hurt.” But even most of these are variations of the first two. If you call out a Eucharistic Minister for standing in the wrong place during the Sanctus, then you’re making them break rule #2, which is distracting to everyone. It’s best to let them continue to observe the first two rules, despite their minor infraction.

Jump Out

The liturgical seasons often feel informed by the seasons around us. This makes sense, considering these seasons and holidays developed organically, and communities would observe them whenever was most meaningful to them. The most obvious seems to be Easter. It makes sense to celebrate life coming out of death in Spring, because the natural world is literally coming back to life all around us. Christmas makes sense, but in a dissonate sort of way. People were already wanting to rage against the dark and the cold before Jesus’s time. In areas that are particularly cold and dark in winter, there seems to be a common wisdom to be stubbornly joyful when it is the coldest and the darkest as a sort of communal reminder that things can get better. When Christian communities wanted to remember and celebrate the birth of Christ, it made sense to take from the winter traditions that were already around, and use that storytelling to help teach the community about the hope that comes with Christ being born.

Miscellaneous Musings

Friends,

It is that time of year, when everyone in my family takes turns having a cold, and it is my turn. From about November through mid-March at least one of the boys, Leandra or I are down for some sort of crud. Even when they are well, the boys constantly have runny noses, and our whole world is fairly gross until the weather gets better. I’m sure that I will be fine by Sunday, but while I write this my brain is foggy, so do not expect anything profound. The good news is that I have a lot of non-found things that are mostly unrelated to one another that I’ve been wanting to tell you, so did you know:

Confirmation Information

We finally have a plan in place for confirmation classes at St. Luke’s! Our community has seen a lot of new faces join us in the last two years, and we are determined to make these classes and the opportunity to be confirmed or received available to anyone who feels called to go through the process.

First of all, what is all of this stuff?

When Christianity was growing in the first centuries of its existence, Bishops gave priests the authority to do baptisms, and then the bishop would visit and seal all those who were prepared to join the Church with the gift of the holy spirit and strengthen them for ministry. This would be done after the person studied scripture and felt called to join the Church.

The Baby Pool in the Steeple

Friends,

There is a baby pool in the steeple.

There is a lot of stuff in the steeple, and among the cell tower equipment (did you know four cell towers are in our steeple!?) is a thirty-dollar plastic baby pool from Village Hardware. There is a lot of backstory as to why there is a baby pool in the steeple, but the only relevant parts are the fact that it is preventing further water damage in the Nave, and that a lot of history, committee meetings, occasional strong feelings, and time led us having a baby pool in the steeple. As to its purpose, it seems to be doing its job, and it is giving us the time to end a decades long mystery as to how water keeps coming into the Nave and find a permanent fix. All of this is secondary to the excuse it gives me to go onto the roof and see sacred things unfolding below.

Surplus Surplices, William Laud, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day

This coming Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and this Sunday we will be singing hymns and commissioning ministries that are meant to live into his ministry. I have every expectation that this will be a powerful service, and for some reason I cannot shake William Laud from my mind. William Laud, of course, was an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 17th century and was in office during a number of big controversies… well some of them were big, and others were big to him and his community, but just seem downright silly to us.

You are loved, just as you are

Things have been interesting at St. Luke’s for a while now. It was about a year ago that we saw a significant increase in attendance on Sunday morning, and coincidently it is when I downloaded the TikTok app on my phone. A friend and new parishioner told me that it is the perfect platform for me to reach out and tell people about the Church. I made a few funny and educational videos that were similar in format to popular videos and they got some traction but not much. Whenever I would get busy, I would stop making videos, so I started uploading my sermons just because it was easy and I wanted to be consistent and post something every week. To my shock one of my sermons got tens of thousands of views and a ton of positive feedback. This coincided with a trip to Memphis where someone recognized me from the sermon! It was hard to not let my ego inflate two sizes too big, but a thought infiltrated my head that maybe it was all because of me. So, I asked my wardens if this was the case, but of course not directly at first. We batted around a few ideas, and then I just flat out asked, “Is it because of my preaching?” Both wardens gave a thoughtful look and said in unison, “Noooo, I don’t think that’s it.” I was a little disappointed.

Thank you for being the Church

I don’t think we could have managed one more thing this Christmas season. I mean, wow. I am writing this on December 28th, and I feel like I am just getting to the point where I can let the past week soak in, and I feel an incredible amount of gratitude for all of you. I am going to something reckless and start naming a few ministries that went above and beyond. I know I am going to leave some out, for which I deeply apologize, but there is simply not enough room to include everyone who made Christmas at St. Luke’s so incredibly special.

St. Nicholas of Myra Saving Pickled Children and/or Drowning Sailors

Dear St. Luke’s,

I wanted to preface this by saying that I believe the content of this article to be true, but I know myself well enough to realize that subconsciously I am mixing up details, so if you take the time to fact-check me you will likely find many errors. I could take the time to review my sources and offer citations, but like many of you this season, time is something I don’t have. However, even if I had all of the time in the world, I probably still wouldn’t check, because I am more interested in telling a good story.

🎶 Let It Go 🎶

Christians are people of the almost, but not yet. In scripture we hear about how Israel was waiting for a messiah, and the messiah arrived in the form of the baby Jesus born in a stable. In Mark’s thirteenth chapter, Jesus tells his disciples to be ready for the coming of the kingdom and names off all of the terrible things that are going to happen that will be signs. Wars, rumors of wars, famine, earth quakes, and woe to those pregnant or nursing during these times. Like the generations of those who have come before us, we are waiting, but is what we are waiting for something we should look forward to or dread? The end times, the coming of the Kingdom of God, Christ coming back all seem to be tied to terrible things, and paradoxically, salvation itself. I think the two worst things we can do is try to quantify what we are waiting for, or to reject the fact that we are indeed waiting for something. Perhaps the most important thing is to acknowledge the fact that we are waiting, and to be ready for whatever is to come. Regardless of the lessons we can gleam from these lessons, I think I have recently gotten a glimpse into why conversations around the ends times seem so incredibly dissonant as they are simultaneously filled with hope and despair.

Spiritual Autobiography: Dawn McMillin

God loves you. Love God and love your neighbor. Fear not. Peace be with you. Those were the first things I learned about God. Simple messages, but not always easy. In my early years, those Sunday school messages that God loves you and is always with you helped me through some scary times and some lonely times. It’s a comfort to know that when you’re alone you’re never truly alone.

Outrage < Redemption

On Monday evening I was accidently part of the social media outrage machine. I strongly believe that social media should either be plainly informational or downright silly. When it comes to debating current issues or broadcasting opinions, I simply do not believe that Facebook is conducive to nuanced and compassionate discussion. With that being said, I posted a satirical video on Monday evening for Giving Tuesday pretending to be outraged that St. Luke’s does not sell access to online worship or charge to attend Christmas Eve services as a light-hearted way of encouraging people to financially support our ministries. Little did I know that at the same time the National Cathedral announced they were charging a seven dollar administrative fee to attend their Christmas services.

In advance of Commitment Sunday

Friends,

I would like a moment to talk to you plainly about our stewardship campaign.

In order for us to thrive as a Church we need many things. The most important thing that we need is people who are called to gather to worship and do ministry. Another thing that we need is money, because without it, we cannot support the people in their ministry. People are far more important than money, and I would say that as a Church, we have our priorities properly aligned. On the people front we are thriving. We have seen many new faces come into the Church over the course of the past year, and a large portion of them have stayed to make St. Luke’s their home. I really do feel that we are doing something right, and there is something special happening at St. Luke’s!

Spiritual Autobiography: Skip Jones

In preparing mine, I reflected on at least a dozen years of memories of Sunday School, church camp, youth group and folk group at Grace Methodist Church in Wilmington, Delaware. It was here in a very uni-cultural, middle-class, Protestant, largely white environment that I acquired the basics for my understanding of Christian faith and community.

Greater maturity in my own spirituality came naturally with reading, prayer and life experience. A good part of the latter involved coming into contact with a wider, more multicultural society. As a Boy Scout, I interacted with other Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, and Baha’i Scouts and Scouters. We obviously shared ethical values in Scouting, and discussions I had with them about their faith beliefs caused me to conclude that their own religious convictions, sometimes quite different from my own, contributed to this similarity in personal ethics. This pushed me in the direction of considering how the God of my upbringing might be understood entirely differently by other faithful people. I found this to be reassuring, as I had struggled with the thought of people whom I knew and respected being cut off from God’s grace and the opportunity to abide in God simply because they believed differently from me.

May the Gourd always be with you

I cannot believe that pumpkin season is over! It feels like it as just yesterday when we met the massive truck filled with 2546 patch pumpkins, 5 large bins of spookies and snowballs, 59 boxes of decorative small pumpkins and gourds, and 75 Swan gourds. Over 40 thousand pounds of gourdage!! The past few weeks have been a glorious whirlwind of learning from the pros, teaching the newbies, and helping people make memories in our patch. Many of you reading this had something to do with our pumpkin patch, whether that was working shifts, baking pumpkin bread, or just buying a few gourds. Regardless of what your involvement was, thank you.

This would be an appropriate time to highlight the ministry of those who have always gone above and beyond, and those who have recently stepped up to the plate. Behind each of these people is an interesting and compelling story about their ministry. For the sake of brevity, you’ll just get a little snap shot. Kim Witzman is often found at the patch making sure everything runs smoothly and getting things organized, all while crocheting perfect pumpkins to be sold in our patch. I honestly do not know how she does it. Melissa Brunton is arguably the most seasoned gourdonaut, and is the standard fallback person when something goes awry. Lisa and Richard Maple are our omnipresent tech gurus. Martha Beckford magically tallies our totals every single night the patch is open. Her updates always populate my inbox, and I have no idea how she does this magic. Alan Hope is the master pumpkin bread baker, and the orchestra conductor of the pumpkin unloading symphony. Tom Hargrove holds no special title, but if you need a shift filled, he is there with gusto. There are also the dozens of other longtime members that step-up year after year, not because their children will benefit from the proceeds, but because they find enjoyment and meaning in helping this ministry. Thank you all for making this possible.

All Souls

I had a bad dream last week that I was back home for the funeral of a friend who died over twenty years ago now. In real life, we had had a funeral for him, of course. But in my dream, the family wanted to have another funeral — so I showed up.

Twenty-four years had passed, and in the dream I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was sad, but I knew it wasn’t because of loss. His death was something I learned to live with years ago. I don’t have many memories of my friend left, the sound of his voice and his laugh have gone. But in the dream, his family still wept in the way they always have, and I felt guilty for losing something so precious to the wear of time.