MARCH 2022 • Volume 24, Number 2
Are You Saved?: 3 Learning to Lead: 8 Gaining a Voice for Life: 10 Passion!: 12
The Message this month: Contents:
Contributors:
Christ Church Staff:
From Our Rector ..............................3
The Rev. Patrick Gahan, Rector
Youth Ministry .................................8
The Rev. Scott Kitayama, Associate Rector
Family Ministry ...............................9
The Rev. Brien Koehler, Associate Rector for Mission and Formation
Music Ministry ..............................10 World Missions ..............................10
The Rev. Justin Lindstrom, Associate Rector for Community Formation PATRICK GAHAN
Karen Von Der Bruegge, Director of Vocational Discernment and Pastoral Care
Outreach ........................................11
Halleta Heinrich, Director of Family Ministry
From the Flock ...............................12
Lily Fenton, Nursery Director
Great Commission...........................13 AVERY MORAN
Page Turners...................................14
Susan Lindstrom, Director of College Ministry
Photo Album...................................15 Front Cover photo: Monica Elliott Last Supper Reenactment
Back Cover photo: Elizabeth Martinez
Avery Moran, Youth Minister
Joshua Benninger, Music Minister & Organist Jennifer Holloway, Assistant Music Director, Children’s Music Director & Social Media Manager
HALLETA HEINRICH
Gumbo Lunch
Charissa Fenton, Receptionist
Editor: Gretchen Duggan
Robert Hanley, Director of Campus Operations Darla Nelson, Office Manager
Live Stream Services: www.cecsa.org/live-stream
JENNIFER HOLLOWAY
Gretchen Comuzzi Duggan, Director of Communications
9:00 & 11:00 a.m. Sundays 11:00 a.m. Wednesdays In Person Services: Sundays 7:30 a.m. - Rite I 9 & 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. - Rite II
Monica Elliott, Executive Assistant to the Rector Elizabeth Martinez, Kitchen Manager
ERIC FENTON
Robert Vallejo, Facilities Manager Rudy Segovia, Hospitality Manager Joe Garcia, Sexton
Sunday School 10:00 a.m. Christian Education for Children, Youth, and Adults
BRIEN KOEHLER
Wednesdays 11 a.m. - Morning Prayer with
Margaret Pape, Junior Warden Doug Daniel
MELISSA CARROLL
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Lisa Miller
Catherine de Marigny Garry Schnelzer
Follow us:
facebook.com/ChristChurchSATX @christchurchsatx @cecSATX
2022 Vestry: Andy Anderson, Senior Warden
Communion
Visit us on-line at www.cecsa.org
Donna Franco, Financial Manager
CHARISSA FENTON
Rick Foster
Garnett Wietbrock
Spencer Hill
Julianne Reeves
David McArthur
Scott Rose
How Can I Be Saved?
Charles Henry Niehaus, “Paul and Silas leaving prison in Philippi,” Astor memorial doors, Trinity Church, New York, 1893. Wally Gobetz/Flickr
by Patrick Gahan
At the buzzer, I walked across the
court to Kay and asked, “What did you think?” I was fishing for a compliment on my athletic prowess after our opening basketball game in the Tyler, TX Church League. Christ Episcopal had just won a barn burner against the Pentecostals. Kay was clearly unimpressed and coolly responded, “Only two bad sports were on the gym floor tonight, and I am looking at one of them.” The torrent of thrown elbows and tempest of rash words during the contest came raining down on my head. My elation descended to shame. Most of us have been there. We go along pretty as you please until we do or say something that is mean, selfish, or worse – cruel. Most often, the bad behavior
and callous words, as well as the ugly thoughts that precede them creep up on us seductively. Where did those come from? We were going along so well, and then… At those times, God’s first words to Cain become hauntingly true for us, ‘sin is crouching at your door; its desire is for you…’ (Genesis 4:7). We are aghast that those thoughts have been lingering at our doors forming words or acts that we soundly condemn when issued by someone else. Unlike the rash young pastor on the basketball court, most of us exercise consistent control of our outward actions, such that we appear stoically dispassionate like the Buddha under the Bo Tree. Behind our masks of feigned composure, some of us realize that our lives are uncomfortably out of sync. Far more than our occasional outbursts of caustic words or actions, we sense that we are splashing
about in the shallow end of the pool, nowhere near the deep purpose we believe God fashioned for our lives. We are genial and others maintain a good opinion of us, yet we feel separated from the person we thought we would have become by now, and our days are passing ‘swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and they vanish without hope’ (Job 7:6). The New Testament portrays this separation we experience as the fuse for our destructive words and actions. The Greek word for sin, hamartia, which is repeated 150 times throughout some twenty books of the New Testament, is defined as a “forfeiture or failure due to missing the mark.” In all four Gospels, John the Baptist uses hamartia to announce the work of Jesus. In John’s Gospel, the announcement is cast, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the 3
From Our Rector... world!’ (John 1:21). ‘This is the Messiah,’ heralds John. He will end our separation from God.’ An illustration of hamartia from modern life could be a married couple who continually miss each other throughout their daily routine. The two are no longer connected with one another because they are feverishly involved in other endeavors, lesser pursuits that take them further and further away from one another. Two that should be consistently growing more connected and more in love, instead become strangers inhabiting the same house. Their disunion devolves into lacerating words and actions. The marriage has “missed the mark,” and the couple is separated from the greater purpose of their union – to show the world that God makes two people one, a living portrait of the way He becomes one with us.1
Subtly “crouching at the door of our lives,” sin gradually separates us from love by enticing us to pursue far less important priorities and severing us from the greater purpose that
God alone can supply
The Old Testament predicts this understanding of sin in its most recurring word for sin, khata, which is used 238 times in twenty-seven of its books. Again, the word means to miss the mark or to deceive oneself. The above-mentioned passage where God tells Cain that khata is crouching at his door is the first mention of sin in the entire Bible. Cain, like us, is susceptible to deceiving himself into believing he knows the right action to take better than God, a catastrophic path his parents undertook before him.2 Sin is insidious in that way. Subtly “crouching at the door of our lives,” sin gradually separates us from love by enticing us to pursue far less important priorities and severing us from the greater purpose that God alone can supply. The more we are separated from God’s will for our lives, the more likely we are to 1 Matthew 19:6; Book of Common Prayer, 436. 2 Genesis 3:1-24
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eventually kill what we love; a lesson Cain teaches us graphically.3 To understand sin as missing the mark rather than a laundry list of offenses, intensifies our need to confront it. With each incremental miss, we move steadily and often imperfectively from God’s will until we are entirely lost. A comparison from my Army days may help. Occasionally, my infantry platoon undertook night land navigation exercises on moonless evenings. We were given the coordinates of our objective ten miles away and the time we were expected to arrive. We would have to rely on our compasses, as the conditions were too dark to navigate successfully by reading the terrain. However, once you set an azimuth, that is the course to the objective, it is easy to step around boulders, creeks, and other obstacles along the way until you gradually wander a mile or more from the objective. The drift is so incremental that you do not realize how far you have strayed from the course. That is how sin works its dark designs in us. We don’t suddenly wake up one day with a heart as evil as Jeffrey Dahmer. No, we begin edging away from God in the confidence that we know better until we find ourselves in no man’s land…or on the sidelines of the basketball court facing the dire disappointment of the one you love. The problem, of course, is that we are born with this inclination to trust in ourselves instead of God, to serve our appetites rather than the larger purposes of God, and far worse, to love those things that cannot love us back because we distrust the love of God. This is the congenital defect of every human. If heaven operated like an insurance company, we would be rejected because sin is a “pre-existing condition.” That is why Paul throws up his hands and declares, ‘I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do’ (Romans 7:15). Paul is not recounting a string of naughty peccadillos. He is plaintively lamenting the fact that he continues to betray God and thereby betray himself. Paul recognizes that he is still the two-yearold throwing a tantrum on the kitchen 3 Genesis 4:8-12
floor. His pressing question: ‘Who will rescue me from this body of death’? (Romans 7:24) …is ours, too. The Simple Answer How can we be rescued, or “saved,” as church people are apt to say? The answer is patently simple on one hand and considerably more complicated on the other. Paul has an experience in jail which vividly illustrates the paradoxical nature of our salvation through Christ: Paul and Silas were thrown into an inner cell in the Roman prison at Philippi. About midnight they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night, he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. Acts 16:24-34 The story unfolds as Paul and Silas were traveling through Greece for the first time. They were in Philippi, a city in northwestern Greece named for Phillip of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s father. In 42 B.C. it became a Roman colony where Emperor Augustus settled war veterans. Because of their history, the population was fiercely devoted to the Roman state with its civic order. Paul disrupts the city’s concord when he becomes increasingly annoyed by a slave girl who follows
From Our Rector... Silas and Paul for a succession of days repeatedly crying, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, to show you the way of salvation’ (Acts 16:17). Her message is accurate, but her constant ranting grates on them. Fed up, Paul turns in the middle of the city street and exorcises the spirit from the slave girl. In short order, Paul and Silas are arrested by the authorities because the girl’s prophetic powers heretofore provided a tidy income for her owners. The girl, on the other hand, who is madly nattering on about God, is saved from the power that enslaves her. No good deed goes unpunished, and Silas and Paul are attacked by a mob and subsequently chained to the wall of a windowless Philippian cell.
falls to his knees before Silas and Paul and asks, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ What’s striking is that the jailer does not want to be saved from anything as much as he wants to be saved for something. Consider the facts of the passage. All through the night, the jailer has heard Paul’s and Silas’s singing and praying even though they have been ruthlessly pursued by a mob and are now chained to the wall. The two men’s prayers are obviously answered by their God, who has orchestrated an earthquake to unshackle them. Most curious of all, neither Paul and Silas, nor any of the prisoners flee. A peace has overtaken them. The jailer wants to be saved to live that kind of life, a life from which he currently feels separated. He makes no claim on life after death. No, the jailer wants to live now. The jailer did not know life could be that rich, that a person could sing out even in the worst of circumstances. Now that he’s seen and heard, he’s like a house afire: ‘What must I do to get what you have?’ The jailer realizes that it’s not the prisoners chained up and sitting in the darkness, it’s him. He is separated from the light but not for long he hopes.
Paul and Silas in Prison, William Hatherell (1855-1928)
Rather than bemoan their circumstance, the two pray and sing through the night, entertaining their company of luckless inmates. An earthquake unexpectedly interrupts their serenade, swinging wide the cell doors and unshackling the chains of every prisoner. The jailer awakes to see the prisoners’ restraints sprung, which he assumes is a gross dereliction of his duty. A good stoic Roman, he draws his sword to kill himself out of fealty to his Lord the Emperor. ‘Not so fast,’ cries Paul from the inner prison cell, we’re all still here.’ Lighting a torch, the jailer sees them. Trembling, he
The jailer must have been buffaloed by the simple instructions he receives from the duo: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ No doubt he was expecting more intricate and strenuous directions. To be saved, at least at first flush, is simple. He is told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Greek that Paul and Silas would have used for “believe on” was pisteuson epi, which means to “trust upon.” In other words, the jailer must entrust himself to Jesus Christ, who will end his separation from God and take away the barriers to real life. The astounding revelation that comes to the jailer is that the earthquake was sent by God, not for God’s faithful servants Paul and Silas, but for him! He was the one in prison, not those chained to the walls. The jailer can’t fathom why God has stooped to rescue him, because he feels he has no intrinsic value to this God disclosed by Jesus Christ, who shakes the earth and
flouts the power of the emperor. That’s the point, for him to trust on Jesus Christ is to end his separation from God and encounter grace, which is undeserved, unmerited mercy and love. The jailer may have initially found the entire proposition unnerving. Because he did not earn grace, he has no control of it either. Nicodemus felt the same disorientation when Jesus introduced grace to him, ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit’ (John 3:8). The reconciling power of God has blown into his life, albeit through an earthquake, but he had nothing to do with it. Frederick Buechner captures the overwhelming emotions sweeping over Nicodemus and the jailer: The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party would have been incomplete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.4 More Complicated The simple and revolutionary truth about being saved is that it is simple. The grace of God sweeps over us ending our alienation and giving us a new life in communion with the Maker of all creation. Grace blows in from the God-ward side. But that is hardly the end of our salvation story. We know that because, if we are honest, even those of us who are saved are still struggling with the vestiges of our old sinful life. What can the jailer tell us about that? Plenty. Luke, the author of Acts and, therefore, the one who narrates the Philippian jailer’s saga of salvation, has more in mind than merely memorializing the event. Very similar to the Gospel he composed earlier, Luke is not merely reporting an account of the earliest Christian leaders, but he is teaching those gathered in the various house churches 4 Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 34.
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From Our Rector... how to live as Christians. His text would have been read aloud as an unfolding drama. Luke realizes that he is mostly sharing with those who already believe on the Lord Jesus; however, he also realizes that being saved is the beginning of the journey, not its terminus. Using the jailer, Luke teaches the steps they must take along the way.
of the Western world was created by Christians is that the great minds and masters could never come to the end of what there is to know and express about our life in Christ. Third, the jailer and his family attend to Paul’s and Silas’s wounds and feed them. Hours before the jailer secured them to a wall with iron chains and then promptly went to sleep, oblivious to their injuries and pain. In his newfound belief, he does an about-face and takes action to restore the health of the duo whom he had previously scorned. Being saved is always expressed by concrete actions. In short, we can no longer live the way we did before because we are directed by the greatest love the world has ever known. St. John does not equivocate regarding the radical life reversal of the saved: ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth’ (1 John 3:16-18).
devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ with his gifts.’5 Luke’s listeners leave the jailer and his family, not contentedly settled around the hearth, but in the assurance that they are striking off on the great Christian adventure. That, of course, is Luke’s purpose in writing his Acts of the Apostles. He wants those who hear his rollicking account to excitedly join the adventure, too.
The jailer’s first step is to change his locus The Gospel According to Gump of authority. Luke’s listeners would have experienced the jailer’s desperation as How can we hear Luke’s story afresh, get he raises the sword to appease the honor off our laurels, and step toward the vistas of the emperor and satisfy the state. Just Christ has prepared for us? A modern before the blade struck flesh, Paul’s voice cultural hero may help – Forrest Gump. penetrates the darkness, ‘Wait! We’re still Recall in the film when Forrest saves Lt. here!’ In short order, the jailer learns that Dan’s life during a fierce firefight in the his old master, Rome, would end his life, Vietnam jungle. Lt. Dan has both legs while Paul’s and Silas’s Master gives life, amputated due to injuries he suffered, such that one can sing his heart out even leaving him bitter about life and furious when chained to a dank, windowless at Forrest for saving him. Some years prison wall. The jailer does not know it later, the two encounter one another yet, but the life his new Master gives is outside a bar on New Year’s Eve. Lt. Dan’s endless. That’s why every Christian must appearance and speech have degraded ask the question, “Who is calling the further, yet at one point, he promises that shots in my life?” Any master other than in the unlikely event that Forrest “becomes the One who loves us even when we are a shrimp boat captain, he will serve as the most unlovable and unattractive is a his first mate.” Again, after an interval significant step down. And yet many of us of time, Forrest buys a dilapidated answer to masters who would just as shrimp boat and is lucklessly trying soon see us dead than unproductive “In Baptism, every Christian has enough to to make a living, when Lt. Dan, or unfaithful or unattractive. “Up study and to practice all his life. He always true to his word, shows up to help. or out” is the mantra of the world’s masters. We need a change. has enough to do to believe firmly what baptism The two make little headway until a violent storm erupts (echoes promises and brings—victory over death and of the Philippian jailer!), which Second, the jailer invites Paul and the devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the provokes Lt. Dan’s vicious rantings Silas to his house to teach him at God while he precariously and his family. He has changed entire Christ with his gifts.” clutches the wavering mast of the allegiances and now trusts in the boat. Unbeknownst to the two, the Lord Jesus Christ, but he realizes tempest brings in a shrimp harvest beyond there is so much more to learn about this To inaugurate this unconventional, their imagination. When the skies clear, new life. After all, up until this portentous revolutionary new life, the jailer and his the two of them are sitting quietly together turnabout, he had lived under a different family are baptized. By all appearances, at night admiring the stars, and Lt. Dan aegis, with clear responsibilities, and the family does not undergo baptism as confesses to Forrest, “I never thanked you measured expectations. The lid has been a perfunctory rite of passage. Rather, for saving my life.” With that confession, blown off those former limitations of his baptism is the starting gate which opens the legless, once bitter combatant, jumps life. An entire new existence is before him to their new very rich, yet strenuous life into the water and smiles as he floats on about which he knows next to nothing and in Christ. Martin Luther, the pioneering there is so much to learn. St. Paul would hero of the Reformation wrote in his Large his back contemplating the stars. This is Lt. Dan’s baptism. The next time Forrest exclaim, ‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom Catechism, which he published in April and he meet more years have passed. and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are 1529: In Baptism, every Christian has enough his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!’ to study and to practice all his life. He always 5 Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, translat(Romans 11:33). The reason the most has enough to do to believe firmly what baptism ed by Robert H. Fischer (Philadelphia: Fortress, magnificent architecture, music, and art promises and brings—victory over death and the 1959), 85-86. 6
From Our Rector...
Lt. Dan is engaged to be married, and he is striding on titanium legs. Paul’s words come alive in the twice saved man: ‘Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life’ (Romans 6:4). The Parable of Forrest and Lt. Dan illustrates the two-fold character of salvation. The first is simple: God’s infinite mercy is extended through the Son Jesus Christ, ending the separation between us and God. We are rescued from death, born again, solely through the sacrifice of Christ. The second characteristic of salvation is more complicated, because we must learn to walk by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7), that is to live as born again people in the sunshine of Christ’s love. Clearly, it’s one thing to be saved and given a new life, but it’s quite another to step out and live in that new reality. Lt. Dan’s struggle is true to life. Getting rid of the death that clings to us is strenuous and knotty. We may be surprised to learn that the ancient rite of Baptism, which we often take for granted, discloses Lt. Dan’s journey of salvation. The Way of Baptism First, Holy Baptism is a promise, or to use more Biblical language, a covenant. Most of us cannot recall our baptisms. No matter, when the water was poured over us, those surrounding us, our parents, Godparents, and the church family, all acknowledged that we were being taken into God’s new covenant with His people. Baptism is
often compared to God’s people crossing the Red Sea, escaping bondage in Egypt and walking into a new life of freedom. Let’s imagine for a moment that we were infants at the time of the crossing, and a parent held us in her arms as we made the passage. When we stepped on the opposite shore, now safe from Pharaoh’s terrible army, we were a new, liberated people – Israel. As a small child, we did not quite understand what was going on, but in time our parents no longer carried us, and we began walking alongside the company of the rescued. We began our own walk of faith and learned who we are and what God has done for us. In the same way, the water of baptism never dries on our heads. We learn in time that we are free. We are chosen. We are loved. We are saved. Second, we almost chuckle when the priest pronounces that the infant just baptized has been bestowed the forgiveness of sins (BCP, 308). What sins could that little child have committed? The child is just getting started and will repeatedly sin throughout his or her life. That’s the point. In baptism we are acknowledging a fundamental aspect of the new covenant we have entered: God loves us so much that he forgives us repeatedly throughout our lives. St. John clearly states, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). The promise to forgive our sins carries a double message. One, God loves us so much that He refuses to let any obstacle stand between Himself and us – even our grievous sin. Two, we must come to God to receive His forgiveness.
Recall the pivotal point in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when the pitiful, self-indulgent, repugnant boy decides to come home. Like the child walking along in the company of Israel, we learn that we are not free agents, but part of a people who follows and obeys the One who loves them. We are all prodigal. We all must execute a 180° turn innumerable times in our lives and return to the One who loves us despite ourselves, and we return to that community where God’s love is exercised. Third, baptism sets us on a lifetime journey. Imagine that the walk across the Red Sea towards the Promised Land never ends. If we are wise, we will surround ourselves with new covenant people, the Church, and with them we will gradually learn how to live the saved life. That’s why the Church does not baptize in private. We need each other for guidance, support, and accountability. Along the way, we will be changed. As Luther puts it, “Baptism will become the daily garment which the disciple is to wear all the time…every day suppressing the old person and growing up into the new.”6 That’s why I can laugh now about my escapade on the church league basketball team, but at the time, I was miserable and repugnant to myself. I was a newly ordained minister for heaven’s sake. Now I know that what I really needed was to walk humbly with those in the Church who had long been on the gospel journey and learn from them what it really means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to be part of the new covenant, and to be saved. 6 Luther, The Large Catechism, 90.
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Surrendering to God’s Leadership Youth Ministry by Avery Moran
Leadership is something that we can
rarely notice when it’s done right, but almost immediately notice when it is going poorly. This Spring, our Youth Group will be looking at different attributes of leadership, based on Richard Stearn’s book Lead Like it Matters to God. Some of these attributes are simple, such as love, or courage, while others are a bit tougher, like self-awareness. By the end of our Spring study, we will have gone over 19 different virtues. There are so many misconceptions about leadership that I decided to do the study.
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We often think of leadership as something that can only come from the top of an organization down. Often, when we don’t perceive our role as important, it’s easy for us to mentally checkout. One of the goals of this study is to equip and empower our young people to be leaders, no matter what their official role is in a team or organization. So, let’s talk about what it means to “Lead Like it Matters to God.” When I asked this question at the beginning of our study, I got a wide range of answers. We all have different things that we value in a leader. Integrity is something that we all typically value. We want our leaders to do the right thing, and we want to be able to trust that we are being led in the right direction. But how do we know what the “right thing” is? To answer that, we’ll talk about the virtue
that we started our study with, surrender. Surrendering to God is the starting point of Christian Leadership, and it’s typically difficult for us to do. As humans, we want control over our situation, we want to make our own decisions, trailblaze our own paths. The difficulty of surrender comes from us ceding that control over to God, and allowing him to put us in uncomfortable situations, take us out of our comfort zone, and help us grow as people. To be Christian leaders to the people around us, we must first allow God to be our leader. Please pray for us as we continue our study on leadership. Avery Moran
“…And a little child will lead them.” Isaiah 11:6
CEC Family Ministry by Halleta Heinrich Children’s Ministry – A Place Where Children Lead Us to the Heart of Christ
Those of us present a few weeks ago
in Children’s Chapel for our annual Epiphany Celebration witnessed an amazing event – a miracle in my mind. A very small child laid her heart at the manger of Jesus with no real prompting from me, just a prompting of the Holy Spirit to give her heart to Jesus. This is a beloved ritual that occurs each year at the
The children gave their hearts to Jesus
end of our Epiphany journey as each child presents the greatest gift they can give to our Savior Christ at the manger – their heart, their lives. A little child led us that day, and our children lead us each week through the expression of their child-like faith in the unconditional love Christ has for each of us.
I have been so blessed over the last thirtyfour years at Christ Church to receive this assurance of God’s abiding love from our children. It happens each week in Children’s Chapels and Sunday School. Those of us called to minister to children respect the dignity and innate spirituality of children. Jesus did too! He said “Let the little children come to me…, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14), and “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:3). We are open to the pondering of the children who have deep spiritual questions and profound answers concerning our faith. We do more than pour knowledge and facts into our kids. We learn with them and through them. Much of this philosophy has been learned through our beautiful Catechesis of the Good Shepherd formation, but this openheart and open-mindedness toward our children’s faith can occur in any formation program offered. All it takes is a leader who loves Christ, children, and God’s Holy Word, and who is willing to be led by the Holy Spirit and children. This calling to minister to children is a sacred one. If you want to receive this calling, ask. Jesus will never say no, and you will be blessed without measure. I want to -thank all of my Church Family who have graciously showered me with support, prayers, notes, food and gifts over the last few weeks as I had surgery and am now on the road to recovery. God knew I needed you and your love. That’s why he placed me in this wonderful place and ministry – a true miracle! Love In Christ, Halleta
Gifts of love from the children for Halleta: a pot of flowers from Chapel kids and a big Valentine from Sunday School children
Let’s Make Waves! Save the date for Christ Church VBS 2022: June 20 - 23 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Co-Directors, Margaret Pape and Drew Welch are excited to “Make Waves” and share God’s love with the children this summer! Please watch your emails for details and reminders from Margaret and Drew about VBS. VBS also needs adult volunteers and teen helpers (current 5th graders and older). Please consider helping all week or part of the week. Nursery care will be available for young children of volunteers during VBS.
Register kids and volunteers at www.cecsa.org/vbs 9
Christ for the world we sing... Music Ministry by Jennifer Holloway
I am incredibly excited to announce that
we will be incorporating the Royal School of Church Music’s Voice for Life program into our Children and Youth Music Ministry beginning Fall of 2022. The Voice for Life program incorporates music
“Singing lies at the heart of worship. Voice for Life has a valuable part to play in giving life and soul to us all as we worship and learn.” – Dr John Rutter, composer and conductor literacy, vocal training to develop skills as well as an understanding of the voice as an instrument, and knowledge of repertoire. Using a tiered system of targeted skills and informal assessments, choristers are awarded with medals, pins, and ribbons as they progress through the levels. The
Voice for Life program will support what our choristers have already been learning and allow us to recognize and honor their commitment to their choirs as well as their growth as church musicians. I know our children and youth will love taking part in this wonderful curriculum.
Tooting Our Horn for B & B
CEC World Missions by Eric Fenton
The British brass band tradition is a
key Church of Uganda ministry. The bands perform at weddings, funerals, and community celebrations, as well as in church on Sundays. They are much loved but often the instruments they have are old, in poor condition, and barely playable. The Band and Bible Mission sponsored by Christ Church has been assisting the ministry since 2013. The COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 and 2021 resulted in the cancellation of the mission two years in a row, but the fully vaccinated team will return this year for their eighth mission. 10
Ugandans were seriously affected by the pandemic. In Uganda the lock-down was lifted and schools resumed in January 2022, so scholarships for band members continue to be an important part of the Band and Bible mission. Ugandan public schools charge fees and require uniforms and school supplies. Many children do not continue their education because their parents have no funds. Band and Bible supports students in school from elementary through university. Funds are needed for tuition, school fees, and a small living stipend for our university students.
never forgot me. Thank you Rev and all the merciful people who have played a great role in supporting me.”
Scholarships make a huge difference and these scholars share their appreciation. Moses Sengozi wrote, “I remember two years ago I had no hope about studying due to that I have a single parent which is my mum. By that time, she had failed to get money to support my study. But God
How you can support the B & B mission: 1. Donate musical instruments of any kind, especially low brass - tubas, baritones, trombones. 2. Donate to cover scholarships and Mission expenses for the team, 3. Most importantly, Pray.
The Band and Bible team works with three bands in Uganda. The Namirembe Boys and Girls Brigade Band is in the capital of Kampala at Namirembe Cathedral. The Nebbi Diocese Brass Band is composed of people of all ages. The Bunyoro-Kitara Diocese Brass Band is part of the diocesan school and has a teacher assigned, Felix Kasumba. This band was the inspiration for the Band and Bible mission.
Finding Freedom
freedom, and freedom CEC World Missions Ris theahakeymeans to new life for street women by Brien Koehler
Baptism at Raha House
in Northern Iraq through the ministry of Raha House. Cities in Kurdistan are magnets to desperate young women from neighboring countries, who come to the cities and sell themselves as “sex workers.” The risk is high, but desperate circumstances in their home regions (no work, no food, no hope) leads them to enter this dangerous trade. Raha House is a safe place for women who have been freed from the sex trade; they are invited to freedom and a fresh start by women who themselves have been rescued and given a new start. The rescue teams spend night and early morning hours seeking those who are ready for a new start. The rescued women come to Raha House to live and learn new job skills. They are given counseling to help them in their new lives. They are given the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and
many become disciples of Jesus. Terry and I were able to be part of the early days of Raha House when we were in Kurdistan last fall. We met the staff leader and had a chance to speak to some of the young women who are among those rescued. The picture nearby shows one of the women being baptized: it is in a shower because the winter weather was too cold for an immersion baptism. The new disciple of Jesus didn’t want to wait for warm weather to be baptized, so the leadership team improvised! Christ Church is a supporting partner of Raha House through the CEC Missions Committee, and we are honored to be part of the support which brings new hope and opportunity in the name of Jesus. You can participate in support of this ministry by adding the Raha House, and the women who serve and live there to your daily prayer list. For more information, please contact Terry or me.
Mission San Antonio Recap CEC Outreach by Melissa Carroll
About a dozen people had an
opportunity to learn more about Christ Church’s outreach partners and its focus for the year during the recently completed Mission San Antonio. The event, modeled after Mission Waco, gave parishioners a chance to tour the organization’s facilities, hear guest speakers describe their ministries, and perform actual service work. Organizations included Alpha Home, offering a residential and an outpatient
substance abuse program for women and an outpatient substance abuse program for men; Christian Assistance Ministry, the “emergency room” for people just slipping into crisis; Good Samaritan Community Services, offering a variety of services from mentoring children to offering social activities for older people; Migrant Ministries of the Diocese of West Texas, giving asylum seekers a place to shower, change, and obtain boarding passes/transportation needs as they move from San Antonio to their predetermined destination; and San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries, whose transitional living facility offers families a home while the parents attend school or otherwise reestablish their living independence. The group also spent volunteer time at
Sidewalk Saturday. The Rev. Ann Helmke, faith liaison for the City of San Antonio, and Mark Menjivar and Elizabeth Coffee of the HEB Foundation, spoke to the group on Thursday. Corinne Kurth, director of behavioral health and wellness services at Magdalena House, spoke on Friday. 11
Repeating the Story
Lenten Reflection by Charissa Fenton
Bam. Bam. Bam. It’s Palm Sunday. My
red scarf lays on the floor of the church. I kneel to the side of it slamming my hand against the floor as I’ve done every year for over ten years. Three hits of an imaginary nail for each of the three persons of the trinity. My mind might linger on that thought, but more often it wanders away from the gravity of what I’m doing to the mechanics of it. I need to remember to cup my hand when it hits the floor. Is my microphone still on? Can I quickly brush my hair out of my face between this and the next nail? Which Gospel am I doing? What is my next line? Repetition creates security. Through the process of memorization, I take each sentence and repeat them until they flow smoothly. I rehearse until much of what I need to do is muscle memory. Babies could cry, my microphone could fail, my scarf could flip the wrong way and I would still be able to move forward because I’ve
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practiced it so many times. Repetition opens the doors to discovery. In memorizing and rehearsing, ideas connect that I miss in simply reading the text. Who were these people and what were they thinking as they said iconic lines like, “I am innocent of this man’s blood” “Crucify him!” or “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Dramatization is interpretation, and as such any research on the context and theology of this story effects how I think during rehearsal and structures the choices I make in acting. But just as repetition can open my eyes, it can also close them. There comes a point when my brain tunes out what I’m saying. Muscle memory takes over and I start going through the motions, quite literally. In the days leading up to Palm Sunday, rehearsal is often the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to think about the crucifixion, and I definitely don’t want to feel about it. I’ll rush through the whole presentation as fast as I can. I’ll put on silly accents and use wild exaggerated motions. This part of the process looks irreverent, but without it I would become completely disengaged.
However, there is one part of The Passion that I never practice. Not earnestly or flippantly. I don’t practice the moment when Jesus cries out from the cross. A silent gap stands as a placeholder before I move to the next line. That cry from the cross is where I’ve marked out truly sacred space. My prayer before I perform is always that God would speak through me. “Lord, make me a puppet on your strings.” It is a prayer for the entirety of The Passion, but most especially for that moment. I know that He’ll still communicate what He wants people to know, even through my mistakes. You all have heard this story many times. Within that repetition I pray each of you would find security, discover new ways of understanding, and that wherever you’ve tuned out He would lead you back into the heart of the story. Bam. Bam. Bam. I hammer the last set of nails and pantomime raising the cross. “And they crucified him.”
Music for the Ages Great Commission Society by Patrick Gahan
Music moves Vicki Mclaughlin. A dozen years ago when her twin boys, Michael and Matthew, were attending Sunday school, she and John, her late husband, would sit in the nave and listen to the Christ Church Choir practice. “That hour was very important to John and me. We would take our place on the fifth pew from the back and let the music wash over us. John would sit and think, and I nestled beside him reading my Bible.” Vicki and John came to Christ Church over twenty-five years ago. She is adamant that music had everything to do with the attraction to our parish. “John was raised by the Jesuits in the Roman Catholic Church, while I was reared by equally serious Southern Baptists. As with so many, the Episcopal Church became a spiritual meeting place for us. The music bridged our differences much more powerfully than mere words.” Vicki has a passion for others experiencing the power of music, too – especially children. After a successful career in airline technology, she has spent her working hours serving and supporting non-profit
organizations in the state of Texas that give children greater access to education and the arts. Vicki currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Charity Ball Foundation. Formerly, she has taken her place as Chairman of the Board of Sunshine Cottage School for the Deaf and Chair of the University of Texas’s College of Fine Arts Advisory Council, and the list continues. She and John delighted in sharing their lives with others though philanthropy, of which Christ Church has long been the beneficiary. The two were founding supporters of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, where John served as its first Treasurer. All along the way, the two insisted the children of San Antonio must emerge front-and-center as a priority for the Tobin’s varied offerings. “The arts breathe life into children like nothing else. When I see our Christ Church children stand on the chancel steps, keeping time with their handbells and singing their hearts out, I perceive that as nothing less than a spiritual experience for them and the adults admiring them from the pews.” On that note, Vicki is particularly excited by Children’s Music Director Jennifer Holloway’s big news. Beginning next fall, all our children’s and youth choirs will be enrolled in the Royal School of Church Music’s (RSCM) Voice for Life program. Founded in 1927, the school is
dedicated to the education of children in Church music, especially in the Anglican tradition. Jennifer avers, “Christ Church’s children will have a grounding in music like no others in the city. As they practice and perform, they will garner an understanding and love of music that will follow them throughout their lives.” For the sake of our children growing up at Christ Church and the rich offerings of our adult choirs on All Saints’ Day, Lessons and Carols, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veterans’ Day, Jazz Mass, along with countless hymns, anthems, and instrumental collaborations throughout the year, Vicki decided to lead our effort to raise 1.5 million dollars for our Christ Church Music Endowment. The endowment, begun with a generous gift from the estate of Gordon and Pat Spencer, seeks to insure the funding of our special music events, children’s music education, and guest instrumentalists from our San Antonio Symphony. If this giving opportunity inspires you, Vicki relishes an opportunity to meet. She and the McLaughlin family have made their commitment and asks that we join them in advancing and preserving the rich tradition of Church music in our parish. “My prayer is that music at Christ Church will move those who have not been moved in other ways – something I know about firsthand.” 13
PAGE TURNERS – From the Rector’s Book Stack Good novels hold
a mirror to your life. Little Faith, by Nickolas Butler is such a mirror, for it deals with an adult child coming home and the gymnastics of thoughts and words sixty-five-year-old parents must practice to keep the house from exploding. A returning 40-year-old is far different than the independent 18-year-old who packed up for college two decades before. Lyle Hovde and his wife Peg have developed a simple, yet edifying, routine in the early years of retirement, enjoying their homestead situated by the railroad tracks in rural Wisconsin. Most days Lyle heads out early to work at an octogenarian friend’s expansive apple orchard, a job one suspects Lyle would do for free due to the bliss he expresses about the trees, the land, the smells, and the sweet tastes of the ancient varieties the two men have scrupulously maintained. When Lyle’s and Peg’s estranged daughter, Shiloh, returns home with her young son, Isaac, their life becomes altogether sweeter. While Shiloh continues to be fractious, young Isaac loves life with Peg in the kitchen and with Lyle in the orchard. Their lives are verging on paradise before a snake arrives in the form of Stephen, a handsome, ambitious, and clever young preacher. He entices Shiloh into his fold and eventually into his apartment, against Isaac’s protestations. The breach between Lyle and his daughter widens, and he desperately seeks a way to make a bridge back to her and to the grandson she has partitioned from him. Little Faith reads easily, but the message sits hard in the chests of all parents who endure a breach in the relationship with those they love and seek the path back into their hearts. In 1988, while I was learning the mechanics of how to run a church, Eugene Peterson was taking a higher road and learning how to set his church free. He had served Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, MD for 24 14
years by that time and yet knew that most of those who attended worship Sunday after Sunday knew little about the Gospel and even less about the radical freedom Christ offers. That fact boggles my mind, knowing that Peterson was one of the most personally engaging, biblically centered, theologically-grounded pastors in America. Nevertheless, he was determined to get Christ’s liberating message across to his parishioners. The result was his book, Traveling Light. Peterson did not start from scratch, however. No, he started the reformation of his parish in 1988 with the same tool that Martin Luther used to start the Reformation of the 16th century – Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. To get the full power of Paul’s message across to his parishioners, Peterson retranslated the Apostle’s text, magnifying the revolutionary content of his words. This was Peterson’s first foray into Biblical translation, which resulted in his powerful paraphrased edition of the entire Bible, The Message, an essential addition to every Christian’s library. Traveling Light moved my spirit from Neutral to 5th Gear, which stirred me to teach the book to the Wednesday morning Tri-Point Bible Study with Baptist pastor Les Hollon, and I am now teaching it with John Badders to the historic Friday morning Frost Bible Study. Get this book, read it as your daily meditation for a season, and I promise that you will come – un-stuck! “When trolls and conspiracists and bots and politicians spew misinformation; when social media shaming and shunning become a fun desktop hobby; when supercomputers monetize our outrage and algorithms manipulate our attention; when more than half of university students and
the general public are reluctant to express their real opinions for fear of losing their reputations or livelihoods—at such a moment, the enemies of intellectual pluralism and free inquiry seem to be ten feet tall… They are not. We are.” So ends Jonathan Rauch’s The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, a book that had me underlining revelations and facts on every page. Behind the Constitution of the United States lies the constitution of knowledge. We are a truthseeking people, whose ingenious system of government is structured to bring individuals and parties with different goals and viewpoints to the table to seek truth, agreement, and the best path forward. James Madison, the least known, yet most influential, of the Founding Fathers, fashioned our Constitution and three branches of government so that we could not ignore the truth or, worse still, ignore one another. Canceling a person to avoid listening to them is the tool of despots and has no place in the land of the free. My friend, “Satya” Mahadev Satyanarayanan, an esteemed tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, gave me Rauch’s book, which I have now read twice. Our republic is experiencing an assault from two directions from those who do not want us to be free but shrinking slaves to their controlling ideologies. Rauch’s book schools the reader to resist slavery to those lesser forces and emerge ten feet tall. Once in a bar, I challenged a Navy Seal to a push-up contest. I hopped on the table and completed 126. He did 400, and I think he just quit out of boredom! Fearless, by Eric Blehm is the incredible and inspirational biography of Adam Brown, a member of Navy Seal Team Six. A scrawny Arkansas boy, he defied his size, upbringing, and, hardest of all, his personal demons to become one of the greatest American warriors
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in Afghanistan. Neither petty crime nor a raging heroin addiction could derail Brown’s ascent, and ultimately, not even the loss of his right eye or having three fingers ripped off could slow him down. Huddled outside a Taliban encampment in the Hindu Kush Mountains along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Brown wrote his two children, Nathan and Savannah, this last note, “I’m not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me.” The next morning Chief Petty Officer Brown was killed as he intentionally drew fire away from his unit. One NBC broadcaster said it best, “Adam Brown shows us how imperfect men can do incredible feats.” I thank Joe and Darla Nelson for the gift of this book and for reminding me that all of us imperfect people have vital work to do. 15
E P I S C O PA L Christ Episcopal Church 510 Belknap Place San Antonio, TX 78212 www.cecsa.org
The Message (USPS 471-710) is published bi-monthly by Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Periodical postage paid in San Antonio, TX. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Volume 24, Number 2.
Happy helpers at the annual Mardi Gras Gumbo Lunch