Adult Formation – Page 5 – St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

Anglican Prayer Bead Workshop I

Last Wednesday, fifteen people gathered in fellowship, ate dinner together, and then got busy in the fun work of creating our own beads for our Anglican Prayer Beads. We learned a bit about prayer beads during our dinner time and then rolled out the clay to make our own.

It was SO much fun. We chose 3-4 colors to work with, layered them by rolling them out, and then cutting them into segments, which we then rolled into beads. It was amazing the colors we chose and the results we came up with. It was as much fun to see what others created as it was for us to create.

There was a real sense of community in creating together.

This coming Wednesday we will take our homemade beads, join them with beads made from olive trees from the Holy Land, and put together our prayer beads. We’ll then bless them and make them holy for our use in finding our way toward God. Come and join us!

Here’s what your Anglican Prayer beads may look like!

Come and make your own set.

Meditative Hike

In the stillness of the cool evening, we gathered to be intentional around our time with God. We began in prayer, chose a psalm passage, and then headed out to meander by the creek, contemplate and color, find stillness sitting on a rock in the water, crossing the water, and spending time repeating our psalm passage in our hearts.

After 45 minutes, we gathered to reflect. We all had a greater sense of peace. We all knew this was a good thing to do: to be intentional about quiet restful time with God. We all experienced our time somewhat differently, but also had a sense of being together in a group, even though at different places along the creek.

It is good to “Be still and know that God is God”.

Choir Party today

We are so blessed by our faithful music ministers here at St. Andrew’s. It is such joy that we have a number of members who offer their gift of music as part of our worship at 10 a.m. They are led by Organist and Choir Master Dr. Gerald Weale (Jerry), for whose leadership we are most grateful.

Our wonderful organist and choir master!

The choir sings from September through mid-June. They rehearse Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. in the PLC. New members are always welcome.

Today a luncheon was offered by Mother Barbara at her home to show her appreciation for their faithfulness and the many gifts they offer our parish. Please join her in expressing your thanksgiving for their ministry.

Book of Psalms: How they respond to our life

Tonight, we gathered for dinner, then for a conversation about how the psalms were used in the liturgy of the Jewish temple. We learned that the themes of the psalms connected with major festivals which celebrated pivotal events in the salvation story of the ancient Israelites, such as the Passover and the Day of Atonement. In addition, they were used during rituals of purification, entrance hymns, victory songs, King’s birthdays or wedding times. The psalms responded to and led people forward in their thinking to how the ancient Jews structured their worship lives.

We then looked at how we as Christians use the psalms in our worship — always as a response to the Old Testament Reading. A response mandates that we say the psalm together and also says that the sentiment, or wisdom, or thought process of the psalm offers something that leads us in responding to the Old Testament reading in a faithful manner. We looked at the reading and response for Sunday — the grumbling prophet Jeremiah and the psalmist response, in both the NIV (New International Version of the Bible) and Psalms for Praying by Nan Merrill.

After all this discussion, we looked at how St. Benedict, as he formed the Benedictine community 1500 years ago used the psalms to respond to life, to draw people through the week to a place of faithfulness of God. It’s fascinating how we can use the scriptures to remind us about God and God’s faithfulness and we can structure our practice of praying the psalms so that we use certain ones to offer the support, comfort or challenge we may need (predictably) at the moment throughout the week.

We ended by listening to the chanting of the psalms by SSJE (Society of St. John the Evangelist). Here’s the link to purchase the CD: https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Us-Sleeping-Compline-Prayers/dp/1561012556

In the still of the night, after a long day, by candlelight, we could have all fallen asleep at the moment, lulled by the melodic chanting of the psalms by the monastic community, but woke up to eat pie and ice cream and wish each other a good night.

Our next series of fellowship, conversation, and engagement will be making Anglican Prayer Beads, which will begin on October 5th. Please join us!

Summer Series: Those “nasty” psalms

We gathered this evening, in the midst of the heat and humidity, to find a place of fellowship and fun over dinner outside, as the rain fell around us. There’s a place of peace and ease that’s been developing among us, that’s really lovely ~ AND there’s always the opening for others to join us. Every week it’s always a different group gathered — and always the right one. So, come on out and give it a try, if you’ve been curious or feeling the call to explore the psalms!

This week we explored those nasty psalms that call upon God to wreck havoc and vengeance upon our enemies. We read a portion of Psalm 109 and the honest reaction afterwards was “Good Grief!”. Mother Barbara shared with us some information about this genre of psalm (part of lament psalms) and talked about the different possible reactions (ignore them, be horrified by them, enter into them). One of our parishioners shared her real life experience in feeling these psalms which was powerful and helpful. Mother Barbara then spoke about what God’s retribution actually looks like (not the revenge we may imagine, but a tearing down of barriers that keep us from being honest before each other and God and allowing God’s love to lead us into a new place of healing).

The evening ended with the peace and calm of Compline. Thanks be to God for the grace which was present this evening.

Simply Scripture opens up exploration of new ideas and great insights.

This past Saturday, our parish library was crammed full of people hungry to learn more about our scriptures for the upcoming month and to share their thoughts, reflections, and wonderings. We studied the Epistles for the month, which are largely from the book of 1 Timothy.

One of the topics that I think was most fruitful was an exploration of what to do when there is a word of phrase in the scripture that you don’t like.

Do you just skip over it?
Do you look up the word in the original language to see what it meant then?
Do you look at other translations and pick the one most congruent with your understanding? Or the one most irritating to you?
Do you settle into the tension and reflect upon why this word or phrase is causing such a reaction in your own soul?
Do you talk to others to see if this worried them as well?

The answer, of course, is “all of the above” (except the first one!).

It is always important to know the context of the passage, to look up the original word in Greek or Hebrew and look at all the possible meanings ~ and it is very important to know why this word or phrase grabs your attention. Often it’s God’s message to you to pay attention to what’s happening within you.

Questions are a good thing, in the Episcopal Church. So bring them on!

Summer Series

Tonight we gathered for dinner, fun, and fellowship and to grapple with the Wisdom Psalms. We learned about the major “books” of the Old Testament and focused in on the Wisdom Literature, within which the Book of Psalms is located.

We read some of the Wisdom psalms and identified some major themes. Conversation then led us to discuss the meaning of the word “righteousness” in both the original Hebrew, in the writings of the prophets, and then within the gospels and finally in Paul’s writings.

We came to understand the true meaning of righteousness is being benevolent, compassionate, and attentive to those in need. We comprehended how differently the use of righteous is used in today’s language, especially in regards to religion.

Being attentive, observant, seeing the larger picture, and listening to the Spirit are all ways that we can stay on the right side of the line between righteous (as in the Bible) and self-righteous as is often used today. We left fed with food, conversation, thought, and more knowledge about the character of God.

A great evening, indeed!

Simply Scripture Continues

Reading and engaging the scriptures opens our hearts to the truth and life of Christ. Learning about the Bible and how it informs and forms our lives is a life-long process. We invite you to join us on this journey. No experience is required. We look at the scriptures by identifying key words, themes, characters, context, and by asking the question: What does this text tell us about God?” or “What does this text tell us about our relationship with God?” So there are no quizzes, just conversation!

On the first Saturday of every month we gather in the parish library and look at the scriptures for the upcoming month. This enables us to read them with a “long-view” rather than trying to make sense of the small snipet of scripture we hear on Sunday mornings.

Here are the dates for our upcoming Simply Scripture gatherings:

September 3
October 1
November 5
December 3
January 7
February 4
March 4
April 1
May 6
June 3

Hope you can join us!