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| News
for and about Grace Episcopal Church |
April
3, 2009
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Dear
Friend,
This Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week with all its
opportunities for worship and contemplation of the meaning
of God's love for us in the person of his Son.
Sunday, we celebrate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem with the
Liturgy of the Palms. We'll process into the church
singing "All glory, laud, and honor to thee,
Redeemer, King!" Later in the service, we will
experience a foretaste of what is to come as we
participate in reading Mark's Passion narrative.
This Sunday, as the first Sunday of the month, is also
"Sharing Sunday." Remember to bring
non-perishables to help stock Christ's Community's food
pantry.
See below for upcoming Holy Week events.
Ken
PS: Some of you may be receiving eGraceNotes
for the first time, and some of you may be receiving it at
more than one of your email addresses. That's because we
merged a couple of Grace mailing lists this week. If you
have a subscription you don't want, click the unsubscribe
link at the bottom of any issue to be removed immediately.
PPS: One way to spread the good word about Grace is to
share you copy of eGraceNotes
with them. Click here
to do that. The copy they get will have a link they can
use to get their own subscription.
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 Holy
Week Services at Grace
Wednesday at 7 pm:
Grace's monthly Community
Healing Service using African Drumming and Reiki as
well as the traditional laying-on of hands.
Maundy Thursday at
7:00 pm: Celebrate the Last
Supper and the initiation of Holy Communion.
Good Friday from
noon to 3 pm: The College Hill Ministerium continues a
long-standing tradition of Community
Good Friday Services at Grace Church from from noon
to 3 pm, with several College Hill churches participating.
See pictures of previous Community Good Friday services here.
On Easter Sunday:
Bring your friends, neighbors, family and people you meet on
the street to a celebrative Easter
service. Alleluias return, as in "Alleluia, Christ is
Risen! The Lord is risen indeed!"
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Coming
Events
See the Grace
Calendar Page for the most up-to-date listing of events
at Grace and of possible interest to Grace people. Let
us know at webmaster@gracecollegehill.org
if we've missed anything.
Coming Special Events:
- Do Not Go Gentle,
Sunday, April 26. A film about the power of imagination
and aging. The filmmaker will be with us.
- Traces of the Trade,
Sunday, May 17. In this film A
Story from the Deep North, filmmaker
Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors
were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history.
This event is being co-sponsored by Ascension and Holy
Trinity Church, Wyoming.
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 Reports
on the Future of Grace
At the congregational meeting two weeks ago, Vicar Ernestein
Flemister shared Mission Council's assessment of the
future of Grace Church in her sermon (see here
for her outline).
 Earlier
this week, Senior Warden David
Mukasa sent a written version to members, either by
email or the USPS. You can read the full text of that letter
here.
In summary:
Without significant changes, Grace's projected deficit for
2009 is $60,000. Mr. Mukasa states, "We have looked at
all of the positions and have with great reluctance and
sorrow come to the position that we can no longer afford a
full time priest." Making that change will cut the 2009
deficit to only $18,000.
Mr. Mukasa goes on, "I know every one of us will be
greatly saddened to see Ernestein leave. She has been
a great Vicar in the time she has been with us and is a
person we all love. But Grace Church cannot depend
upon any single person. We must continue in our
mission of serving our Lord and working in His
community."
Mission Council is looking at a number of options which will
enable Grace to continue its ministry. Chief among them is a
concept called "Common Ministry," which calls for
lay people to take over many of the functions traditionally
performed by a priest. (You can read Bishop Breidenthal's
thoughts on Common Ministry in a recent Interchange
article.)
To eliminate the remaining deficit, Mission Council is
looking for ways to increase earnings from our facilities
and to raise money in other ways.
Mr. Mukasa concludes: "The one thing of which I am
certain is that if we do our part, God will do His.
And Grace Church will be here for a long time to serve our
Lord and this community."
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Members
& Friends on the Future of Grace
At the congregational meeting, many of those present spoke
with some passion about their love of the Grace community
and about their hopes for its future.
Your editor has been asking those who spoke, and those who
didn't speak, and those who weren't there, to share their
thoughts about the future of Grace in writing. Some have
responded already, and their thoughts are in the following
articles.
If you haven't written yet, please do it now. Click gracenotes@gracecollegehill.org
and share your thoughts. We'll edit and print them in future
issues of eGraceNotes.
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Love
and Support for Grace Church
 Hawley
Todd writes:
In February of 2006, Bishop Price asked me to come to
Grace Church. I quickly completed my duties at St.
Thomas and Grace Church has been my home parish ever
since.
I came because our Bishop asked me. I have stayed
because I love you all! I cannot begin to tell you
how much your love and acceptance has meant to me!
As Grace moves forward in the exploration of Common
Ministry, please know that you have my complete support.
Ernestein has asked me whether I would continue with the
healing service and I assured her that I would. This is a
natural fit for me as the formation director for the Episcopal
Healing Ministry Foundation. If I can be of
assistance to Grace in other ways, please do not hesitate
to ask.
Yours in Christ, Hawley
Hawley will miss some Sundays over the next few months. He
will be leading workshops at the National Episcopal Health
Ministries conference in Omaha in April, and he will be
presenting diplomas in their home churches to seven students
who are graduating from our EfM classes this spring. |
 Let's
Fill Grace Church Easter Sunday
At the congregational meeting two Sundays ago, several
people in the congregation suggested that it's time to ask
our friends, neighbors, family--anybody!--to visit Grace
Church. Since Easter is a time when people are thinking
about church, this would be a good time to invite them to
Grace.
Ken and Carol Lyon have made picture
postcards of Grace church that you can use to invite
former Grace church members, friends and family members.
They will be available Sunday at church. Pick up some of
them and mail them right away. If you follow up the post
card with a phone call, people are even more likely to come.
Let's fill Grace for Easter Sunday! |
What
Grace Means to Me
 Carol
Lyon writes:
Ken and I were searching for a church in College Hill when
we came to Grace. We had visited several other
churches. In the beautiful worship space and
the service, I found what I call the Mystery or the
unknowable part of God--one I wanted to be closer to and
yet was afraid to be. Over the years, that has not
changed for me, this building continues to be a sacred
place.
And I found a community that accepted and loved me.
What could be better than that?
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Grace
Church's "Hour" is Now
 In
last Sunday's sermon, Ken
Lyon noted that the moment that Jesus knew that his
"hour" had come--his time to be "lifted
up" and glorified--was the moment when Greeks (that is,
people usually excluded from the community) came to him.
Ken concluded,
This is Grace's "hour." We, like Jesus, have
seen those who were formerly excluded coming to us. For
us, as for Jesus, that's our sign that our time has come
to be lifted up so that God may be glorified.
And we say, with Jesus, "Now our soul is
troubled." And rightly so. But do we say,
"Father, save us from this hour?" No, it is for
this reason that we have come to this hour. "Father,
we glorify your name."
And, as we are lifted up, we draw all people to the saving
place that is Grace.
You can read the full text of the sermon here.
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| Keep
in Your Prayers ...
Eloise Pinto, Ruth Bertram, Joyce Markham; Mrs. Matthews;
Judy Handy, Shelly Martin, Barbara Todd; Kim Martin, Robb
Martin; Florence and Bob Poyer; Dean Bryeans, Mary Hall,
Chris; Irene Bryeans; Joshua, Caleb, Anne, and Darryl Handy;
Marcus Flemister; Kim Herrmann, Al Berghausen; Teri; Mary
Lou Bellows; Jackie Lewis.
Please let us know if you need pastoral care or know of
someone who does. This includes information about illness,
hospital stays, requests for visits, communion, and prayers
for special concerns. Please help us to serve you. |
| Our
Thanks ...
To Jones
the Florist for a donation of several seven branch
candleabras, Christmas trees, and other decorative items for
use here at Grace Church.
To the Ugandan School Group which meets here at Grace
Church, who have offered to clean and mulch all our flower
beds.
To David Van Wagenen (Phillis Dietz's son) for providing the
beautiful greens in front of the Communion Table last
Sunday, in memory of his daughter, Jennifer Van Wagenen
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Bob's
Back
Our sexton, Bob Jones is doing well after his eye surgery
and returned to work this past week.
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Muslim
Standup Comics?
Grace Staples writes from her winter retreat in Florida to
bring to our attention an upcoming movie and dialogue event
at the Islamic
Center of Greater Cincinnati in West Chester on Sunday,
April 19, at 6 pm. The movie features three Muslim comics,
and, based on your editor's viewing of this preview
of the comics in action, looks to be pretty funny, if a
bit edgy. Grace proposes that this could be an interesting
"road trip" for Grace Church folks. She'll be back
in time to go with us.
Allah Made Me Funny
is a groundbreaking comedy feature film that follows three
acclaimed Muslim comedians on stage and off as they lift the
veil to reveal the humorous truth of what it's really like
to be Muslim in America. Mo Amer, Azhar Usman, and
Preacher Moss poke fun at themselves, their communities,
government, human nature and the tricky predicament of
living in post-9/11 America.
It's presented in collaboration with The Brueggeman Center
for Dialogue, Public Allies Cincinnati, Bridges for Just
Community and Unity Productions Foundation.
Email Grace
Staples if you're interested in carpooling.
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Paint
the Sanctuary Work Party April 14 & 15
Work days are planned for April 14 & 15 at which time we
will begin repainting the sanctuary. If you are a
careful painter and can help, let Belinda
Perna or Charles
Bowles know.
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A
Stewardship Moment''-- ("Praise God from all Blessings
Flow")
"Praise God from whom all Blessings
Flow!" Known by many of us as the
"Doxology," this is perhaps the most frequently
used piece of music in public worship today. Many
churches sing it every Sunday. The words are so
familiar that here at Grace, we don't even have the lyrics
printed in our Sunday Bulletin. However, most of us
sing it loudly each time that we are asked to do so.
This is actually the last verse of a longer hymn,
"Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun," written by
Thomas Ken, in 1674, for his students at Winchester College.
It does not say "Praise God from whom some
Blessings Flow"--we are reminded that all
of our blessings come from the Lord. Psalm 100 (King
James Version) tells us that "it is He that has made us
and not we ourselves."
When do we sing this hymn? We sing it as we present
our offerings at the Altar each Sunday. We thank and
praise God by giving back some of the abundance that we have
received from him. During the same part of the
service, we also recall Paul's message to us in Ephesians to
"walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for
us . . . "
Let us remember to pay homage to our Lord as we thank him
and praise him for all our blessings. Every time we
sing "Praise God from whom all Blessings Flow,"
let us pay attention to the message that is being given to
us.
Contributed by Roger
Perna.
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