As was reported previously, those at the Pray for Grace Finale discerned that Grace is called to make a success of the current Common Ministry model in support of a Center of Spirituality and Healing in collaboration with multiple partners.  

What are we going to do to make this happen? We prioritized 12 items from the Pray for Grace answers that we believe will move us in the direction God is calling us. They are as follows listed in priority order:

1. Enhance the music program.
2. Say hello to the church's neighbors.
3. Bridge the communication with our partners.
4. Investigate a partnership with a large Episcopal church.
5. Follow-up with newcomers.
6. Outdoor workday to enhance the grounds.
7. Bridge the communication with the College Hill community.
8. Develop a contingency plan for special services, such as funerals, baptisms, etc.
9. Bring more children into the church.
10. Recruit help for specific tasks.
11. Develop a ministry to the elderly.
12. Investigate a ministry to Cincinnati State students.

Many people at the meeting signed up to lead one or more of the efforts with most saying they would report by July 1.

If you feel God is calling you to participate on any one of these items that would be great. Please let me know at Spikelyon@gmail.com or let any member of mission council know. We would love to have you.

Grace Church is again raising funds to send children from our congregation and from the College Hill community to Procter Summer Camp.  The camp is located at the Procter Center in London, Ohio, which is about 75 miles north of Cincinnati. The camping sessions are organized by the child's grade level and run from June 10 through July 26.

Procter Summer Camp gives each student a unique opportunity to take part in outdoor activities, worship, crafts, and other fun stuff in a faith based environment. You can learn about Procter Camp on the Diocesan web site. Last year we were able to send 5 children to camp.  Our goal this summer is to send at least 10 campers.  The cost of the camp is $260.00 per camper.

If you would like to contribute to our effort, please send or bring a check (payable to Grace Episcopal Church) to church, or contribute electronically at  gracecollegehill.org/payments.shtml. Please write "Procter Camp" on the memo part of your check.   

Thank you for your willingness to help out on this endeavor.

Thanks to Roger Perna for heading up this effort. 

Only organized religion can mobilize communities and lead to real action.

Do you like feeling good without having to act on your feeling? Boosting your self-esteem no matter your competence or behavior? Then I've got the religious program for you.

According to the latest Pew report, almost 1 in 5 Americans identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious." In other words, they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to institutions. Yet ... it's important to remember that it is institutions and not abstract feelings that tie a community together and lead to meaningful change.

All of us can understand institutional disenchantment. Institutions can be slow, plodding, dictatorial; they can both enable and shield wrongdoers. They frustrate our desires by asking us to submit to the will of others.

But institutions are also the only mechanism human beings know to perpetuate ideologies and actions. If books were enough, why have universities? If guns enough, why have a military? If self-governance enough, let's get rid of Washington. The point is that if you want to do something lasting in this world, you will recall the wise words of French Catholic writer Charles Péguy: "Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics." Got a vision? Get a blueprint.

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it's World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

Aid organizations involve institutions as well, and bureaucracies, and - yes - committee meetings. There is something profoundly, well, spiritual about a committee meeting. It involves individuals trying together to sort out priorities, to listen and learn from one another, to make a difference. I have found too often that when people say, "I stay away from the synagogue - too much politics," what they mean is that they did not get their way. Institutions enable but they also frustrate, as do families and every other organized sector of human life. If you want frictionless, do it alone.

To be spiritual but not religious confines your devotional life to feeling good. If we have learned one thing about human nature, however, it is that people's internal sense of goodness does not always match their behavior. To know whether your actions are good, a window is a more effective tool than a mirror. Ask others. Be part of a community. In short, join. Being religious does not mean you have to agree with all the positions and practices of your own group; I don't even hold with everything done in my own synagogue, and I'm the Rabbi. But it does mean testing yourself in the arena of others.

No one expects those without faith to obligate themselves to a religious community. But for one who has an intuition of something greater than ourselves to hold that this is a purely personal truth, that it demands no communal searching and struggle, no organization to realize its potential in this world, straddles the line between narcissistic and solipsistic. If the spirit moves you to goodness, that is wonderful. For too many, though, spirituality is a VIP card allowing them to breeze past all those wretched souls waiting in line or doing the work. Join in; together is harder, but together is better.

By Rabbi David Wolpe Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of seven books. The views expressed are solely his own.