Fall Discipleship at St. Andrew’s
Today our hearts are broken once more as we struggle to make sense of another shooting at another school by another child. It was sobering last night to have my fourteen year-old volunteer the particularities of his school’s security protocols that help him feel safer each day. Then I realized he is the same age as yesterday’s shooter. I don’t suppose it takes any great spiritual insight to condemn the violence, mourn the dead, and grieve all the loses. But I do feel strongly that resignation — “Well, this is just how it has to be” — is very close to despair. And despair, or the absence of hope, is a vice. Hope —“We can change this reality” — is the virtue. Lord, who can make all things new, have mercy upon us.
Dear Friends,
Around here at St. Andrew’s, this is one of “those weeks.” It’s all good stuff, there’s just a lot of it all of the sudden. Lisa, our Hands&Feet director, is particularly up to her eyeballs in it, as C.L.I.M.B. starts today and we have another Twelve Baskets Pop-up Store on Saturday. Say a prayer if you would for her leadership and for the efforts of our dozens of volunteers as we try to love our community with the love of Christ.
On Sunday we begin our adult discipleship series for the fall. We have classes for both kids (Imagination Station) and youth (SAY Bible Study). 30+ years later, I still remember moments from Sunday School and youth bible study in which I first grasped something important about Jesus Christ and God’s love for us. This happened despite the fact that many weeks I was really only there because my parents decreed it so. God found a way through my crossed arms and studied disinterest.
What are we adults to do while the kids encounter the life changing stories of our faith? Eat donuts and drink coffee! Also, our Curate, Erica Andersen, is going to lead Tent Pegs, which is a great way to learn more about St. Andrew’s, the Episcopal Church, and our Christian faith in general. Tent Pegs is the stuff that everyone in church ought to know, but that most of us forgot (assuming we learned it in the first place). It will enrich your life of faith.
I can make far fewer confident promises about my own class, the one in which you’ll have a chance to read, discuss, and provide feedback on the book I worked on over my sabbatical. I can say with confidence that I am grateful to those of you who have expressed an interest in what I wrote, and am excited for people to read it and interact with it. See you Sunday.
In Christ,
Fr. Andrew
