Redeemer Family, I am writing to inform you that our church is officially under contract to purchase a property. This is good news! However, it’s not a done deal yet, and so I am adopting a posture of “cautious excitement and prayerful discernment” and I invite you to join me in this. Now, there are a lot of nuanced details to communicate, so please read the following carefully!
Summer brings many welcome changes to our rhythms of life and I’m looking forward to them just as much as you are. The season of Eastertide is behind us. The school semester is complete. Many of you are anticipating a slower pace of work, more time with family and friends, and perhaps some travel away from Richmond - all good and lovely things.
One of the greatest joys over the past eight years has been the role our parish has played in helping to plant new churches. Every time we send out a new church plant, it reminds us that the Kingdom of God is so much bigger than merely what is happening here within our local congregation. It also reminds us that the work of the church is never solely for itself; we exist for the sake of others who do not yet know and love the Lord Jesus.
At Redeemer, we believe prayer is not just a ministry—it is central to our life together. Prayer is where we meet people in their deepest places of joy, grief, longing, and hope, and stand together before the Lord who hears, knows, and acts. Through prayer, we participate in God’s ongoing work of healing, freedom, and redemption in the lives of his people, including those who find themselves in places of pain, despair, or brokenness.
Every Sunday about ten minutes after the hour, a wave of parishioners (mainly under 4 ft tall) swells through the sanctuary and into the classrooms, where they stay until they come flooding back in before Holy Communion begins. For many sitting in a service at Redeemer, this sweet movement begins and ends as they pass through the doors of the sanctuary. But what happens on the other side of those doors?
It’s almost that time of year again! We have learned from older, more established ministries that the summer months provide two unique opportunities for our parish. The first is to allow our hard-working Redeemer Kids volunteers a much-needed chance to slow down. The other is the chance to embrace more participation from children during the worship service for the summer season for the sake of both our children themselves and the adults around them! As our parish moves into the season of Ordinary Time and we find ways to practice our faith in, well, ordinary ways, this is a wonderful time to shift the way we teach our children as well.
May is pledge month at Redeemer. During this time we encourage all members to make Membership Commitments which involve giving Time, Talent, and Treasure to the Lord Jesus through his body, the Church. Whether you are becoming a new member this month or are a returning member, this is an important action item for all of us. Pledging provides important information to our Vestry and Ministry Leaders to make wise and strategic plans for our parish.
On Sunday, May 18th, we have the joyful opportunity for you to be Confirmed by The Rev. John Guernsey and welcomed as new Members into the Parish. This is a wonderful event that takes place only twice a year, and is available to all who have been baptized and attended our Foundations class! I thought I’d take a moment to share a few details about what it means to take this important step in your faith.
Redeemer Family,
Two weeks ago, we contemplated the Practice of Fasting and together we explored how this spiritual discipline has cultivated virtue in the lives of God’s people from Old Testament times through to the present. If you missed the sermon, you can listen to it here. While most of us are likely familiar with the concept of a private, personal fast, we may be less familiar with the concept of a corporate fast. Here are just a few (of the many) examples of corporate fasting in scripture:
Leviticus 16: The Israelites practice an annual corporate fasting on the Day of Atonement.
Nehemiah 9: The Israelites practice a national time of confession, fasting, prayer, repentance, and public scripture reading.
Joel 2: God speaks to the prophet Joel and calls him to declare a time of corporate fasting and repentance.
Jonah 3: The people of Nineveh respond to Jonah’s prophetic preaching with fasting and repentance.
Acts 27: Paul and his 275 shipmates fast for 14 days through a storm at sea before breaking their fast in a manner that is a nod towards the Eucharist (vs 35).
Throughout scripture, corporate fasts are marked by themes of repentance, confession, and calling on God to show mercy and provide atonement for the sins of the people.
Therefore, how appropriate that throughout church history, it has been common for both clergy and parishioners to fast on Good Friday of Holy Week - a day devoted to repentance of our sins and remembering the mercy of God in the atoning death of Christ on the cross.
As the Book of Common Prayer states in the preface to the Good Friday service on p.564, “This most somber of days is appropriately marked by fasting, abstinence, and penitence, leading us to focus on Jesus and the meaning of his cross.”
And so Redeemer Family, on Good Friday of Holy Week (April 18th), we are all invited to fast together, as a parish. No one should feel coerced or peer-pressured to participate. Fasting is most spiritually effective when it is something you choose, not something you do because other people guilted or shamed you into it!
So, if you wish to participate, here are two potential ways:
Full-Fast
The fast begins at the end of the Maundy Thursday service on March 28.
Eat an early dinner beforehand.
Come to one of the Maundy Thursday services, 5:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m.
Practice foot-washing and receive the Eucharist, then the fast begins.
The bread and wine of the Eucharist are the last food in your stomach from Thursday evening, through all of Good Friday, to Saturday morning.
Attend one of the Good Friday services, 5:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m.
Break the fast on Saturday morning with a simple and light meal.
Partial Fast
If you are new to fasting or have a medical condition that makes fasting unwise, here are partial ways to participate:
Shorten the fast: Sunrise to sunset on Friday. Eat an early breakfast Friday morning and a late dinner Friday evening. Skip lunch and fast for the daylight hours.
Limit the fast to only refraining from solid foods. Replace meals with fruit juice or a smoothie.
Beloved brothers and sisters, the goal here is to not create some new law that everyone must obey. The goal is to help us participate in the passion of our Lord together. We are not in this alone; we are a church family.
Let’s fast together on Good Friday and then, let’s FEAST together on Easter Sunday!
In the Father’s love,
Over the years, I have found confession, in all its forms, to be a deeply helpful and encouraging practice. I find that, once I get over my fears, God is more tender than I expected, my friends are more understanding than I anticipated, and the priest to whom I confess is utterly without judgement or condemnation.
As I greet our students each week on their walk into our homes, I witness a quiet miracle as they move from the dark silence of the street and settle into the bright noise of fellowship. This miracle is the assembly of a spiritual house, as one by one the stones are gathered and find their place among the others.
Today, as an 8-year-old parish, we are blessed with more babies than ever before. Looking back on our childcare staff, I’m thankful for the leadership team that made the early decision to address the needs of our nursery. What started as a practical solution to an overcrowded nursery has become a beautiful partnership that supports our mission of creating a space where families with young children can find belonging in our church community.
Over the past few years of ministry, I’ve heard a common refrain from adults in our congregation who are new to the practices of our church, either Anglicanism or Christianity altogether, that they feel a reluctance to fully engage in what Redeemer is up to that season. They want to spend some time observing before they try out a new practice or attend a new kind of service. Perhaps more honestly worded, they want to gain more information before they run the risk of not being good at something new. What naturally flows downstream of this hesitation is that they wait to bring kids into a spiritual practice until they are able to articulate their decision well.
Every March Redeemer members elect two members to join the vestry—our parish's governing body—for a three-year term. Any member in good standing can be nominated to serve on the vestry. If you are a member of Redeemer, we encourage you to prayerfully consider whom you might nominate for these important roles.
The first bit of underlying logic motivating our Epiphany series is the conviction that we human beings live out of our imaginations. Many of you have heard me say this before and I have written elsewhere, “From the imagination springs desires; from desires flow actions, which over time wear grooves into habits; from habits develop beliefs that justify; and from beliefs come doctrine.”
We are homo imaginari.
The second bit of underlying logic is the conviction that our imaginations can be molded, shaped, and changed by our practices. The human imagination is dynamic, not static.
Therefore, our practices (especially the ones we take for granted) are of profoundly deep importance to the spiritual wellbeing of our souls.
Now, what does all this have to do with Redeemer’s search for a building?
Jesus often withdrew to quiet places and prayed (Luke 5:16), even amidst the busiest moments of his life. He didn’t allow the stress — or success! — of his work to outweigh his need to break from his regular rhythms and get away to spend time with his Heavenly Father. We’d like to invite all of our Redeemer family to attend our Men’s or Women’s Fellowship retreats this spring. Each will have some good biblical teaching, conversations for connection and encouragement as we listen for God’s direction, and plenty of time for rest and play.
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