Greetings from Grace! In this Issue: Holy Week, Friends of Grace Spring Gala, Rector's Sabbatical and More!
Grace Episcopal Church
1041 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007
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Holy Week |
Palm Sunday
April 1
8:30 am, 10:30 am and 5:00 pm
Liturgy of the Palms and Reading of the Passion; outdoors, weather permitting
Maundy Thursday
April 5
6:30 pm
Simple Agape Potluck Supper in the Sanctuary; Email us to sign-up to bring soup, bread or salad (no sweets please)
7:00 pm
Informal Eucharist with foot washing and stripping of the altar
If you can help with the Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services as a greeter, reader or communion minister please contact Helen Buhr
11:30 am
Wooden cross procession leaves from Grace
Noon to 1:30 pm
Service of 7 Last Words at Epiphany Church, 2712 Dumbarton Street
7:00 pm
Solemn Liturgy at Grace
Easter Sunday
April 8
8:30 am, 10:30 am and 5:00 pm
Festive Eucharist
Special music and Sunday School at 10:30, with Easter Egg Hunt following the service
To contribute toward Easter flowers in honor of someone or something, email Helen Buhr or call her at 202.333.7100
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Upcoming Events |
Saturday, March 31
9:00 am
Garden and Grounds Work
We will be sprucing things up for Holy Week and Easter so please come out and help for whatever time you can; weather permitting
Saturday, March 31
Support Women in the Arts Now! (SWAN) Day
Grace is hosting several performances Learn More
Sunday, April 29
5:00 pm
Friends of Grace Spring Gala Proceeds go to repair the arch over the Church door;
Saturday, June 2 11:00 am to 4:00 pm Taste of Georgetown Benefiting The Georgetown Ministry Center; Volunteers needed, if you can help please Email us
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Parishioner Birthdays |
March
Darcy Bacon
Sabrina Brennan Luca Brennan Derek Brock David Bujard Hudson Burner Frank Burgess Sarah Haft Aidan Harrington Larry Molinaro Scott Murphy Jim Sale Susan Tobias
Lee Tyner
April
Rosalie Alligood
Jeanne Jennings
Francine Maté Will Ollison
John Seferian
We'd like to include you in this list! Please email us with your birthday!
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Flowers for the Altar |
It's always a pleasure to see flowers in the church!
If you have a loved one or an event you'd like to commemorate, please consider contributing flowers for the Sunday services!
It's traditional to omit flowers during Lent, but if you'd like to contribute towards flowers for Easter Sunday or after please contact us via email or phone at 202.333.7100.
You may deliver flowers to the church yourself on Saturdays or the office can order them and have them delivered for $65. |
Parishioner Profiles |
This popular feature will return in the May/June issue with a profile of Jean McKinney written by Sharon Schambra
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Weekly at Grace |
Sundays
8:30 am
Holy Eucharist
9:30 am
Adult Education
Discussing John's "Love and its Disciplines" Writing Project, child care available
10:30 am
Holy Eucharist
Music, child care and Sunday School
5:00 pm
Service of Prayer, Meditation and Communion
Informal
Tuesdays
12:15 pm Centering Prayer
35 minutes
Wednesdays
12:15 pm
Holy Eucharist
30 minutes
Saturdays
11:30 am
Grace's Table
Lunch and Bible discussion for homeless friends and others; Contact us to learn more or volunteeer
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March/April 2012 Dear Friend of Grace,
We're looking forward to celebrating Easter at Grace and we hope you'll join us! A list of Holy Week events appears in the column to your left. But that's not all that's happening. Read on to learn more about the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, how to become involved with the Outreach Committee, my upcoming sabbatical and a note from Senior Warden Margaret Davis on what Grace means to her.  In Christ's Redeeming Love,  |
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Friends of Grace Spring Gala: A Night in Casablanca Sunday, April 29th | 5:00 pm
Dust off your trench coat and re-watch the Humphrey Bogart classic -- you'll be spending a little time at Rick's Café Américain in 1940's Morocco! Delicious food, drink and classic piano music await you - and if you promise not to tell the Vichy guards, you can slip into the backroom casino where games of blackjack and roulette will be in full tilt! Lucky silent auction winners will depart with Great Escapes, Fabulous Feasts, Cultural Treats and Superior Services. Please consider what you might donate to help Grace raise funds to repair the iconic but crumbling (sort of like 1940's Morocco) sandstone arch over our red entrance door!
Tickets for this night of fun, fellowship and fundraising are $100 per person, $175 per couple. Colonial Garage is donating discounted parking. Scholarship tickets are also available; contact John Graham to request or sponsor one.
"If the plane leaves the ground and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life"
Invitations will be in the mail this week! If you have silent auction items to donate or don't receive your invite, Email us! |
Rector's Sabbatical
June, July and August
Dear Friends,
As most of you know, I'll be taking the second half of a six-month sabbatical this coming summer. I look forward to reviewing and revising the writing project I began last year, "Love and its Disciplines."
My project draws heavily on the letters of St. Paul and the Purgatory of Dante Alighieri. My goal is to convey some of the ways in which I believe Paul and Dante's lives and writings speak to modern spiritual pilgrims, like all of us here at Grace.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to participants in the Grace Church Adult Forum, with whom I've shared my writings from last summer. This group has helped me to clarify my thoughts, identify passages that need to be re-written and others that need to be excised and, in many cases, to figure out what I'm actually trying to say.
The Adult Forum Group meets every Sunday at 9:30 am in the parish hall and child care is available; please feel free to join us!
Please hold me in your prayers over the summer, and give thanks that Rev. Thelma Smullen can again serve as Priest in Charge during my absence. I plan to share the more-or-less "final product" of my sabbatical in a series of monthly presentations next year; I hope you can join us.
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Thank You Susan Tobias, Pastoral Care Committee
On behalf of the whole Grace community, a heartfelt "thank you" goes out to Susan Tobias for her service as Pastoral Care Committee coordinator the past several years.
The Committee and Grace as a whole have benefited from her organizing skills, but it's her capacity for representing the church's care for its lonely, infirm and grief-stricken members that has helped us all grow in the ministry God condescends to share, mysteriously and wonderfully, with us "earthen vessels."
Susan is ready to move back into the ranks of pastoral care "foot soldiers," so to speak, and turn the tasks of leadership over to others.
We're delighted that Lenore Reid has agreed to take on the responsibility for the logistics of pastoral care: notifying the committee of pastoral needs in the church, soliciting and scheduling volunteers for tasks such as sending a card, making a visit, and delivering meals, and related tasks. Sally Avignone and the Rector are working together on a series of readings, conversation topics and / or spiritual practices for Pastoral Care Committee meetings.
The goal of these efforts is to help committee members deepen their own understanding and appreciation of pastoral ministry, as both a highly practical service to those in need and as a part of our individual and communal spiritual journeys.
Contact us to learn more about the Pastoral Care Committee or to volunteer!
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Outreach Committee: Music on the Lawn
Meeting April 22,
following the 10:30 am Service
Formed in 2006, the Outreach Committee has helped fund Grace's Table, Grace's membership in the Washington Interfaith Network, and other worthy causes and projects.
The Outreach Committee and its friends also sponsor our yearly "Fat Sunday" celebration to raise money for Grace's Outreach initiatives.
The Outreach Committee is considering whether it should plan, market and fund our summer "Music on the Lawn" series, as an outreach endeavor in its own right, and to raise funds for other projects.
If you're interested in serving on this committee and have some time and energy to give to the Music on the Lawn project, please plan to attend the meeting on April 22.
Members since 2006 are invited to consider re-committing, of course, but new members are also welcome. If this date doesn't work for you, please let us know.
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Thank You Kristin Killoran Hasse, Grace's Table
"Grace was founded to serve the laborers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and watermen of the Georgetown waterfront.
"The Evening Star reported in February, 1895, '... It is the only church here in a really poor district and whenever its pastor is not in the pulpit or fulfilling his own immediate wants he is out among his people dispensing aid to the unfortunate.'"
-- Excerpt from A Short History of Grace Church
Lower Georgetown is no longer a "really poor district," of course, and now it's not just the pastor "dispensing aid to the unfortunate."
We count many homeless persons among our neighbors in this very well-to-do area, and many of Grace's members, as well as the pastor, help provide a home-cooked meal, companionship, and the opportunity for conversation on matters spiritual and temporal for our homeless friends.
This ministry, called Grace's Table, takes place in the Parish Hall, and occasionally on our grounds, every Saturday from September through May. For over three years, Kristin Killoran Hasse has made this program run.
She recruits and schedules volunteers, encourages or harasses as the situation may require, cooks and serves meals at least monthly with husband Jon Hasse, and otherwise keeps us on track in our historic vocation of serving those in need.
In December of 2010, we promised that if she served one more year as coordinator, Grace would find someone else to step in at the beginning of 2012.
We almost kept our promise. Beginning April 1, Kay Horst will work with Kristin for a month or two, then take over coordinating responsibilities herself.
Thank you, Kristin, for reminding us so powerfully, and much more by your example than by your words, that God has put us here to make the love of Christ real for all who come to us.
Contact us to learn more about Grace's Table or to volunteer!
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Vestry Notes
I'm delighted that our Grace's bi-monthly newsletter has been revived, and very grateful to Jeanne Jennings for bringing her gifts and commitment to this ministry of communication.
Picking up on a tradition initiated by my predecessor, Scott Murphy, I'll prepare a "Vestry Notes" column for forthcoming issues, letting you know what the Vestry is doing and discussing.
For this "maiden voyage", though, I want to offer a brief reflection on what Grace has meant to me during my time here. In doing so, I hope and trust that I am speaking for many of you.
"...for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more." Jeremiah 31:34 As we move through Lent and lean toward Easter and its promise of rebirth and renewal, we can all give great thanks for Grace Church, its vibrancy, its health, and - most of all - its community of people gathered together. Grace Church connects us to our flawed selves while enabling us to weave a work together that celebrates God's forgiveness, call to service, and shining love.
While soaring church towers can inspire, huge organs can forcefully call, large congregations can be mighty; Grace church does all of this and more by being its modest, simple self. We are a diverse group brought together by common cravings for love and peace, ritual and the Word.
So many people tell me, and we share together, how humbled we are by all that Grace Church is. The genuine kindness, the lack of typical D.C. status interest, the commitment to serve, to learn, to create beauty, nurture it in the children, sing it from the choir.
As a result of all that Grace is, it is a growing, thriving place led by a gifted Rector who moves people of all ages and backgrounds to come together for a greater purpose, to understand the give of love.
On behalf of the Vestry, thank you - to each of you - for all you contribute to Grace Church in the way of a growing stewardship effort; a full church with strong ministry; a beautiful garden; heartfelt outreach; prayerful pastoral care; and a commitment to save the physical structure as well as the heart of Grace Church.
And we like to do so while having great fun together - at birthday parties, Saving Grace evenings, play readings, jazz brunches, poetry on the lawn, Bach festivals, coffee hour, and Grace's Table. What fun it is to create such community together!
Enjoy Spring and new life, and let us remember, as St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians reminds us,
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."
It is a joy to serve with you. With faith, Margaret Davis Senior Warden
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Thank You Jeanne Jennings, Greetings from Grace
We're delighted to welcome Jeanne Jennings as our new newsletter editor.
You'll see some updating of the format; instead of a PDF attachment, the newsletter will open up when you open the e-mail that delivers it. Some "branding" touches will help everyone recognize it right away as a Grace, Georgetown communication.
Jeanne came to us during the Rector's sabbatical last summer, and has offered herself to Grace's ministries since coming through our gates. Welcome, Jeanne, and we look forward to the newsletters you'll produce.
Many thanks, too, to Jonathan Jones, who served faithfully and well as our newsletter designer until his departure for Florida a little over a year ago.
Questions, thoughts or ideas about the newletter? Email us!
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The Episcopal Peace Fellowship
By Helma Lanyi
"I believe that the methods of modern international war are quite incompatible with the Christian principles of reconciliation and brotherhood."
For this conviction, Bishop Paul Jones of Utah was forced to resign his post in 1918. He helped found the Episcopal Peace Fellowship in 1939 when it was part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest American peace group.
Bishop Jones later helped Jews and others who fled Nazi Germany and he argued for greater understanding in relations with Japan. The EPF also protected conscientious objectors during the Second World War.
Today the EPF's motto is "Do Justice. Dismantle Violence. Strive to be Peacemakers." The EPF focuses on preventing wars; practicing non-violence is a thread that goes throughout all EPF activities.
Based in Chicago, the EPF works closely with the Anglican Network on Peace and Justice and other faith-based peace organizations. There is a local chapter here in DC and many more across the country. The EPF also has a number of Action Groups, focusing on topics like:
- Conscienctious Objection
- The Death Penalty
- Nuclear Abolition
- Israel/Palestine Issues
- Peace Education
- The Environment
A new Action Group on Torture and Abridgment of Civil Liberties is in the planning stages.
In 1930, just 22 years after Bishop Jones was censured, the Lambeth conference declared that "war as a means of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and principles of our Savior, Jesus Christ." The Episcopal Church is now part of the National Religious Campaign against Torture.
I invite you to join the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and become involved in our local DC chapter. Here in DC we enjoy communicating via email and meeting to discuss issues; we also host workshops on nonviolence as practiced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. I feel grounded in coming to a position on any given topic, international or domestic, by consulting EPF principles.
If you are interested in learning more about the EPF, please email me, speak with me at Grace or visit www.EPFNational.org.
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Visit Us |
Grace Episcopal Church
1041 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20007
202-333-7100
2 hours free parking, with Grace validated exit ticket, in the Cinema Garage on K Street:
> Sunday until 1:00 pm
> Monday through Thursday until 11:00 pm
> Friday until 6:00 pm
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About Grace
Grace Episcopal Church, Georgetown, was founded to serve the laborers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and watermen of the Georgetown waterfront.
By 1857 regular services were being held in a wooden chapel that stood in the southwest corner of the churchyard, where the World War I memorial cross now stands.
Visitors to Grace find a warm welcome, wonderful music, and a heartfelt faith. We are located on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue, just below M Street and the Canal, in the heart of Georgetown.
Please join us for a service, an event, or just moment of quiet during your day. A weekly schedule of events appears in the column to your left.
John Graham, Rector |
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