Can't wait to see YOU!

With delight, I welcome you back to another year at King's Chapel. After being here for one and a half years, I have learned how wonderful it is when we all gather, and how exciting our time together can be. We start this Sunday, Sept. 21st at 9:45.

This year, we are on a great path towards growth. Please bring your friends!

Eva Englert is a wonderful new Church School Director. Like our previous Directors, Kim and Shannon, Eva is full of young energy AND is experienced with kids. She's in Seminary at Boston University, training to be a minister, and has run many church school programs before - in Medford, Mass.; in Texas; and in Arkansas. Both her mother and grandmother were ministers, too.

Eva is passionate about our environment, and loves to work with kids thinking about gardens and growing things - maybe we can do some work in our parish house back yard! She's also a teacher trained in Godly Play, a wonderful curriculum I've taught before: it teaches the Bible stories in ways the kids can see, but that also add a profound depth - Abraham and Sarah walk across the dessert (a sandbox), and you get a sense of the distance they trudged - all to follow God. Moses gets the commandments near a huge mountain (a large craggy rock in the sandbox). Jesus has faces that show him as a little baby (looking rather like all of us do as a baby), and then growing to be man. Parables are taught as gifts in gold boxes, that we need to unwrap - there are always more layers to explore. I think you'll all enjoy what we can learn from the curriculum - it deepened my own faith, when I taught it. King's Chapel was able to get a set of these materials from another church no longer using them - I'm thrilled. It often costs thousands of dollars to invest in beginning this program; God's at work, my friends.

This week Eva is busy getting our main classroom ready - it hasn't been painted in a long time, so we have fresh paint, a new rug (without all the stains), and great new materials that make up our curriculum.

Shawn Fiedler is our new Assistant Minister. He's a graduate of BU's School of Theology, and worked for several years at Old South Church, in nearby Copley Square. That's a thriving city church, so he's learned a lot about what families want and how they are best supported. He helped run the Family Service there, too. I'm thrilled to have such a great colleague. He will be with me on Sunday, as we welcome you all.

With the support of our Senior Warden, we have committed to having a trained Nursery Care Provider every Sunday, from 9-1 at the Parish House. This will let new families come and KNOW their kids can be cared for, whichever Sunday they arrive. We also can provide childcare for some of our choir members who have young children, and no one will need to call in advance for a reservation - guests never knew that was the rule! I hope this makes life much easier for visitors, who hopefully will come to love the life we share together.

Pei Chun-Lin will not be serving as our organist this year; she and I agreed that as we've grown smaller, we weren't making full use of all her talents as a trained organist and church choir director (for adults as well as children). We'll try out some different approaches to our music at the Family Service, and agree on a good path forward. I'm excited to get the kids involved with some of the musical instruments we own for children.

Curious what this will be like? Come and see - we'll be off to a good start this Sunday.

Always,
Joy cell: 617-407-4560

Jonah facing the big fish in Godly Play.

Can you guess where these flowers are for?...

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