NOTICE

OF

PARISH

ANNUAL MEETING

 

 

Please mark your calendar and plan to attend our parish Annual Meeting, at 9 am on Sunday, January 30. This is always an important gathering, where the whole congregation does official business and celebrates its life and ministry. This year, it comes as we engage in critical visioning and strategic planning. Having the whole congregation participate will be particularly important. The parish bylaws remind us that all members of the parish who have participated in worship and contributed financially to the parish in the last year have voice and vote at the meeting. All those who attend the parish have voice and are encouraged to participate. The meeting will culminate with worship at 10 am. (No 8 am service that day). 

 

 

Upcoming

at

Church of the Good Shepherd

 

 

Sunday, January 23:

Christ Church Handbell Choir plays at CGS.

10 am service

 

Sunday, January 30:  Parish Annual Meeting.

9 am

 

Thursday, February 3:

Candlemas Service, 7 pm

 

Saturday, Febuary 5: Vestry retreat at Bethany House, Arlington

 

Sunday, February 6: Baptism of Aaron Andrews.

10 am service

 

Sunday, February 20:

2nd Real Meal.

Sponsored by CGS Hope in Action team

 

Saturday, March 5:

"Doll Tea" @ CGS with Watertown Family Network.

10:30 am

 

Wednesday, March 9:

Ash Wednesday

 

  

  

CO

 

 

STEWARDSHIP CORNER

 

 

   

There are three special opportunities for generosity this month:

Good Shepherd continues to assist the Haitian Baptist church. Your donations help members of the Haitian congregation recently arrived from hurricane-devastated Haiti. Mark "Haitian church" on the memo section of your check.

Help to pay for needed repairs to the parish hall and stonework.

We need just a few more contributions to make it possible to order another 25 chairs. Each chair costs $150. If you can't contribute an entire chair, please give what you can.

Thank you!

 

 

CO

 

 

 Vestry

Meeting Minutes

Now  Posted

 

 

   

Minutes of Vestry meetings are now posted on the bulletin board in the hallway.

 

 

 

 

 

Ministry Links

 

 

 

  Diocese of Massachusetts
 

 Episcopal Church USA
 

Daily Prayer
 

 Pastor Amy's blog

 

 

Rejoice!                                             The Newsletter of Church of the Good Shepherd, Watertown
January 2011

 

"For the earth bears fruit: first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear." - Mark 4:28
 
  

Last spring, this congregation boldly and faithfully decided to partner with the Diocese to bring on-board a full-time priest to help you clarify a strategy for growing in numbers and broadening the impact of your ministry. The Diocese commissioned Good Shepherd to become a "laboratory for mission," asking you to build relationships in the community and find creative ways to be church in this time and place.

 

I joined you in the middle of August, working alongside Ann Franklin for a month before she retired. For almost four months, I've been your "solo priest."   So, where are we?  How are we doing in moving toward that goal of clarifying a strategy and becoming a laboratory for mission?

 

Last month, I borrowed a metaphor from Jesus to talk with the vestry about where we are in this process. I talked about gardening. It's the image Jesus uses most often to describe the reign of God and the process of bringing God's project of reconciliation, peace, and healing to life. (I did this long before Isabelle and our Hope in Action team decided to focus on community gardening. Coincidence?!)

 

Those of you who have spent any time with soil on your hands will know that gardening takes patience, hope, diligence, knowledge, and a lot more! And there is only so much you can control. The rest is up to the wind and the rain and the Holy Spirit. Change and growth in church life is similar. We take responsibility for what we can, plot our course, watch carefully, pray, and trust.

 

So here is my sense of "where we are" in planting our future as a parish.

 

The Fall of 2010 was about tilling the soil. Grieving Ann and Elly's departure and working to imagine a future here with anyone else was part of this. We also spent time taking stock of deferred building maintenance needs, assessing and clarifying some of our systems for working together, and setting up new ways of communicating (like this format for Rejoice!). Through our series of Sunday discussions during stewardship season, we learned more about our human and material resources. And Isabelle and I spent time meeting people and building relationships in Watertown, with groups like the Wayside Center, Watertown Family Network, and Perkins School.

 

Now it is Winter, and we are fertilizing the soil and selecting seeds.  We are building on some of the relationships we began in the Fall, for example through the series of gatherings for children we are hosting in partnership with Watertown Family Network.  As lay leaders take on new roles at the annual meeting, the vestry will also be articulating norms for how they work together and make decisions. They will be honing skills for planning and evaluation, so that whatever goals we set, we will have greater capacity to reach and reflect on them. And over the course of the next month, we will be inviting the whole parish to actively participate in the process of creating a strategy for growth.

 

Spring and Summer of 2011 will be a time for planting seeds and staking the ones that are strong and vibrant. We will make a few "forays"  -- new initiatives or pilot projects in line with the strategy we've decided upon. We will continue to build relationships in the community and share the news of what we are growing in our garden. We will reflect on and learn from what is happening, so that we can become better gardeners. 

 

Like gardening, this is an iterative process. And it takes a village to raise a garden! Everyone reading this letter will be a needed partner in this process as it continues. It is such a blessing to work with such a faithful and thoughtful community on this holy project.

 

 

-- The Rev. Amy McCreath,

    Priest in Charge

  

CGS December 2010

photograph: C.E. Courtney

 

 

 

Church of the Good Shepherd offers a welcome -- 

December 2010 

 



Holy Repairs

 

"Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;

You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.'

If you remove the yoke from your midst,

The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

And if you give yourself to the hungry,

And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

Then your light will rise in darkness,

And your gloom will become like midday.

And the Lord will continually guide you,

And satisfy your desire in scorched places,

And give strength to your bones;

And you will be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;

You will raise up the age-old foundations;

And you will be called the repairer of the breach,

The restorer of the streets in which to dwell."

(Isaiah. 58:9-12). 

 

 

We at CGS are called to be "repairers of the breach." Much of our work this year is to lay plan to offer healing and hope to people here in Watertown and beyond in the years ahead. We can and will do great things with God's help!

 

But in order to live into this call to "repair the breach," we have to repair the church building, too. Our physical plant is a key resource for mission, and we need to ensure that it is safe if we are expanding our use of it. We want to let you know about some critical repairs being made, and we are calling on you to consider making a special contribution to help pay for this work.

 

There are three situations demanding our attention:


One of them we have known about for some time; namely, there is a vent at the rear of the parish house roof, above the stage area, for which the cap has rotted away.  This resulted in water leaking down into the ceiling of a room that is used as a food pantry for the Haitian church, in particular into the ceiling light fixture. 
 

Second, the end stone of the parapet (these are the stones at the top of the walls at the gable end) has broken off at the corner above the sacristy.  As a result water has leaked into the boiler room ceiling (which is below the sacristy), in particular into the light fixture!

 
 

These leaks were safety hazards in and of themselves. In addition, they are probably the source of the trips that have prevented our fire alarm system from being functional. So they create a further hazard that way!

 
 

Third, water is penetrating through the stonewalls in the bell tower, a problem which, if not addressed, will create extensive and expensive damage.

 

The cost of the first two repairs, together, is about $6,100. Because they are serious hazards, and winter conditions make them even more dangerous, they were attended to and the work is complete. The third repair, to the bell tower, will be about $16,740. We need to attend to this repair as soon as possible, so as to avoid even further damage.
 

Knowing that money is tight for many people right now, we would not send out this appeal if we did not think these repairs were crucial. Read again the passage from Isaiah above. To "give ourselves to the hungry" and "satisfy the afflicted" we need to offer a safe place to gather, pray, work, and learn. So your gift is a gift not only to our congregation, but to the Haitian Baptist Church, the NA groups, the nursery school children in our basement, the yoga groups, and all others who find shelter at Good Shepherd. Please contact Treasurer Jim Donna if you can help finance these repairs, with a gift of any amount. 
 

-- Steve Steadman, Co-Warden & Amy McCreath, Priest
 

  

Joe and Bell
Joe Anderson plays with the Christ Church Cambridge Handbell Choir, which will be playing at our 10 am worship service on January 23rd.
 
Hope in Action Update 

 

In the last week, much progress has been made on the Hope in Action Community Gardening project. The dream that could be realized is a network of community gardens, one where most citizens of Watertown could have a garden that is in walking distance from their homes.

 

The first location for a garden, which will be the first built, is a plot on Nichols Avenue that is owned by the Watertown Housing Authority. This parcel of land used to be a gas station, and has already seen much work done. The Housing Authority took out the gas tanks and replaced 10 feet of soil. The Housing Authority has the resources to continue to do more. The hope of the garden is to provide residents and neighbors of the complex on Nichols Avenue space to garden as well as a children's program for students at the Hosmer School. Hopefully this work will start at winter's end with plots that can be gardened this summer.

 

The second location, which will start being developed after Memorial Day, is a parcel of land owned by the Mt. Auburn Cemetery on Grove Street. This space will take longer to develop as the Mt. Auburn Cemetery has limited resources. However, one of the greatest resources that the cemetery can provide is education programming that already takes place at their greenhouses. They are very interested in becoming the learning center of the community garden network where people can learn to compost and novice gardeners can learn about native planting, companion planting, and other gardening techniques. Hopefully raised beds in this location will be available starting at the end of July for late summer and early fall planting.

 

The third location is actually a combination of city spaces, but has no start date yet. It is my vision that numerous city spaces, churches and CGS included, will have raised beds on their properties to not only maximize the number of planting beds in town but to set a green example for the Watertown community. Ideally, many of these city spaces will grow produce for the local food pantries to integrate a hunger justice component to the gardening network.

 

As the campaign continues, I am sure that many of these ideas will grow, develop and change, but it is an exciting start. If you had asked me in September where I would be in the Hope in Action campaign come January, I never would have answered with where the leadership team is today. The energy that has emerged about community gardening is miraculous, with the building of relationships at its core. I feel extremely blessed to be where I am and to have CGS fully supporting the team.

 

Hopefully, in the future, there can be an even stronger link with our parish. I would love to create a CGS team that will be in charge of creating the raised beds at our parish and perhaps be the hunger justice and social justice center of the project.

 

-- Isabelle Jenkins,

    Social Justice Minister

 

 

Faith Response to the Arizona Shootings

 

Last Sunday in church, we mourned the tragic deaths of those shot in the parking lot of a Tucson supermarket on January 8th.  In my sermon, I focused on our call to live into our baptismal promise to work for peace, justice, and human dignity and to seek Christ in all persons. Here are some other reflections and resources from the Church, for your further reflection and response.

 

The Washington Post posted essays from a panel of religious leaders, including Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, the Rt. Rev. John Chane.  Click here to read his essay.

 

Episcopal Caf� posted an audio of Robert F. Kennedy's words after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. accompanied by a slide show of violence through modern American history.  Hear or watch this posting here. 

 

The Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, Dean, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in the Diocese of Arizona, preached about the killings last Sunday.  You can hear the sermon here. 

 

Sojourners Online (www.sojo.net)  invites everyone to sign a "Peace and Civility Pledge" based on the scriptural warrant for loving-kindness. Signers pledge "to God and to each other that we will lead by example in a country where civil discourse and peacemaking are rare. We will work to model a better way in how we treat each other in our many communities, across religious and political lines."   See full details here about the Peace and Civility Pledge.

 

BU Professor of Religion Stephen Prothero reviews possible theological positions on corporate responsibility for the Arizona tragedy.  Click here to read his CNN blog. 

 

  

 
CONTACT INFORMATION

Priest-in-Charge: Amy McCreath (617) 967-7780
Church office: (617) 924-9420