Grace's worship committee is pleased to announce that we will continue our 9 am and 10:30 am Sunday services through the summer. All are welcome at either service.
Summertime might be a good time to check out the 9 am service, if you haven't before. It is solid Episcopal liturgy geared toward young children. It's also featured in the current issue of Thrive!, the diocesan magazine. Copies are available in the back of the church or online at this link.
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Grace's worship committee met on the first really humid Sunday of the season, and that taste of summer gave us ideas for our worship for this season after Pentecost.
Because it can be so very warm at the high altar, we will be gathering around the altar in the crossing for the summer.
We will be offering a "said" worship service with congregational hymns - that is, the prayers and other texts will be spoken, not sung. Parishioners will add to our prayer with musical offerings during the offering and communion.
A said service with the altar in the center and the community gathered around can feel quite intimate, even familial - perhaps closer to the experience of the earliest Christians as they gathered in one another's homes. To that end, all are invited to come closer to the altar. Pews have been arranged on either side of the crossing, along with the chairs. Please feel free to take a place in the chairs or the pews on the sides, as well as in the forward part of the nave.
This arrangement is a bit of an experiment, and may be adjusted as we go along. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.
For the sake of comfort, the doors will be open to let in the fresh air, and the electric fans and hand fans will create some breezes. (If it's extremely hot, of course, we'll gather in the parish hall.)
For the next two Sundays, the choir will be in the front rows of chairs on either side, but please, feel free to take a place in side pews or in the chairs. Younger parishioners in particular might enjoy a closer vantage point. Try it out this summer and see if a new spot gives you a new perspective on the ancient rite.
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We in the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion are blessed with a rich variety of eucharistic prayers, that is, the prayers spoken over the bread and wine. For the summer, our priests will use a different eucharistic prayer each month, chosen by our rector Shawn.
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Another opportunity for prayer this summer is Evensong, every Thursday at 6 pm, just before Grace's summer 6:26 concerts. Please come - and bring a friend -- to pray in community and then enjoy the offerings of several talented young musicians. As always, there is no charge to attend the 6:26 concerts.
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Grace Church is glad to collect non-perishable food items for our neighbors who use the Oak Park Food Pantry, which is housed in First United Church of Oak Park just up the street. Collecting food to be shared with our neighbors is actually part of our worship.
Please leave your items near the entrance, in the beautiful baskets created by our own Cliff Hunt. The baskets will be carried forward with our other offerings and placed at the altar as an expression of our gratitude for God's generosity and of our love for our neighbors.
If you've brought your items in a grocery bag, please take them out of the bag so the boxes and cans are visible in procession as a sign of our desire to nourish our neighbors, in response to Christ's call to feed his sheep.
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Grace's worship committee is led by our rector Shawn Schreiner in partnership with Linda Coberly and Charles Wells, along with Deacon Jon Baumgarten, Parish Musician Dennis Northway, Senior Warden Barbara Larsen, Charlie Carpenter, Tony Dobrolowski and Bob Vogler, Stan Kaderbek, Karen Mensch, and Audrey and Tony Riley.
