by Maggie Breen Early on Thursday, October 24, I will fly to the Republic of Korea to participate in the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI). The institute takes place in Seoul and Busan from October 25 to November 9, 2013, alongside the World Council of Churches' 10th Assembly. It brings together 150 younger (under 45!) advanced theology students from all regions of the world and all Christian denominational traditions to be with dedicated faculty and leaders in the ecumenical movement. The group will study and help each other think more deeply about the theme "the future of ecumenism and the transformation of World Christianity in the 21st century.” What a joy and gift it will be to be able to engage the ideas and understanding of colleagues from around the world. The small group to which I have been assigned has participants from Botswana, Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, Finland, Romania, Grenada and the US. We will engage in bible study and prayer together, and we will hear lectures from and be in conversation with professors who have dedicated their careers to the study of ecumenism, its call and implications. As someone immersed in grassroots ecumenism, working with churches on a local level as we move towards deeper understanding and as we seek to be a community that loves and cares for the world in the name of this one who unites us, I will be listening carefully and asking questions of the business of the assembly. I will be paying close attention to how the conversations at this macro level speak to and can be informed by the local experience. In this hinge period, with our culture shifting in significant ways, and with our communities hungering for places of belonging and peace, how can the ecumenical church point to God’s faithful action amongst us? And how can we lead in the ways of justice and peace? I am so very thankful for this opportunity, for the support of my church, and of my school, Seattle University. I will be blogging here as I go – hopefully providing a glimpse of some of the things I am seeing and hearing, what we are uncovering together and what it looks like when God’s people come together on such a grand scale to dialogue and worship. I would ask your prayer for God’s leading and for a spirit of openness, vulnerability and courage that I might bring my whole heart to this gathering. More soon…..
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Scott AndersonJune 27, 2013 Dear friends: What a gift you have given in this upcoming sabbatical! First of all, let me say thank you. Thanks to all of you for the endless ways that you have supported this opportunity for study, rest, and renewal for me, and for clarity of mission and strength for the future for the St. Andrew community. As you know, I’ll be away on sabbatical Monday, July 8th through Sunday, October 6th. I’ll use this time in a few interrelated ways. Near the beginning, we are taking the opportunity to travel in Europe. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our family as Claire makes her transition to college, and Peter to high school (Barb and I also celebrate our 25th anniversary in September!). The travel will support my research by getting me to the birthplace of Reformed theology in Scotland and Switzerland. The remainder of my sabbatical will be spent reading and writing in fulfillment of the Doctor of Ministry degree through San Francisco Theological Seminary, which I began in 2009. I can imagine many of you have questions. When Session first discussed the possibility of a sabbatical in 2010, we produced a policy that includes a wonderful rationale that gets to its purpose. (You can find the full document on “Sabbatical Policy” – along with all our other policies and procedures – on the St. Andrew website in the “File Cabinet”. You can also find a link to the document here (– call the church office if you don’t have the password yet.). It reads in part like this: Sabbatical Leave for pastors is a planned time of intensive enhancement for ministry and mission. Sabbatical Leave follows precedents in the academic community and among a growing number of private sector groups. This “extended time” is qualitatively different from “vacation’ or “days off.” It is an opportunity for the individual to strategically disengage from regular and normal tasks so that ministry and mission may be viewed from a new perspective because of a planned time of focus. Sabbatical Leave is an extension of the Biblical concept of a Sabbath day and a Sabbath year for renewal. It is both an act of faith that God will sustain us through a period of reflection and changed activity and an occasion for recovery and renewal of vital energies. I love what I get to do with you, but there is no doubt that the work, by its nature, tends to be all-consuming. One of the great gifts of a sabbatical is the ability to rest for a time from the constant reflection and discernment involved in the ongoing, daily work of ministry. While Maggie and Julie Kae remain with you in a pastoral capacity for the three months I’m gone, I will be able to give myself more fully to the work of the dissertation/project. I do not expect to have it completed by the time I return in October, but I hope to have made some significant progress. In order to successfully give myself to this work, it is necessary for me to “disengage from regular and normal tasks.” That means that although you may see Barb and the kids—as much as it is a loss for me!—you will not see me at church during this time period. That’s where Julie Kae and Maggie come in. They will work with Session and the Deacons. They will guide the work from day-to-day, along with Rosemary and the rest of the staff and leadership. Now, you may see me around town. If you do, let me ask you a big favor. Please say “hi.” Please feel free to tell me how you are and what’s new. But as much as you may want to talk with me about particularities of the church’s mission and ministry, do your best to resist. The problem is I care a great deal about these things, and once I get thinking about them, it takes away energy from my more specific sabbatical work. Helping me to “disengage” from these day-to-day issues serves the larger goal of the sabbatical. Maggie & Julie Kae will be responsible for keeping me apprised of anything I may need to know. We are fortunate in having in Julie Kae and Maggie, profoundly gifted ministers who will continue to be your pastoral presence in my absence. As I think you know, Maggie, Julie Kae and I work as a pastoral team in all we do. Even though I am absent, you have two-thirds of that team that remains, fully capable to continue to serve and guide St. Andrew’s worship and work and to be present with you individually. You have heard about the additional fundraising for my sabbatical. That money will be divided equally between Maggie and Julie Kae to pay them each for roughly 12 additional hours per week while I’m gone. In my absence, they will oversee the most essential aspects of my work with you: worship, preaching, pastoral care, spiritual life, leadership, administration, and the Session and Deacons. Let me encourage you to contact them with any pastoral concerns you have, just as you would me. They are both equally available to you. Finally I want to give thanks to your leadership, and particularly that of the Session. Much of the credit for our process goes to your Session who has crafted a sabbatical design and a manageable and creative funding structure to allow it to happen for a church such as ours with limited resources. And our ability to see it through has much to do with all of you and your roles individually and together in creating a community of generosity, self-giving, truth and love. See you soon! Grace & Peace, Scott Julie kae sigarsIf memory serves, it was the summer of 1995…I went to the Presbyterian Association of Musicians Summer conference in Albuquerque. I was kind of fearful, but I had spent a year as a choir director. And I knew I was missing something. Maybe these people could help me. One of my classes was The Theology of Worship. It stopped me in my tracks. "You mean,” I said, “All the things we do in worship actually MEAN SOMETHING? We do them for a REASON?” You've no doubt heard by now that the Session has authorized the celebration of weekly communion during the "extraordinary" times of our church year, the seasons of feasts and festivals—Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter and the transitional Sundays around those seasons. In our understanding of the church year, extraordinary is contrasted with so-called "ordinary" time, those Sundays when the paraments are green, those Sundays in our yearly cycle that celebrate God's presence in the slow and steady-growth ordinariness of our life. Together the seasons alert us to the astonishing variety of ways we encounter the transforming presence of God in our lives. The beginning thoughts are from one of the Rev. Dr. Dale Turner's Seattle Times writings, "Denial and Action are Keys to Finding Grace During Lent". Rev. Dale
Turner was a minister at University Congregational Church in Seattle from 1958 to 1982. Lent begins with ashes - on one level a reminder of the way our best intentions
sometimes flame out with little to show for them. A reminder that we aren't God - that we are limited beings who need one another, that we have a beginning and an end: "All of us go down to the dust, but even at the grave we make our song. Alleluia!" Confirmation begins at St Andrew on January 8th. This year we will have four youth who will take part in the confirmation journey for the first time. As the process begins we will help these youth indentify a St. Andrew adult whom they would like to invite to journey with them as part of this process. In addition, all of the youth who took part over the last two years are also planning to take part again this year. These returning youth have said that they want to be part of the process again as part of their own faith journey, as well as be present as a support to their younger friends.
At its last meeting the Session approved the creation of a youth minister auto expense fund. It came about at our realization that in the course of her work Maggie was putting many miles on her car transporting our youth without reimbursement for gas or vehicle wear and tear. As a Session, we decided it was an oversight on our part not to have a reimbursable account in place, so the decision was made to correct that with a temporary fix for the remainder of the budget cycle which ends in June 2012. The personnel committee intends to recommend a budgeted amount in our next budget cycle for travel, much like you have approved as a congregation in my own salary package. But we'd like to start sooner than that... which is where you may come in.
I love the idea of church! I love this sense that we are gathered on a Sunday morning (and other days) not because we are all alike (although, to our detriment, we too often are!) not because we have responsibilities to fulfill (although, admittedly, that is sometimes the reason we show up), not because we have simply developed a habit (although that can actually be a help when we need to show up but don't feel like it), but because we are hungry and thirsty for a deeper and more durable truth and a more sustainable life in the world. And at its best, the Church has something deeply important to offer here.
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