Epiphany - follow the star

Synergy (our children's ministry) in its evening church permutation covers a huge range, K-5th.  And I love it and I love them but it makes prep interesting.  Some of the kids know their Bible inside and out.  Some don't seem to have a bit of focus but are taking it all in.  Some are pre-literate.  On a given week we could have two kids or 15.

And when you throw in a major holiday like Christmas but don't actually meet since the first Sunday in Hanukkah (unexpected 14" of snow in NC, in addition to all the other programs and planned time off from evening church), you get to cover some interesting ground for Epiphany.

Like a cursory read-thru of the whole of Luke 2 and Matthew 2 with the kids, using my VeggieTales creche.  They've all heard the story of Christmas but how much of it do they know?

Our pastor has been preaching thru Jeremiah so he's alluded to the prophecy of the slaughter of the innocents and its initial context of the Israelites going into exile, but to read it again out of Matthew, who calls out that it was Jeremiah, it's neat to see them put that together.  Even if they're talking about the way soldiers killed the 2-and-unders.  I told them they were probably all right in their death-by-_____; there were a lot of kids killed.  Not just Jesus?  Nope, aimed for one and took out a bunch in the looking.  But the one got away. 

Thing is, I myself learned a new tradition this year when my friend, an Episcopal priest, shared a pic of the chalk he bought for his congregation. 

Here's a full article which goes into much fuller explanation. 

What we did:

First we blessed the chalk, then used the chalk to write a secret code on the church entryway:

20*C+M+B+19

Which not only contains a numeric code of 20 times C, which is kinda like century, plus 19, for the year it is...

...It also contains the initials of the magi, or wise men, who according to tradition are Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar...

...And it has them following the star, as it were...

...And it alludes to a Latin blessing: Christus Mansionem Benedicat.  Christ bless this house.

Then for take home art and to bless our own homes we did some chalk art of mountains and the secret code, and a prayer.

Visit, O blessed Lord, this home
with the gladness of your presence.
Bless it and all who live or visit here
with the gift of your love; and grant that
we may show your love to each other
and all whose lives we touch.
Lord Jesus Christ, be with us now and forever.
Amen.

Missions sermon art

Today's pastor was a Japanese national who had been ministering in Quebec and is now heading to Nice, France.  I greeted Pastor Satoshi with, "Konnichiwa; Bienvenue," to which he not totally surprisingly asked if I spoke either language.  I don't, but I'm something of a polyglot in terms of greetings and thank-yous.

Sermon coloring sheet today from Matthew 9.

Pentecost

Pentecost is one of those neat holidays that doesn't get enough recognition.  When I was in high school (and high school French), my pastor did a neat bit in morning service he called Pentecost Revisited.  His point was that Pentecost reversed the Tower of Babel, because at Babel the LORD scrambled language so that people couldn't understand each other because they were trying to be like God and build their own way to heaven, but at Pentecost, thru the power of the Holy Spirit, all the nations heard the disciples speaking in their own languages.  Why were all the nations in Jerusalem in Acts 2 anyways?  It was for the Feast of Weeks, aka Shavuot, a pilgrimage feast celebrating both the wheat harvest and the giving of the Law back in Moses' time.  You count with great anticipation seven sevens starting from the second day of Passover, which is 50 days, thus the pente- prefix to Pentecost.

So in this dramatic reenactment, we had about 10 people read out a verse, I think Revelation 7:9.  If that's the case, the verse is

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

But we didn't read it in NIV; we each had a language we'd grown up with or studied or were learning in school.  Even read each in turn, it was something of a babble. 

But Pentecost reverses that babble.  And we read together the successive verses in English together (Revelation 7:10 & 12):

Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.

Amen!

Praise and glory

and wisdom and thanks and honor

and power and strength

be to our God for ever and ever.

Amen!

---

All that as a leadin... I'm just happy sermon art continued beyond Easter for me to color with Sharpies, even if calligraphic illumination (in the monastic sense) verses didn't necessarily.  

 

Coloring in church

About a year ago I read this article about "Stick Figures as an Act of Worship", and I told my evening church kids that if they drew stuff during the sermon to show me afterwards.  (They didn't.  But they could have.)  And I, for a few weeks, pencilled bulletin marginalia during the sermons, mostly ASL images of hands signing key words, those no-head, ASL dictionary, line drawing stills with arrows to represent motion.  I had internalized a LOT of sermons on my hands in ASL, after all. I've said for years that kids (kids of all ages) can internalize sermons even when they don't get all the bits of it, and it's helpful to sit in the Deaf section and watch the signing, or better yet, sign along, or at least pick up a few key words, because that way you're engaging more of your senses. And hearies can't turn their ears off, so it goes in even if you're not paying attention. For a few years starting when I was about 5, our church met in a multipurpose space that also served as a ballet studio. I could not tell you how many sermons I listened to, sitting on the aisle, next to my dad, about 2/3 of the way towards the front of the congregation, but facing the barre mirror behind all of us instead of facing the pastor. So, on the one hand, sorry, Pastor Al, for not facing forward. And sorry to all those sitting behind me that I distracted by facing them head-on, even if I was looking at myself and not them. Yet on the other hand, there's not much I can be sorry for, because in the midst of all that I learned about the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15, and retained the brilliant mnemonic that God promised both the SEED and the DEED -- descendants as many as the stars in the heaven, and the promised land. Covenant Theology. Not bad for 5yo.

Then this Lent, our pastor started adding calligraphic pages into the bulletins.  Adults got half-sheets on cardstock with think-about-its on the back; kids got the same image on a full sheet of cardstock, on a clipboard.  They've had clipboards for the kids for almost as long as I've been worshipping at Grace Pres and had assorted kids' bulletins, images, activities and a huge coffee can of colored pencils that you can use a handful of pencils during the service and return afterwards.

But these coloring sheets (originals carefully inked by a member of the church who was teaching himself calligraphy) weren't just take-homes, or toss-its.  The pastor encouraged the kids to show him their work after the sermons.  And almost immediately he decided that for Lent he would rig up a way for everyone to be able to display their art in the lobby so it could be shared not just with him but with each other as well.

As it happens, just that week, one of my fellow Heart of the Triad Choral Society board members had pulled out this gorgeous set of assorted Sharpie pens in a hard case

and I immediately fell in love with it and purchased my very own set, receiving it literally the day before this momentous in-sermon "everyone can and should color" proclamation.

So. Much. Win.

Here is how I spent the sermons during Lent 2018:

       

(Same image twice, but I had a midweek service I went to and I somehow had an extra Sunday bulletin, so out came the Sharpies.)


By week 2 I was swiping a clipboard and a full-size piece from the kids' stash.

Usually I could get a big one, but not always.  Still pretty.

And then... catastrophe.

Somewhere between Palm Sunday (although after the madness of prepping for EOPS 10, because I had my Sharpie pens on Palm Sunday!) and Easter, my entire hard case went walkabout.

So I was forced back into pencilling.  You may not be able to tell, but I was aiming for the hands from Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.  It turned out better than I expected, actually.  (Although I didn't sign this one, possibly intentionally.)

But Sharpies are better.  And having turned the house upsidedown and run thru where in my life I might have left them, I went ahead and ended up buying another set.  Worth it.  (And I hope whoever found the first set is loving them too.  I wrote my name and phone on the new set so if it gets lost it'll at least guilt the finder.) 

It's now after Lent and, as of last Sunday, after Easter too (the Pentecost pic was glorious, but very detailed so I'm still working on it).  I hope the coloring sheets continue.

PCA General Assembly 2017

If we were Messianic Jews, we would use a shofar¹.  But Presbyterians, it turns out, use a sonnet.
 

1 I miss worshipping at MJAA's annual conference -- 1st week of July at Messiah College, Grantham PA.)

Come to the Table

Our pastor, Randy Edwards, had the honor of opening up the worship session the first night of the 2017 PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) General Assembly with a sonnet he composed. 

Come to the Table
“Come to the table my son, my laughter,
Take wood and knife and let us walk away
Up into His provision.” When Isaac calls after,
“Without a lamb? Do we only go to pray?”
“Come to the table;” stand packed and waiting
Holding your staff, eating pilgrim’s bread
List’ning to the stories of God’s emancipating
Which leaves the darkened kingdom’s firstborn dead.
“Come to the table; long have I waited
To celebrate this Passover with you;
Which I give and pour in love consecrated:
The meal of my body, my body to renew.”
“I am the narrow door, the ram provided, the lamb, slain;
Come you humble, to my table, be filled, rejoice, and reign.”

Randy's blog about it: Backwards Mutters

The video is of the audience (<1/8 of the audience; it was a reeeeeeeeally big room) and the back of Randy's head because I was in the choir loft.  So apologies for recording quality.  It was much more majestic and Mufasa-like in person, both powerful and welcoming.

Hubs and I also were privileged to sing in the "mass choir"² for General Assembly. Using a playlist and some .pdfs shared by the worship leader on Dropbox, with one rehearsal last month and one last night with orchestra, we prepared 13 songs for two nights of worship. And literally, with the opening strings bit of Agnus Dei, I was all over goosebumps. It's no Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, it's just 45 voices and 10 instrumentalists, plus 5 praise team leaders, but there's nothing like the feeling when God shows up.



2 Spoiled by Heart of the Triad Choral Society. But I invited them too!

Tonight was fun. I'm excited to see what's in store tomorrow.

EDIT: Randy also managed to grab a pic of us onstage. I'm in the back row of altos, next to the upright, and hubs is in the 2nd row of guys, right in front of the other post.

Fighter Verse 2: Deuteronomy 10:12-13

Hey, Synergy kids, time for another new memory verse!  We'll be working on this one for the next two Sundays.  Also, we have one kid who has Fighter Verse 1, Deuteronomy 7:9 already memorized.  Who else is stepping up to the challenge?

Deuteronomy 10:12-13
And now, Israel,
what does the LORD
your God require of you,
but to fear the Lord your God,
to walk in all his ways,
to love him,
to serve the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments
and statutes of the Lord,
which I am commanding
you today
for your good?
Deuteronomy 10:12-13
 

---

Using basically one ASL sign per line as a tactile aide.
NOW
WHAT
DUE
WOW
WALK
LOVE
SERVE
HEART
SOUL
C-LAW (law as an initialed sign using C; COMMANDMENT)
YOU-ALL
GOOD

#hotdogprincess

Literally just yesterday I wore a tiara to church because I am the popcorn princess for First Friday Films.  Be proud to be you.

But this little girl has the freedom within her to bust out the full-body floor length hot dog costume on princess day.  I <3 Ainsley. 

Image source: her dad, Brandon Turner

Adopt from a shelter!

Patrick McDonnell's Mutts comic strip, whose protagonists are Earl & Mooch, runs an ongoing series of Shelter Stories encouraging pet adoption.

Nilla & Mocha particularly like the 11/3/2013 strip, and encourage you to adopt from Red Dog Farm & Rescue.

(chalk art by P, one of my evening church kids, who came to the latest No School Now What day)

What Does It Mean?

Big Frog & I joined a Lenten small group, and are reading How Dante Can Save Your Life, by Rod Dreher.  It is not a translation of the original Italian, it is Rod relating his experience of reading it at a particular point in his own life. But I like how it has "How to think medievally" inserts in each chapter, which reminds me a bit of Rowan telling the Rose that although his Faire-vorite things may not be technically from the Renaissance the way hers are, they certainly are at a Renaissance Faire.  We're so far from Dante's time that we can't see thru his lens, we can only see his lens thru our own lens.  In light of that:

"Suspend your disbelief.  Let down your defenses.  Disarm your critical faculties.   The Commedia is so vast and complex that it is impossible to say definitively what it "means".  For the new reader, it's better to let the poem pass through your heart, and reveal what it means to you."

~Rod Dreher, ch4 Rules of the Road