November 2, 2006

What’s in a Saint?

Yesterday was All Saints Day and today is All Souls Day, the forty-eight hours set apart for Christians to remember and celebrate those famous and not so famous believers in and followers of Jesus.  (At Beloved, as in many places, we will combine these two observances into one celebration to occur this weekend and called All Saints Sunday.)

A lot of people don't know what to think of saints.  How do they relate to our Christian walk?  Can you pray to them to “get” something like an “A” on a test or to find a good parking spot?  On my way home from Raleigh yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to Jesuit priest James Martin’s radio commentary on these sometimes puzzling folk.  Author of the book My Life with the Saints, Father Martin rightly says saints are more than plaster statues: They were and are real people whose lives show us that holiness in Christ is actually possible for the rest of us.  Click here to listen to four delightful minutes of radio.

J. Derek Harbin, priest 

Around Beloved…Beloved’s Worker Bees, the youth group for those ages 9-12, will gather for a light meal and Movie Night this Friday, November 3 from 6:30-9pm…Don’t miss Sunday’s All Saints Celebration, including the baptism of Annabelle Rose Duty, followed by a festive reception in her honor…Special thanks and recognition is given to owner Ray Hall of It’s a Grind coffeehouse in Ballantyne who is donating the coffee for this Sunday’s festive hospitality time!  Give us your feedback on this brand as we pursue a replacement coffee vendor for our Sunday hospitality time…The Beloved Beehive (Sunday Christian Formation) for adults and children will resume next week following worship and hospitality.

Last Sunday:  Attendance: 133; Basket Offering: $4,271

Fifth Anniversary Celebration…Church of the Beloved will turn five years old on Christmas Eve this year!  As part of the festivities, we are looking for folks who are willing to write brief meditations or poems about their spiritual journey and/or their spiritual journey specifically at Beloved to be shared with the entire congregation as a devotion for each day of Advent.  Work must be completed and submitted before Thanksgiving.  Click here if you want to participate!

Operation Christmas Child…Church of the Beloved is once again participating in Operation Christmas Child, sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse.  This program provides a shoebox for a child who lives in poverty somewhere in the world – and as a gift at Christmas – sends the hope that Jesus brings into the world in a hands-on project. 

As we prepare to celebrate the Saints of God this Sunday – past, present and yet to come – may our prayers center on the saints needed in the life of the boy or girl God has chosen for each of us.

Some interesting facts about Operation Christmas Child:

• It’s the largest children’s Christmas project in the world
• Over 55,000 churches from dozens of denominations participate
• Every US president since Ronald Reagan has packed a shoe box gift for Operation Christmas Child
• Operation Christmas Child has generated about 1824 miles of smiles since 1993 – smiles to reach from Augusta, Maine to Miami, Florida
• If the shoe boxes collected since 1993 were stacked one on top of each other, they’d be 650 times higher than Mount Everest and if put end-to-end would go from Disneyland in Florida to Tokyo, Japan
• Church of the Beloved has participated in Operation Christmas Child since at least our birth five years ago, growing bigger each year.

– Deb Blackwood, deacon

We will collect these shoeboxes, bless them and then take them to the Samaritan’s Purse warehouse on Sunday, November 19^th.  For more information on how to pack your box, speak to Deacon Deb or click here.

Biggest Bang for the Buck?…Leon Spencer, Dean of our Diocesan School for Ministry, had this to say in his October Newsletter, Doing Theology:  “Some caveats came to mind the other day when I heard someone say that, with tight budgets, decisions about priorities should be made with the ‘biggest bang for the buck’ in mind.  I understand the point, and when it essentially means that good stewardship correlates with some general stand of effectiveness in our ministries, that’s fair enough.  But when it correlates with the notion of cost-effectiveness, I have a problem, and it’s a theological one…”

“The ‘biggest bang for the buck’ phrase is a quantifiable concept, as is cost-effectiveness.  Living into God’s dream (for us) isn’t.  If a (priest or pastor) wanted the biggest bang for the buck, he or she wouldn’t spend hours with one parishioner in crisis, a deacon wouldn’t work, sometimes for months if not years, with and for a homeless man in the neighborhood, a layperson wouldn’t sit down, week after week, with a troubled youngster.  And Jesus surely wouldn’t have wandered off looking for the one lost sheep; it wouldn’t have been cost-effective.”

“A ‘biggest bang for the buck’ approach may seem real, a strategic choice to deal with the ‘real world.’  But it’s God’s mission and our call to ministry that are real…and that’s where we are to begin…every day.”

Serving at God’s Altar this Sunday…Angel Army Team 4 (Captain: Fred Mellon; Administrator: Claire Kraft; Pastor: this ministry is available; Convener: Linda Mellon); Acolytes: Carson King, Briana Robinson, Brian Sanniota, Jack Sanniota; Altar Bread Baker: Catherine Atwood; Lay Eucharistic Ministers: Franklin & Mary Reid; Offertory Basket Passers: Holly Burnett, Katie Kraft, Carter Ricket, Madelyn Ricket; PowerPoint: Kevin Krantz; Presenters: Michelle Dezzutto, Barbara Jackson; Reader: Tori Leinenkugel.

Sunday’s Scripture Readings…Revelation 7:2-4,9-17 & Matthew 5:2-6,10-12