Advent 2024

Greetings from the St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer!

FORMING DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN EVERY CONGREGATION

The St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer exists to form disciples of Jesus in every congregation. It seeks to do this by equipping and resourcing local congregations for the tasks and joys of faith formation, teaching and learning, catechesis, and the life of prayer.

Happy Advent! As the new church year begins, at this busy time of preparation, we have news of events coming from TSPC in 2025. We hope you’ll be able to join us for some (or all!) of them. 

Don’t forget, you can find our previous newsletters online.  If you’re reading this because someone shared it with you, and you’re not yet on our newsletter mailing list, please do sign up here, so you’ll be sure to receive all future news from TSPC!

A THOUGHT FROM TSPC

Praying Advent

The season repeats, and yet each year it is new. This year, a palpable weight to the sun setting by 4 pm. “Wars, and rumors of wars,” says the gospel. The nation has chosen, but what will happen is ahead of us. It is undeniably a time of collective unease… But it’s quiet for now, the future which is coming is hidden, waiting. My own limits, my own frailty loom larger than life. What can I do? “When you see these things taking place, stand up for your redemption is near.” Am I ready to stand up? “Do not be afraid; The Lord is with Thee.”

Some years I want Isaiah’s cry, “Oh that You would tear open the heavens and come down.” But this year hear Malachi, “indeed, he is coming…But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

Is the coming of the Lord redemption by fire? Thank God we do not know the day or the time, but we do know something has almost finished its gestation, something is coming into the world though the world can miss it’s appearing if we are too busy, too afraid, too sure of our roles. We are commanded to look East, be awake in the hour before dawn, trust in the signs of the heavens, the rising of the sun without fail.

And if we simply look East, we hear a different song rise out of the gloom, “Make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table- Love the Guest is on the way. Love, the rose, the bird, the star, the Lord is on the way.”

The waiting is real. The wars and rumors of wars are real. That we will be called to stand up is real. But Love is also real, and it shall not fail. Deo Gratias!

The Rev. Rita Powell

WHAT’S ON AT TSPC - and beyond

january 2025

‘Creatio ex amore and the Mission of the Church Now’ - an online seminar with Bishop Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Moderator of the World Council of Churches

January 11th, 9am

We are excited to share details of this upcoming special event:

In this time of climate crisis, what difference does our faith make? How does our understanding of God, and the meaning of God's creating work, ground and equip us to pray, serve, and act in this time? This seminar will deepen our capacity to preach and teach our claim that "God creates out of love," and enliven us for working with our faith communities for God's purposes.

Registrants may choose to explore advance readings, given on our website. They will also be invited to a follow-up conversation, hosted by the Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, Rector of Christ Church, Waltham, author and theologian, expanding our grounding in this topic with wisdom from African Christian theology of creation.

About our speaker:

Bishop Bedford-Strohm is a leader in the international, ecumenical movement to establish a Feast of God the Creator in our liturgical calendars. He is an honorary professor for systematic theology and contemporary theological issues at the University of Bamberg, and an honorary professor at the University of Stellenbosch/South Africa. He was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal of the German Albert Schweitzer Center, the Augsburg Peace Prize, and the James I. McCord Award from the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University for Outstanding Contributions to Ecumenical Scholarship, among many other honors. He was also awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Palermo for his commitment to the sea rescue of refugees. 

This is an online only event, which will be hosted on Zoom. The structure of the event will be as follows:

• 9:00 am - Opening prayer & introduction of  our guest speaker

• 9:10 am - Remarks from Bishop Dr. Bedford-Strohm

• 9:45 am - Breakout room conversations

• 10:10 am - Plenary discussion with Dr, Bedford-Strohm

• 10:35 am - Closing prayer

• 10:45 am - Adjourn

You can find all the details about this exciting seminar, and sign up to attend, here. You’ll also find the information about suggested readings on the subject. As ever, please do email us if you have questions. We hope you will join us on January 11th!

Baptized: Opening the Gift. 

An online class for clergy to equip them to do effective baptismal preparation with families, but useful for the whole parish. Created and taught by The Rev. Joyce Scherer-Hoock, Director of Children and Family Ministry, Trinity, Topsfield.

The purpose of this class is to provide a curriculum parish leaders can use to deepen parishioners’ understanding of baptism and commitment to Jesus. Clergy, directors of religious education and lay-leaders have taken this class to guide them in orienting and preparing families for Baptism, Confirmation or Reception. It can also be used more generally as an adult series for the entire parish. It welcomes new families to the church in a way that increases the likelihood they will become part of the congregation.

“The parents who came to the class, I’m seeing more of them in church on a regular basis.” – course participant from “Baptized: Opening the Gift”

This online class consists of four 90 minute sessions. The course costs $100. 

The Next Class is January 7, 14, 21, & 28, Tuesdays, 1- 2:30 pm on Zoom. Find out more about the course in a video description here. You can register for this course by clicking here. 

About the course leader:The Rev. Joyce Scherer-Hoock has devoted much of her ministry to doing Christian Formation. Joyce discovered the strength of Montessori based Christian Formation with “Young Children and Worship’ the precursor to Godly Play. She is certified in all three Levels of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd teaching adults that method. Before ordination she taught high potential learning-disabled adolescents at Landmark School. She currently serves as Christian and Family Minister at Trinity, Topsfield. Contact Joyce JLSHOOCK@gmail.com

February 2025

Ministry Discernment Day - February 1st, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston 

Registration is now open for the annual Ministry Discernment Conference, which has a new focus in 2025: “How Is God Calling Me? A Day of Resources for Vocations of All Kinds.” 

Everyone who is interested in discerning calls to ministry in the church and in the world, both lay and ordained, is warmly invited to gather at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston for the 2025 Ministry Discernment Conference on Saturday, Feb. 1, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. This gathering, jointly hosted by the Commission on Ministry and the St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer, will feature Bishop Julia Whitworth’s reflections on discernment, a panel discussion with people serving in a variety of Christian vocations and an introduction to resources for individual reflection, communal discernment in congregations and churchwide discernment programs. 

After lunch, participants will be invited, in smaller groups, to learn more about the programs that most interest them. People who want to learn about the ordination process in the Diocese of Massachusetts are especially encouraged to attend, along with their sponsoring clergy, potential parish discernment committee members and family members. 

The cost to attend this event is $25 (with financial assistance available if the fee is a hardship). Pre-registration is required. Registration is open here until Jan. 29. 

FOR INFORMATION: The Rev. Canon Edie Dolnikowski, Canon for Ordained Vocations (edie@diomass.org or 617-482-4826, ext. 514).

Summer 2025

Finding A Way ‘Walk it Back’ Weekend - June 13-15, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans

In April of this year, the Rev. Rita Powell offered the weekly online course, ‘Finding our Way: Developing practice of contemplation with land to reckon with trauma’. Following the success of that course, we’re delighted to be offering an opportunity to explore this idea over a weekend, residential course in June 2025: 

Finding A Way: Developing practices towards healing historical trauma with the help of the and and Waterways

Many of the challenges facing our world and church today, such as racism, climate crisis, inequity, misogyny, are the result of patterns with deep historical roots.  Our past has created legacies which we are struggling to disrupt.  This emerging movement Finding A Way uses the contemplative arts to train ourselves to listen to the wisdom of land and body, to help reckon with, witness, grieve, and honor our complex past, with the hope of slowly undoing these patterns of harm.

The ‘Walk It Back’ immersive learning experience will be a weekend in which participants will see and explore how to develop a land-based, historically informed walking practice in their own context. Offered through The St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer, as an event of the Province I network, this weekend will be hosted by the Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA.

Participants will spend 3 days exploring the local geography and history surrounding the parish.  Local indigenous leaders and faith based partners from the Cape will share their process and wisdom. Through shared meals, times of reflection and learning, prayer, and walking, we will practice pilgrimage toward the dream of healing. Participants will leave with experience in the building blocks needed to create a contemplative healing practice in their own contexts and parishes. 

Ideally, participants will arrive Friday night, June 13, and stay through church on Sunday morning, June 15. (Commuting is an option for those who live close enough.) We have graciously been invited to stay with parishioners for the weekend.  Suggested donation between $50-100.   

Registration for this inspiring weekend of exploration will open early in 2025. Please Save the Date! Send any questions you may have to rita@harvardepiscopalians.org

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Happening now!

TSPC Regional Learning Communities for Clergy

We all know that clergy people, be they full or part time, have many demands on the hours in their days. Life can be hectic, with so much to do, and clergy may sometimes feel unsupported, or alone. The St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer aims to counter that feeling, by giving the hardworking clergy of the Diocese of Massachusetts opportunities to gather; to share ideas or concerns; to support one another.  

Learning Communities in the Northern and Western Region of the Diocese and in the Central Region are underway. The Southern Region Community will be starting soon! These Communities will gather via zoom every six weeks or so, focusing on a particular topic each session. The sessions will be hosted by the Communities' co-leaders, but the format will be discursive and open, rather than being led by one person. It is our hope that priests and deacons will be nurtured by this time to share resources, discuss problems, and explore aspects of faith and formation. 

In the Central Region Community, they are exploring together Jesse Zink’s Faithful, Creative, Hopeful: Fifteen Theses for Christians in a Crisis-Shaped World (Church Publishing, 2024). Here are some thoughts from Dean Amy, on this text:

Do you have a congregation wanting to dig deeply into the call to discipleship in a challenging era? This new book by Episcopal theologian Jesse Zink would work well for a season-long discussion and prayer group. Zink invites us to tell the truth about the depth of change and crisis within which we are living, and to dig even more deeply into the truth and hope of the gospel to chart our path. Combining scripture, theology, history, and economic analysis, Zink sets forth fifteen theses, organized into four categories of invitation: Apocalyptic Clarity, Resistant Ethos, Resistant Practice, and Renewed Church. 

Readers will not all agree with all this analysis. That's OK. He acknowledges that up front and explains that what matters more is that we're having a conversation on these issues and praying together about them. Lest you wonder where he's headed, the title of his final theses is "The Eucharist sets the agenda for the church." The Central Region Clergy Learning Community is using this book as a touchstone for conversation this year. Let us know if you read it, and perhaps TSPC can set up a Zoom conversation with the author in 2025.

The Northern and Central Region Learning Communities for this year are already launched. But if you are a member of clergy in the Southern Region of the Diocese, and have not received an email invitation to your regional group, please do contact us at tspc@diomass.org - we do hope you’ll consider being a part of your local Community.

Northern and Western Region Learning Community - co-hosted by the Rev. Dr. Jarred Mercer and the Rev. Jacqueline Clark

Central Region Learning Community - co-hosted by the Very Rev. Amy McCreath and the Rev. Greg Johnston

Southern Region Learning Community - co-hosted by the Rev. Joseph Mumita and the Rev. Dr. Maggie Arnold

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thanks and au revoir!

One of the key driving forces behind TSPC has been Martha Gardner. She is retiring at the end of December - alas for us, but hooray for her! We want to take this opportunity to thank Martha for all the energy, commitment and inspiration she has brought to TSPC - and to all her labors within the Diocese. We wish her a wonderful retirement, with only the very best kind of new adventures - and we say ‘Au revoir’, because we look forward to seeing her as a participant at TSPC events in future! Thank you, Martha!

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Closing with … thoughts on advent

TSPC Coordinator Kirsten Cairns suggests some inspiration to be found in poetry, during Advent:

Many skilled writers have reflected on this period of waiting: on the feelings of joy in expectation, but also of doubt, even fear, as we marvel at this coming of God made man. You can find a wonderful curation of poems here.

I particularly enjoy the poem below, by Dr. Rowan Williams, our guest speaker from Fall 2023. Did you know he is an accomplished poet? 

Advent Calendar

By Rowan Williams

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

What inspiration do you find - perhaps in music, art, or literature - for the expectations (or anxieties) of Advent? Please share your thoughts, reflections and questions with us - our email inbox is always open! tspc@diomass.org