This week’s stewardship reflection is by Steve Daniel.
Thirty years ago I volunteered for the Kenmore Family Shelter Christmas shopping trip for the first time. I was assigned to drive some residents of the shelter on the shopping excursion. I will admit that I had a preconceived notion about the residents of the shelter who were taking advantage of transitional housing. While driving the residents of the shelter we chatted and I became more familiar with them and their stories.
I realized that these were people just like me who had experienced some difficulties that had not affected me—job losses, being in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” and such. I came away thinking “but for the grace of God there to I.” All people are the same, but affected by the environment differently. The differences could be in how the economy affects you, where you live, what ethnicity you belong to, family factors; the list is endless. My experience during the event changed me personally, professionally, and spiritually.
I came to realize that being fortunate, lucky, or blessed means to me that what we have we got from God. We that get more from God need to share what we have. Stewardship means (to me) being stewards of the world and stewards of the church—give to both what we can.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
How do we live a life of faith? Particularly in the midst of a world, of a society that feels like its tilting more off its axis than usual, it would be nice to have a guide, a roadmap, on how to get through a day, a year, a life with our faith intact, much less a faith that can grow, and can flourish. Luckily, there is such a guide, several in fact. Through the centuries of the church, members of the church have come up with rules to help in the life of faith. A rule of life provides a structure to guide us, both in good times and difficult ones.
At the Opening Eucharist of the General Convention, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry offered to the church a new rule of life for our times, in our branch of the Jesus Movement. He called it The Way of Love: Practices for a Jesus-Centered Life. You can watch and read Bishop Curry’s sermon. I hope you will.
The seven steps of the way of The Way of Love will be basis of Adult Christian Education this year. Beginning in November we will practice the work to Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, and Rest to better serve Jesus and live the life of the Kingdom of God. I hope you will join me on this journey beginning Sunday, November 11, 2018, at 9:30 am in the Education Building.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County. We welcome you be with us as we walk the way of Jesus.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
If the response to sexual misconduct at the 79th General Convention made me the most hopeful, then the issue of liturgy, particularly the revision of the Book of Common Prayer…well it showed me how far we still have to go in many ways as a church.
First a preface: I am a child of the 1979 Prayer Book. I cut my teeth on it and I am very grateful for the panoply of innovations that it contained, not the least of which was the reorientation of worship toward the Eucharist. I am even grateful for Eucharistic Prayer C. However, I was unhappy with the outcome our deliberations, which is not Prayer Book revision. In this I know I am in disagreement with the bishop, which one should always do publicly with a great deal of trepidation. Nevertheless, the resolution that passed out of General Convention was deeply flawed, I believe, in two very important ways.
First, Resolution A068 said it “memorializes” the BCP 1979. What does that mean? Whatever someone wants it to mean, I suppose. There is no hard and fast definition. To me it certainly holds “Old ‘79” up as something worthy, and that’s the problem. What is between the red covers does not reflect the church. It never has. It was written predominately by white men, for white men, and carries in it’s DNA white-cis-hetero-male supremacy. No matter if we create liturgies that sing the God’s praise from a thousand different perspectives, those liturgies will not be between the red covers and they will not be quite as worthy, and, I fear, the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement will continue in perception and, in reality, in many ways, as a church of white supremacy, by white supremacy, for white supremacy. Revising what’s between the red covers might not change that. Who knows whether we would have ended up with a book at all. After all we still call pre-convention materials “The Blue Book,” even though at this Convention it was a PDF file unless you bought it from Amazon. But memorializing the Prayer Book 1979, I believe, means that when too many people look between the red covers that will undoubtedly remain in the pews because we’ve always done that way in many places. They will not see themselves reflected in the pages and will wonder if our worship, which our statement of theology, has no place for them, does this church have a place for them?
This last point ties then directly with my second issue with where convention ended up with regards to Prayer Book revision. One of the arguments that was stated often against revision was the cost: $1.9 million over three years. That’s a lot of money to be sure, but some perspective is in order. The triennial budget is $134 million. Revising the seminal theological document of our church, the repository of our statement of belief, would be between one and two percent of the triennial budget. By comparison, the National Church will spend almost three percent of the triennial budget on legal fees. I make this comparison not to denigrate the cost of legal fees, but to point out that we should value our common liturgy, our common theology, more highly than legal fees. This is not simply inside baseball either, as should be plain from my earlier comments, I believe that the Prayer Book (or prayer PDF or three ring binder or neural feed or whatever it will be in 20 years) is a missional document. It tells us who we are so that we can tell others who we are. It creates in us the habits of heart and mind and hand deep in our bones so that we can carry that story, the reality that our liturgy creates, out into the world in the name of the risen Christ. And that, after all, is what we are supposed to be doing.
Resolution A068, as re-written by a white-cis-hetero-male bishop, and passed by both houses of the 79th General Convention, is a less-than-half measure. Essentially it says, if your bishop is willing, let a thousand flowers bloom. If the bishop is not, then too bad. It is a missed opportunity for the church to collectively begin to think beyond what we have been and thought and done before, and find where God is drawing us forward.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
This General Convention might end up being known as the #Metoo convention.
The worship set the tone early. The bishops held what they called a “listening session.” In it, bishops came forward and recited snippets of stories about the experience of abuse, harassment, misconduct, and further wounding that happened when these instances were reported. Then, they repented of the ways in which the church had injured God’s children. For many it was a powerful experience for bishops to stand up and take some level of responsibility.
This carried over into the rest of the convention. Many of the resolutions were the result of efforts begun by a special committee that worked on many of these issues from February right through convention. The #Metoo committee, as it became known, and members of that committee were the proposers of many of the actions that were approved by the Convention. There were also many who stood up and told their stories, such as the writers and signatories to Memorial to the General Convention from the Gathering of Gen X and Millennial Clergy (you can read the memorial).
This theme also carried over into the legislative committee that was tasked with working on Title IV of the canons (canons are the church equivalent of laws, and Title IV is the section of the canons that deal with clergy discipline), as well as Safeguarding (the training programs Safeguarding God’s People and Safeguarding God’s Children are mandatory for clergy and lay volunteers in charge of ministry). The committee dealt with over 50 resolutions, the vast majority of them dealing with sexual misconduct, harassment, abuse, and the church’s response to it.
Among the actions that taken by this committee were the following:
The creation of a Taskforce for Women, Truth, and Reconciliation, which would address all levels of misconduct which have happened in the past.
The creation of a Taskforce on Sexual Harassment, tasked with finding and beginning the process of dismantling the structures that allow misconduct and harassment to continue in the church.
A suspension of the statute of limitations on sexual harassment beginning January 2019 and lasting until the end of 2021, allowing people to come forward, tell their stories, and hold the predatory or complicity clergy and church systems accountable for their actions.
This is just a small sample of the work that was begun during General Convention.
I spent much of my time early in this General Convention sitting in the Title IV committee’s hearing and deliberations. If you stopped to read the memorial that I linked to earlier you will see my name as a signatory to it. I was at that gathering. I heard every one of those stories, and I have heard more since. Once my eyes and ears were open, I had a choice: do I close them again, or use them to see, to listen to the pain that is all to prevalent in the church. I was present at almost every meeting of the Title IV and Safeguarding legislative committee, testified before it, and wrote a resolution that was considered by the committee.
I believe that this is an issue of liberation in the Episcopal church. If anyone in the church is injured, then I am because I am a part of that same body of Christ that is the church; more so if it is the body that does the harm to any member. Misconduct, misogyny, abuse, sexual or otherwise, and the predatory and/or complicit systems that enable them are abscesses, cancers with in the body of the church. I have hope that we have begun the process of excising this illness, and that, if the work can be completed, the church may heal and become whole.
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County. We welcome you be with us as we walk the way of Jesus.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
I’ve been reflecting on my experience at General Convention since I got back from Texas. In the next several weeks, I’m going to share my thoughts on some of the most important things that I think came out of the Convention, both things that I am really hopeful about and things that make me less hopeful.
The General Convention is a bit of an odd beast. It’s full of different streams of thought and emotion all ebbing, flowing, all with thoughts and hopes and ideas about what General Convention, what the Episcopal Church, can and should be. All of these thoughts and emotions collide and mix like a ocean tide mixing with the mouth of a river at the edge of the sea. And, like that collision of river and sea, the collision of all of these ideas and hopes and dreams is a source of life for the church, a place rife with action, and emotion, and life.
Once upon a time Convention was every year. In the 19th century, without airplanes or reliable communications, this was the way that the whole church stayed connected. Now, we have other means of communicating and much of the work of the church at a national level gets done between conventions rather than during them. But still, convention is a way in which we can sit together as a whole branch of the Jesus Movement, as Presiding Bishop Curry likes to call us, and talk about what the future holds for us. I’m going to be writing about the work that was begun at Convention, the work of becoming more and more a part of God’s kingdom, a kingdom built on love.
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The Earley Outreach Fund at Church of the Redeemer supported a wide variety of outreach projects. The money to establish this fund came from the sale of the Butterfly Shop, a thrift shop operated by Redeemer in Bothell, Washington.
These are some of the programs supported by the Earley Outreach Fund at some point since 2009:
bE.kON Collective
Friends of Third Place Commons Farmers “Market Bucks”
Kairos Torch Prison Ministry
Northshore Adult Day Health
Page Ahead
Capitol Hill Community Resource Center
United Way Community Resource Exchange: Homeless Foot washing Project
Internship at Mosoj Yan in Bolivia
Northshore YMCA ESL Summer Program
Mission to Seafarers in Seattle
Rebuild the Churches Fund
Episcopal Jail Ministry at the King County Jail
Foundation for Academic Endeavors
Origin of the Earley Outreach Fund
The Earley Outreach Fund started from the sale of the former Butterfly Thrift Store building. The crowded-but-tidy shop sold used and consigned household goods and clothing in downtown Bothell, Washington. Volunteers from Church of the Redeemer staffed and operated the shop.
During more than two decades of operation, the Butterfly Shop distributed over $275,000 in small grants to local people with urgent needs for things like the following:
Paying the utility bill for families in danger of losing power.
Getting the last few dollars of someone’s rent together.
Paying for medical bills, gas, or bus vouchers.
The “Butterfly Ladies” helped over 2,500 people over rough spots.
An aging volunteer staff and an unsolicited offer to purchase the property in late 2007 led to the decision to close the Butterfly Shop and sell the property. Church of the Redeemer did not treat the $300,000 purchase price as a windfall. Instead, Redeemer’s parishioners placed the entire sum into a fund to continue to serve those in need.
This fund became known as the the Earley Outreach Fund. The name recognizes Gretchen and John Earley, leading lights of the Butterfly Shop for its entire existence.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Mother Catharine Reid grew up outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Smith College in Massachusetts and earned a Master of Science in Library Science degree from Villanova University. She then moved to England, where she was a member for two years of the Lee Abbey community, a lay Christian community which runs a holiday and conference centre on the north coast of Devon. From there she went on to study at Trinity Theological College in Bristol, England, and earned her Master of Divinity degree from the General Seminary in New York City.
Following seminary, she was for six years a member of the Order of St. Helena, an Episcopal religious community for women. It was as a member of the order that Mother Catharine first came to live in Seattle.
A longtime member of St. Paul’s, Seattle, she was sponsored by them for ordination and was ordained to the priesthood in October 2011. She initially served as associate at St. Clement’s, Seattle, and then for three years as an associate at St. Luke’s, Renton. In 2014, in addition to serving at St. Luke’s, Mother Catharine took on the role of Associate for the 5:00 pm liturgy at St. Paul’s, and in early 2015 became their priest-in-charge until the arrival of their new rector at the end of September 2015. Currently she serves as an associate at St. Dunstan’s, Shoreline.
Mother Catharine will be with us at Church of the Redeemer while Fr. Jed Fox recovers from surgery. While serving at Redeemer, you may contact her at creid@redeemer-kenmore.org.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Campus address: 6220 Northeast 181st Street, Kenmore, WA 98028 (no mail delivery), Google Maps link
Delivery Services address (Education Building and Office): 6211 Northeast 182nd Street, Kenmore, WA 98028 (no mail delivery)
Main church building address: 6220 Northeast 181st Street, Kenmore, WA 98028 (no mail delivery)
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Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
On Covenant, a part of The Living Church, there is an article on numeric decline in the Episcopal Church. Even saying the word decline is somewhat fraught these days. Some people will point out that the church does not have to be big to matter. Or, will trot out the old Mark Twain quote about statistics and lies.
The author of the article, David Goodhew, is quick to acknowledge that numbers only tell part of the story. However, he says, “If we believe Christian faith is good news, we should be seeking its proliferation, and be worried when it shrinks. Ignoring uncomfortable numbers does no good. Indeed, it only means the problems will have increased by the time we face the true state of affairs” (Facing Episcopal Church decline – Covenant).
Some of the numbers that the author quotes appear breathtaking in their severity. The statistics are broken down. The numbers of baptisms and marriages are particularly startling. Baptisms in 2015 compared with 1980 have dropped by half. Marriages in that same epoch have dropped from almost 39,000 to under 10,000. Taken along with the other membership data that Goodhew reports, it would not be hard to conclude that the Episcopal church will be consigned to the dustbin of history in a few decades.
Goodhew is also at pains to draw our attention to the fact that some of the causes of this are out of our control. Demographics do not favor the church — in a church that is predominately white, the low birthrate does us no favors. Nor has the decade of conflict and schism been a factor that makes the church particularly attractive — though these trends predate the latest unpleasantness over human sexuality. The rising secularism in American society is also noted — though we in the Pacific Northwest are much more accustomed to this trend than other parts of the country.
It is, Goodhew infers, the church’s response to these realities that has done the most damage. We tend to move slowly to change and adapt, a natural outgrowth of our traditionalist mindset as a denomination. Being a church that sits in the middle of things — both Catholic and Reformed — we are slow to make too many course corrections. This habit served us well for hundreds of years, but now, it might cause us to disappear, in theory.
Though it is easy to read Goodhew’s article and jump to the doom and gloom scenarios for our denomination, it’s important to center ourselves, even in this, in the resurrection. Each church is an outpost of God’s Kingdom in the world. We are heralds of Good News that God is doing something in the world. We are not responsible for the growth or shrinking of the church, local or national. We are responsible for heralding the Good News of God in Christ by living our lives in accordance with the Baptismal Covenant and engaging in the ministry of reconciling the world to God through loving relationship with God and our neighbor. I believe that continuing this work, hard though it may be when we hear statistics that seem ruinous, constitutes the best, the only way to “grow” the church: to plant and water seeds of the Good News that will grow with God’s grace. After all, we have the room now to grow.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County. We welcome you be with us as we walk the way of Jesus.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The Church of the Redeemer main building was designed by noted Northwest Modern architect Roland Terry.
According to a brochure produced by Docomomo WEWA, this building architecture has the following features:
Terry produced an original an unconventional design, one that combined elements derived from the agriculture vernacular and Asian precedents to achieve economy and rustic elegance….
The church demonstrated a spiritually-uplifting verticality, with proportions of the columns, siding and shoji-like windows being very tall and narrow. A key element of Terry’s solution was his use of pole framing, a structural system employed in vernacular farm structures requiring long spans and low costs (and Japanese Zen temples)….
Others have noted that the building bears some resemblance to a longhouse found in Coast Salish culture.
The building was dedicated on December 20, 1964.
Read a brochure from Docomomo WEWA (10.4 KB, PDF) about the building architecture at Church of the Redeemer. The brochure opens in a new window.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County. We welcome you be with us as we walk the way of Jesus.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
