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| News from St. Mark's Episcopal Church |
September 2009 |
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 Letter from John de Beer
Dear Friends,
Thank you for welcoming us into the Rectory at 14 St. Mark's Road. My wife, Tricia, and I deeply appreciate all the work that went into preparing the house. Thanks too to those who greeted us with a meal on the evening of our move. We have been slow to unpack and arrange the space as we had prior commitments that demanded our time. Now we are beginning to nest!
This Fall I invite you to "Listen for God" twice a month in the Choir Room, on Tuesday evenings from 7:15 - 8:45 pm. Of course, the point of our gathering is to be better able to listen for God at all times and in all places. Each week we will explore a particular way of praying.
The meetings will help develop
- An (increasing) ability to "live" prayer in the daily activities of our life, present to the moment and present to God
- Our heart connection with all who share the human condition, respecting the sacred dignity of every human being we encounter
- Shifting our inner power base in the pattern and power of Jesus, the servant leader, as we align our life with God's Dream and God's particular "call" for us
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The prayer practices we will use are drawn from the Servant Leadership School of Greensboro (see www.servantleadergreensboro.com)
No prior ability or experience is needed and you are welcome to drop in to see if this might help you strengthen your sense of God's presence and call. We begin on Tuesday, September 22nd, and will then meet on the first and third Tuesday of the month, through November 17th.
Sign up in the Narthex or by emailing me at connect.john@gmail.com. Whether you come on Tuesdays or not, you are very welcome to make a time to talk to me individually about how you are listening or not listening for God.
Peace,
John
The Rev. John de Beer |
 From the Senior Warden
WELCOME to all who are returning from a very hot summer and to all those who never went away.
Also a big WELCOME to Megan and Bruce Jordan who came to us this summer.
September is the beginning of Sunday School, a new prayer group, youth group, a new program year and a restart of our vestry meetings although vestry work doesn't seem to have a vacation. I am looking forward with great anticipation and excitement to the next few months. September 26, St. Mark's will take part in the Diocesan Resource Day to share our experience with the Connect? Commit?, Covenant! program and its effect on St. Mark's. A flyer is in the Narthex explaining other workshops available at this event that I think you will find interesting. For the past two years I have been attending Resource Day and have always come away with a renewed energy for St. Mark's. Please plan to join us and support us in this effort. Carpooling will be provided to Bentley College in Waltham. A signup sheet is also in the Narthex.
In October, Bishop Shaw will visit us on Saturday the 17th. I encourage you to reserve this date to be at the church to welcome the Bishop. More information will be forthcoming. The following Saturday, the 24th, is our yearly Fall Fair. Judy Gustafson and Sue Thompson are chairing this fund raising event and I am sure they would love to hear from anyone who is interested in helping with the fair. This is always a great time for fellowship and fun.
Peace,
Shirley Estrella
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 From the Associate for Multigenerational Ministries
Hello Friends! I hope you all had a summer full of rest and relaxation. I was blessed with a lighter work schedule so was able to spend many afternoons swimming in the pool. Soaking up all that sunshine re-energized me for another great year at St. Mark's.
There are so many exciting things happening this year that I'm not sure where to start. First off, Confirmation classes will begin Sunday, October 11 after Youth Choir practice. Any youth from 8th grade and up is invited to attend (even if you've already been confirmed). The classes will meet the 2nd and 4th Sundays of every month from 11 am - 12:30. A definitive schedule will posted in the next month's ROAR.
Secondly, St. Mark's is finally going to have a young adult group. We are very excited to have new young adults joins us in our ministries. There will be an informal gathering for the young adults on September 15 at St. Mark's from 7-8:30. Bring your favorite dessert!
And of course we will continue to have our monthly Story Sunday services. Our first Story Sunday is September 13 which is also Welcoming Sunday. I hope to see you all there!
Sarah |
Property Notes
What has been DONE?
- The Rectory has been cleaned, painted, repaired and made ready for John and Tricia de Beer. We welcome them to their new home. Thanks to Howard Bettinson, Rick Eaton, Roy Brown, Steve Cunha, sue Thompson, Andy Gilbert, Sue Heidbrink, Bob Pattison, and others.
- OUR Gardens and lawns and shrubs have been kept neat and trim. More thanks to Howard, Rick Blaney, Norm Dooley, Betsy Figenbaum, Karen Donahue, Bob and Sue Thompson, and others.
- OUR Organ has been repaired.
- OUR Church building has new lights wherever they were needed.
- OUR CHURCH has passed inspection for the next five years which required repairs, updated fire extinguishers and other details.
- The Office is being organized. Thanks to Shirley, Andy, Senada, and others.
- And several other projects.
There are many projects that lie in the future. We have estimates for several jobs that will be done in the coming months.
- The concrete stairs NEED repair. That job will require about $2,500 in labor and materials.
- The roof of the education building NEEDS repair. That job will require $6,500 to $15,000 in labor and materials.
- The Rectory NEEDS further improvements and maintenance. That will require additional expenditures.
- The Office needs carpeting and painting.
What can YOU DO to assist?
- First, you can sign up to help with projects. PLEASE and THANK YOU!
- Second, you can come to the Fall Fair and support our fund raising efforts.
- Third, you can make a donation to the property fund to help us to maintain OUR PROPERTY.
- Finally, say thanks to those who are working so hard to keep our buildings in good shape.
Jack Heidbrink |
Women's Group Meeting
September is here and that means that The Women's Group of St. Mark's is ready to start meeting again. Our first meeting will be on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 7:00 PM in the parish hall. As this is our annual Welcome Meeting, we thought it would be fun to share something we all love...Chocolate. We are asking all of the attendees to please bring a favorite chocolate candy or dessert. As we relish in the world of chocolate, we will discuss the upcoming year and what we would like to accomplish. All of the women of St. Mark's are encouraged to attend. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of St. Mark's women to come together in a social atmosphere to meet new women, greet old friends and of course eat. If you are unable to attend due to transportation issues, please feel free to contact one of the ladies below and we will make arrangements to have someone pick you up and take you home. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact: Linda Kelley at 781-883-8972 or email at ljkelley@rcn.com |
Outreach Notes
 We had two wonderful events over the summer. We served as a partner church in the B-Safe program - an urban ministry designed to keep young children safe and off the streets, reducing their exposure to gangs, drugs, and risk of injury or death as innocent bystanders to street violence. While most partner churches take a full week we took two days, and it was quite enough for our first experience. We have a whole list of things to do and not to do next year! Catherine Owens, Marcia and Emily Doiron, Elizabeth Centauro, Alison Cassidy, and John de Beer helped on site. Many others helped prepare food. It was a wonderful experience, and one which we hope to repeat in 2010.
We also particpated in the town-wide fundraiser for People Helping People. St. Mark's had two big jobs. Our first was to coordinate the bake sale at Flatbread pizza. Special thanks to Shirley Estrella, Averil Kane, Sue Thompson, and Emily Howser for their work on the day, and to all who baked, bought, and came for pizza!
Our second was as part of Sunday's walk, food pantry dedication, and dinner on the common. The youth group hosted visitors to the food pantry dedication by decorating with balloons and posters, and serving lemonade and water (see photo, courtesy of Marcia Doiron). Special thanks also to Justin and Juliette Turner and Sarah Manly - that's Justin, crouched at the end of the line! Many other St. Mark's Lions walked, bought dinner on the common, and enjoyed one of the most beautiful summer days you can imagine!
Please keep Marge Douglass, our outreach team leader, in your prayers as she continues to work very hard on recovering from her second round of hip surgery. |
Choir Notes
Youth Choir
I'm looking forward to seeing the members of the St. Mark's Youth Choir at our first rehearsal of the new school year on Sunday, September 13th. We'll get started after the service, as soon as our members have had an opportunity to get a drink at coffee hour and come back up to the sanctuary. We'll finish up at 11 am. Since we'll be trying lots of new music, it will be helpful to have as many at our rehearsals as possible.
As always, children in grades 2 or higher who enjoy singing are welcome to join us. We rehearse on Sundays after the service, and sing during two services a month, along with our Christmas Eve Family Service and our Easter service. Come along and bring your friends! Even if you can't start with us on September 13th, join us whenever you can and we'll teach you all the songs.
Adult Choir
As usual, the Adult Choir sang anthems during our regular worship services on Sundays during the summer. I would like to thank them for their devoted service, and for adding so much to our summer worship.
We'll be resuming our regular Thursday night rehearsals of the Adult Choir on September 3rd at 7:30pm. We welcome anyone who likes to sing to come try us out on a Thursday night. We have a wonderful time making music together, and we'd love to see you there.
The Adult Choir finished off our last year of rehearsals with a Choir Social at Rita Boucher's house. We watched the documentary "Young at Heart" about the senior citizen choir in Northampton, Massachusetts that has sung locally and on European tours. Their chorus, like ours, is filled with all kinds of inspirational and entertaining characters, which made for an enjoyable movie. After the movie, our choir surprised me with gifts and a beautiful cake to celebrate my wedding, and made me realize all over again how lucky I am to work with this group. They keep me "young at heart"!
Susan Dearborn,
Choir Director |
 Notes from EDS
I hope you all have had a wonderful summer. Mine was busy but not as frantic as the school year is. Thanks to the dedication of my discernment team (Deb Smyth, Bruce Burrell, John Kelley, Andy Gilbert, Sally Cassidy, and Elizabeth Centauro - bless you all!), and with the vestry's unanimous support, I got my application for postulancy into the diocese by the August 1st deadline. I don't know when I will hear, but interviews are sometime in November. So sometime before that I'll find out if they are even willing to interview me. In the meantime it's in God's hands.
As I write this I am facing registration tomorrow, and the start of class next week. Next week I also begin my field education year with the Diocese of Vermont. I have a work project that has extended into the end of September, and another work project at EDS that was supposed to be a summer project but has also dragged on. I was deeply honored to be asked to work with one of my professors as her editor while she writes articles and a book during her sabbatical, but that work has started as well. The next three weeks are going to be an odd combination of incredible joy (I can't wait to tell you all about Vermont - maybe next month!) and sheer misery.
AND ... And I am learning to say "I can't do this." I was supposed to bake cookies for the People Helping People dinner on the common this past Sunday and I didn't. I was supposed to be a Eucharistic visitor that same Sunday, and I didn't. And I didn't feel guilty about it - well, maybe a little, but nothing like I used to.
I am also learning to ask for help. I was trying to figure out how to get balloons blown up for the start of the walk last Sunday and I was just about to do a few myself when I realized that I was backsliding. So my helium tank and I went off to church and got a wonderful amount of help after service on Sunday (not to mention all the help the youth group gave making the balloons for the St. Mark's end of the walk). Maybe it took a little longer chronologically but it was a lot more fun and relaxing this way!
Best of all though, I have learned to pray. I have a feeling I get, maybe some of you know it, I call it the "gerbil in the exercise wheel" feeling - frantically running and never getting anywhere. When I'm in that mode I wake up in the morning and immediately start running my list of things to do in my head and I can feel my heart rate accelerate and my breath getting faster. Now, when that happens, I stop... I breath very slowly and deeply... and I open my heart to God. I don't do it for very long, but it breaks the cycle, and gets my day off to a God-centered start.
I guess maybe the best way to say it is that, yes, life is crazy, and yes, sometimes I cram more into 24 hours than 24 hours can easily hold. But when I get to the point of thinking that life is all about moving most efficiently from one task to another, I'm not living. I'm living when I'm doing the most that I can do in the context of loving and worshipping God, working with others, and letting God love me.
Catherine Owens
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St. Mark's Schedule
Holy Eucharist and Church School both begin at 9:00 am on Sunday. Church School children join the congregation at the peace. After service we have coffee hour in the parish hall.
On the first Sunday of the month Sunday School combines with our regular service for a special Story service.
The Bible study group meets on Sunday in the parish hall after coffee hour to study the lessons for the next Sunday. No special background or education is required, and you do not have to attend every week. Please join us when you can!
The Youth Choir rehearses after service on Sunday. The Adult Choir rehearses on Thursday at
7:30 pm.
The Youth Group meets on the first and third Sundays after the service.
Confirmation class meets on the second and fourth Sundays after service. Any youth from 8th grade and up is invited, even if you've already been confirmed!
Vestry meets at 7:00 pm in the Choir Room on the second Monday. Vestry meetings are open to all, unless otherwise announced.
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