From the Rector
We are having a Sunday Afternoon with Mozart on Sunday, May 14, the third of three magnificent concerts organized by the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County and offered by the Solstice Ensemble, the splendid chamber ensemble guided by Jim and Laurie Stubbs. The concerts are benefitting a number of projects of the Ethical Cuture Society as well as the day laborer outreach we have begun.
These concerts demonstrate the capability of our building to serve as a small concert or recital hall. They express something of our growing mission and outreach to the arts community in and around Teaneck, "the far west side of Manhattan." I am grateful for the way in which God is giving us opportunities to support and encourage the arts, which are essential to human life.
The concerts are also a sign of another dimension of life at St. Mark's: radical hospitality. What an advantage we have in becoming increasingly clear that hospitality and openness is our first priority.
The Mozart concerts were originally planned to have been at the Ethical Culture Society building but had to be moved due to a scheduling problem. We immediately welcomed the events to St. Mark's. In so doing we are advancing the arts, people in our community, our connection with a range of good work emanating from the local faith community, and we are revealing and experiencing God's openness to all of humanity, as Jesus Christ reveals God's unrestrained love to us.
There are so many ways in which God desires to and does enrich the life of the world as we respond quickly and positively to the openings that are presented to us. As the Mozart concerts strongly reflect, often the result is truly beautiful.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Serving Day Laborers, Expanding our Diversity
From the Rector
For quite a few months we have been serving a group of day laborers who gather in Bergenfield. About 50 men of Latin American origin gather in the site each day.
We have been serving them through providing necessities and companionship in a once-a-week visit on Wednesdays. Many times they have not had basic resources for living and working. We have supplied safety items like dust masks, eye protection, and goggles as well as cold weather items like knit caps, warm gloves, sweatshirts, and jackets. Most days we take some basic portable nutrition like fruit, snack bars, string cheese, or nuts.
In June we will start to offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and a simple meal twice a week. Learning English has been the highest priority for the workers (after having more work).
In the months we have been building relationships in this day laborer community we have found the men to be extremely pleasant, intelligent, motivated, insightful, and faithful. Most of them are deeply pious Christians and they have responded enthusiastically to a few special prayer and sacrament times that we have offered on major days like the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. We have benefitted enormously from the ways in which the day laborers have enriched our lives with their stories, experiences, and personalities.
As we move into a new phase, with English classes and hospitality, we can recognize that St. Mark's is being offered not only this valuable opportunity to serve, to do what Christ mandated we should do: "love one another as I have loved you," but we are being presented with a chance to grow and to expand the range of our diversity. God is very generous to us and the presence of the day laborers in our mission is another strong sign of the way in which God abundantly gives us all we need.
For quite a few months we have been serving a group of day laborers who gather in Bergenfield. About 50 men of Latin American origin gather in the site each day.
We have been serving them through providing necessities and companionship in a once-a-week visit on Wednesdays. Many times they have not had basic resources for living and working. We have supplied safety items like dust masks, eye protection, and goggles as well as cold weather items like knit caps, warm gloves, sweatshirts, and jackets. Most days we take some basic portable nutrition like fruit, snack bars, string cheese, or nuts.
In June we will start to offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and a simple meal twice a week. Learning English has been the highest priority for the workers (after having more work).
In the months we have been building relationships in this day laborer community we have found the men to be extremely pleasant, intelligent, motivated, insightful, and faithful. Most of them are deeply pious Christians and they have responded enthusiastically to a few special prayer and sacrament times that we have offered on major days like the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. We have benefitted enormously from the ways in which the day laborers have enriched our lives with their stories, experiences, and personalities.
As we move into a new phase, with English classes and hospitality, we can recognize that St. Mark's is being offered not only this valuable opportunity to serve, to do what Christ mandated we should do: "love one another as I have loved you," but we are being presented with a chance to grow and to expand the range of our diversity. God is very generous to us and the presence of the day laborers in our mission is another strong sign of the way in which God abundantly gives us all we need.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
St. Mark's and the Township Council
From the Rector
Since January I have been serving on the Teaneck Town Council, appointed to fill a seat of a Councilmember who made controversial statements about our Fire Department in an ongoing season of conflict in our municipal life. My term ends June 30.
I have found work as a Councilmember to be very similar to work I do at St. Mark's and in the Diocese. The skills are much the same. It has been an intense experience: jumping in and having to be immediately effective in a demanding and fraught time. I commented to a friend that serving at this time is a bit like a graduate-level practicum in handling conflict.
I agreed to serve on the Council for a number of reasons. The first was to serve the community. I see it as similar to serving the homeless, the hungry, the day laborers, the refugees, the young people who come for tutoring, and so many others who seek response and hospitality from our faith community. It isn't exactly this, but it is something like an extended pastoral call on the Township government. In any case, it is definitely ministry.
I also felt it a way to grow in leadership in order to serve St. Mark's and the wider church more effectively. It has been a way of putting my leadership insights and practices into the fire, to test and temper them. This has been a very trying time - the sort of thing that creates new strengths and pulls all of one's gifts and inner resources to the front.
During the time of my service we have settled a complex of law suits for 2.3 million dollars, had an investigative task force that issued a public report to try to improve employee relationships, faced employees and township residents who are struggling with an array of real issues and concerns, worked on the problem of an $80+M school budget defeat that now becomes a Council decision, and worked with the whole array of matters related to facilities, development, and planning. I was glad to be on the Council when we finalized the purchase of and setting up an Advisory Board for an historic burial ground threatened with development, a place where people of Native American, African, and European ancestry were all buried. I've met a tremendous number of fascinating and gifted people who live in our community and who serve this very diverse town.
I am clearer than ever on the central role of leadership in the health of an organization. I have found myself tested. I have had to be strong, clear, to think deeply (and quickly! and a lot!). There's also been a need for perseverance: the time demands have been extreme - especially considering so much else is also demanding (expanding ministry at St. Mark's, Bishop Nominating, Commission on Ministry, new programs with Holy Name Hospital, my doctoral work, to name a few).
I hope I have represented St. Mark's well and that people will understand St. Mark's as a faith community that connects to, ventures into, and serves the real world. I have made controversial decisions that I hope will in no way hurt this faith community, but that were necessary in order to not represent us as weak, vascillating, or of no real practical value (namby pamby Christians). I'm sure there are some things to regret - they will be more plain as time goes along, no doubt.
Overall, this ministry has been highly rewarding and one that I pray will continue to bring forth gifts for the future of St. Mark's and will help shape the overall direction of ordained ministry in my life in the church. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and for being given the grace to respond to it.
Since January I have been serving on the Teaneck Town Council, appointed to fill a seat of a Councilmember who made controversial statements about our Fire Department in an ongoing season of conflict in our municipal life. My term ends June 30.
I have found work as a Councilmember to be very similar to work I do at St. Mark's and in the Diocese. The skills are much the same. It has been an intense experience: jumping in and having to be immediately effective in a demanding and fraught time. I commented to a friend that serving at this time is a bit like a graduate-level practicum in handling conflict.
I agreed to serve on the Council for a number of reasons. The first was to serve the community. I see it as similar to serving the homeless, the hungry, the day laborers, the refugees, the young people who come for tutoring, and so many others who seek response and hospitality from our faith community. It isn't exactly this, but it is something like an extended pastoral call on the Township government. In any case, it is definitely ministry.
I also felt it a way to grow in leadership in order to serve St. Mark's and the wider church more effectively. It has been a way of putting my leadership insights and practices into the fire, to test and temper them. This has been a very trying time - the sort of thing that creates new strengths and pulls all of one's gifts and inner resources to the front.
During the time of my service we have settled a complex of law suits for 2.3 million dollars, had an investigative task force that issued a public report to try to improve employee relationships, faced employees and township residents who are struggling with an array of real issues and concerns, worked on the problem of an $80+M school budget defeat that now becomes a Council decision, and worked with the whole array of matters related to facilities, development, and planning. I was glad to be on the Council when we finalized the purchase of and setting up an Advisory Board for an historic burial ground threatened with development, a place where people of Native American, African, and European ancestry were all buried. I've met a tremendous number of fascinating and gifted people who live in our community and who serve this very diverse town.
I am clearer than ever on the central role of leadership in the health of an organization. I have found myself tested. I have had to be strong, clear, to think deeply (and quickly! and a lot!). There's also been a need for perseverance: the time demands have been extreme - especially considering so much else is also demanding (expanding ministry at St. Mark's, Bishop Nominating, Commission on Ministry, new programs with Holy Name Hospital, my doctoral work, to name a few).
I hope I have represented St. Mark's well and that people will understand St. Mark's as a faith community that connects to, ventures into, and serves the real world. I have made controversial decisions that I hope will in no way hurt this faith community, but that were necessary in order to not represent us as weak, vascillating, or of no real practical value (namby pamby Christians). I'm sure there are some things to regret - they will be more plain as time goes along, no doubt.
Overall, this ministry has been highly rewarding and one that I pray will continue to bring forth gifts for the future of St. Mark's and will help shape the overall direction of ordained ministry in my life in the church. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and for being given the grace to respond to it.
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