We Will Walk On

The image above is of the entrance to Christ Church, Cranbrook, BC - the site of this year's BCYAYM Fall Conference. At 848km from St Philip's, the trip from Vancouver to Cranbrook certainly made this year's theme of "Wanderers" applicable for those of us who went. For the members of Cranbrook youth group, who usually have a long journey - across at least one time zone - to get to our Fall Conference, hosting this year was a welcome change.

 

Christ Church Cranbrook is the only Anglican Church in this East Kootenay town and they certainly showed up in force to welcome and host this year's conference. In addition to the 9 members of the youth group who attended the conference, their youth group leader Lorie and priest Yme arranged for volunteers to cater for the group all weekend. Sunday morning's worship service, with both the youth delegates and the Christ Church community, was a wonderful celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving.



As a part of this year's conference, several different workshops were offered to participants exploring different topics. These included an introduction to PWRDF's Fred Says food justice program, looking at building community using the show "Community", yoga, storytelling, a look at ministry in the Church and two different guided meditation sessions. Guided meditation was particularly popular as it offered participants an opportunity to lie back, relax and rest.

 
The worship at this year's conference centered around our wandering theme. We heard stories about Jacob, Abraham and Sarah, and Jesus. We heard about the journeys they were on and those they met along the way.

Tying the worship together was the construction of a stone altar on a small table in the front of the worship space. On the first night, participants heard the story of Jacob's ladder and were invited to take a stone with them and keep it near their head while they slept. The next day, they brought these rocks back to worship and brought them together to make an altar to remember that God is in this place and with us on our journeys.

 
At the beginning of the healing service, each participant added at star to the altar to represent our prayers for healing, a sign that God can be our light in the darkness.

 
Then on the final night, during our Empowerment service, just before the participants piled onto their buses which left Cranbrook at midnight Sunday, each of them was invited to come up and take one of the stones that made the altar. They were asked not to look for the same stone that they contributed on the first day, but take another one as a reminder that they had all come together to make one altar, just as we all come together in the body of Christ.

 
For the occasion of this Fall Conference, David Taylor, who is the chaplain to BCYAYM wrote a new journeying song. While it would be best to hear it sung, the words are also pretty fantastic, so I have included them here so that you can also be a part of our journey to Fall Conference 2014.

WE WILL WALK ON
Music and Lyrics by David Taylor

And we will walk on
knowing God is always with us.
The wilderness is holy ground.
And through uncertainty
there's so much possibility to be found.

Like Abraham and Sarah, who wandered far and wide,
we make our pilgrim journey with God's fam'ly at our side.
Through deserts of injustice, like Hagar, cast a-way,
God will reveal a fountain to refresh us on the way.
That's why we can say that we will…

… walk on
knowing God is always with us.
The wilderness is holy ground.
And through uncertainty
there's so much possibility to be found.

 Like Israel's descendants, set free from Pharoah's hand,
we walk through dang’rous deserts to attain the promised land.
We may not see the outcome. We may not understand.
Still, God reveals fresh water strengthening our feeble hands.
That's why we will stand and we will…

… walk on
knowing God is always with us.
The wilderness is holy ground.
And through uncertainty
there's so much possibility to be found.

We walk within the footprints of those who've gone before.
We journey with the outcast, crossing deserts with the poor.
Refreshing hearts that wander with water from the well
that springs up in the desert giving life to all who dwell
in the path of hell. So let us…

… walk on
knowing God is always with us.
The wilderness is holy ground.
And through uncertainty
there's so much possibility to be found.

 
One final bit of good news for us at St Philip's is that our own Sarah Stephens was chosen to be the new provincial council representative on BCYAYM council. This means that not only will she participate in planning future BCYAYM events, but she will also represent their interests on our Provincial Council for the ecclesiastical province of BC and Yukon. Congratulations to Sarah on her new position! You will do a great job!

Liturgy School students leading Pet Blessing

Oct 4th is the feast of St Francis of Assisi and here at St Philip's we celebrated by having a pet blessing during our Sunday service this past week. The service was also our first intergenerational one of the year and so we had some new faces from our liturgy school class helping as worship leaders.

Congratulations to Norah, Reagan, Pieter and Marna who were reading in worship for the first time this past Sunday! They all did a wonderful job, along with our more veteran leaders - Lindsay, Graeme and Jack. Also, a huge thank you to those children and youth who joined the choir for this special service. It is wonderful to see so many people of different ages making beautiful music together.

Though I neglected to mention it in the bulletin last week, I want to note that the Opening Invocation and Prayer after Communion which we used for the service were both written by our second year liturgy school students. I have included them below along with some of the pictures from this year's service.

We saw many familiar animal faces at this year's service - along with their human companions. It is always so exciting and wonderful to include these important members of the wider earth community in our worship. It is a reminder to us that humanity is just one small part of a huge, interconnected web of created life in our universe. We are called, as people of faith, to recall with humility, that all of creation is sacred and it is through our relationship with other organisms that God continues to give us life. The fifth mark of mission calls us to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and renew and maintain the life of the earth. As we live in this world which God has made and sustains, I hope that we continue to respond to this call.

Come all land animals and sea creatures!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Come all small creatures and big creatures!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Come all birds of land, sea and sky!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Come all trees and weeds!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Come all angels and mortals!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Come all cats, dogs, hamsters, fish, people and turtles!
All creatures are welcome in the house of God.

Creator God,
you spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai
and gave us the ways of love,
Help us:
to know that you are God;
to follow your ways;
to respect your name;
to rest in your presence;
to live as the family of God;
to care for creation;
to love everyone;
to tell the truth;
to give thanks for what we have,
and to give thanks for what others have.
we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
who walked these ways of love.
Amen.

Commissionning for Church School

This past Sunday during our Children's Focus at the 10:00am service, we did something that is admittedly a few weeks over due (one of this year's casualties of the busyness of September). We prayed for and commissioned our Church School teachers, storytellers and doorkeepers. 

All the teachers were invited up to the front of the Church, in the midst of their students and the whole congregation. Even the new teachers, who tried to stay in their seats, could not escape Caitlin's invitation.

Once they were gathered, Caitlin led a congregational repeat-after-me prayer for the teachers. Then we asked God to bless them and support them in their ministry with the Church School.

Here are the prayer and the blessing for those who missed it on Sunday:

O Holy Wisdom,
you have called these people:
Erin, Amanda and Janet
Rhona, Bruce and Janice
Marilyn, Dorothy and Rebecca
Suretha and Deb
to be storytellers and doorkeepers.
May they continue
to nurture and teach
by their example
of forgiveness and love.
We pray for each one of the them
as they do this work
as the body of Christ in this place.

With hands extended in blessing, we then commissioned the teachers:

May they be blessed by the Creating Womb of God, who formed each of us in the divine image and calls us to holy work.

May they be blessed by Jesus the Word, who taught as a child in the temple and calls the little children to his side.

And may they be blessed by the Holy Spirit, Wisdom of God, who orders all things and teaches us the way of prudence, now and always.

Amen.