St. Anne's Gate November 16, 2013

Dear Friends,

Greetings from St. Anne's Episcopal Church!

I write you on the Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland. Exiled from England as a consequence of the Norman Invasion of 1066, she married the Scottish King Malcolm III and led a life of piety and service to the poor. If you don't mind a little wind noise, here's a video that provides a good overview of this remarkable woman. If you see Cathy Battle on Sunday, you might want to ask her about her recent visit to the Scottish island of Iona, a place with holy sites that were protected by Margaret during her reign.

WORSHIP

After a one-week sojourn at Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church we are back at Lackey Chapel at 10am this Sunday.  Looking forward, we note that Advent is coming, and we've set our Christmas Eve service for 6pm December 24th, with Lessons and Carols scheduled for December 29th at 10am.

MINISTRY

Episcopal Relief and Development has put out a special call for donations in the light of the crisis in the Philippines. Loose offerings and designed gifts from our November 17 collection will be sent to ERD.  All donations to ERD between now and December 6 will be matched by an anonymous donor, so please give what you can.  For details on the special effort ERD is making in response to Typhoon Haiyan, click here.

Thanksgiving food drive:  St.Anne's is teaming up with CAP to feed 50 needy local families for Thanksgiving.  Thanks to a generous donor, we have 50 turkeys.  We need each family to shop for the side dishes to go with the turkeys. If you didn't get one last week, please pause at the end of services this Sunday and pick up one (or two!) of the blue Walmart shopping bags, with a shopping list attached.  Please bring the bags with you to church on Nov. 24(or you can drop them off at CAP - at the foot of the Main Street bridge.  Be sure to tell them it's for the St. Anne's Thanksgiving project).

FELLOWSHIP

A special thanks to all those who made our one-year anniversary party a roaring success.  Rebecca and Richard Lovelace opened their home.  Everyone brought food and drink. Toasts were offered, backs were slapped, hugs were freely distributed. There was cake and fire and singing and priests and dogs and wine and babies. They say Disney World is the happiest place on earth.  Uncle Walt never saw St. Anne's in fellowship.

ORGANIZATION

Stewardship information packets will be available at Lackey Chapel this Sunday. Please return them to the offering basket no later than Dec. 1. Your Mission Committee has agreed that our stewardship message would emphasize time and talent in particular, so please review the stewardship materials carefully and consider how you might contribute to our lay-led parish in terms of ministry and service.

Mission Committee member Michael Roberts composed this year's stewardship message, which you can read by clicking here. He closes with a wonderful reflection on our community:

"The very existence of St. Anne’s is an outward expression of an inward grace; a grace that led us then, and leads us now, to do something different, something new.  In doing this we committed our time, talent, and treasure to our church, our community, and our God.  St. Anne’s IS stewardship.  

 

As we have been doing for the past year please continue give up a part of yourself to St. Anne’s.  By giving up, we gain.  In doing so we express our understanding that we are not merely our own, but are owned by all that touched us. Stewardship is simply an acknowledgement of this fact; that we are merely temporary stewards of the things that have been given freely to us by others, and given to us by God."

See you Sunday,

Dan Ennis

Senior Warden

St. Anne's Gate 11/1/13

Greetings from St. Anne's Episcopal Church! 

I write to you on All Saints' Day, one of the principal feasts of the church -- a great day to remember the departed, but a bad day for the apostrophe.  Tomorrow is All Souls' Day, and if you're curious about the difference between All Saints' Day and All Souls' day, here's a handy article that provides a good explanation:  Click here.

WORSHIP

At St. Anne's we will celebrate All Saints' Day this Sunday (11/3), at our regularly scheduled 10am Eucharist in Lackey Chapel. There will be cards at the entrance of the chapel. When you arrive, please take a card and write down the name of a loved one whom you wish to be remembered during the service.

Next Sunday (11/10) we will not meet at Lackey Chapel. Instead our service of Holy Communion will be at 5:00 p.m. at Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church in Conway. To find Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church,  follow Main Street north towards Loris. Just after 16^th Avenue, be in the left lane and turn left on Oak Street (the IGA will be on your right).  The church is at 1301 Fulmer Street.  It is the first street to the right after you turn on Oak Street.  If you have questions about any of this, call Rebecca Lovelace at 248-2536. 

The following Sunday (11/17) we'll be back at Lackey Chapel at 10am.

FELLOWSHIP

We have two opportunities for fellowship coming up. Thus Sunday (11/3) instead of refreshments after the service, we will have small group lunches.   Individuals who signed up in advance have already been told the location of their lunch group, but if you've not yet signed up you can still join in.  Just come to church on Sunday and we'll add you to an existing group.  Lunch groups meet the first Sunday of every month, and each month groups are rearranged so we can all get to know each other better.

The mother of all fellowship opportunities follows on November 10th, with the St. Anne's Anniversary BBQ Supper. This event will take place at the Lovelace home (503 Lakewood Avenue ) directly after the 5pm service at Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church. For the supper, BBQ, slaw and iced tea will be provided.  Feel free to bring an adult beverage.  Names beginning with “A to E” bring an appetizer.  Names beginning with “F to R” bring a side dish – baked beans, other casseroles, vegetables (other than slaw).  Names beginning with “S to Z” bring desert. 

Supply clergy have assured us that absolution will be available at the 11/17 service if the festivities of 11/10 get too festive. 

ORGANIZATION

There is now a St. Anne’s phone, which will be answered and monitored not by St. Anne herself, but by church secretary Laura Barr.  The church phone number is 843-246-1247.  

Laura is also compiling a church directory.  If you have not filled out an information card, or if any information has changed since you filled out a card, please email Laura with an update. Eventually, the directory will include names, addresses, email,  phone numbers, names of children and partners, birth month and day of each family member, and any service interests parishioners may have may have, i.e. Greeter/Usher, Chalice/Crucifer, Lector, Refreshments, Choir, Altar Guild, etc.  Laura can be reached at  mombarr3@gmail.com. 

We're not sure how the directory will be made available to the congregation (we want to respect your privacy!), but for now if you're trying get in touch with one of your fellow parishioners contact Laura and she can give you the information you need.

VISION

Last week Rebecca Lovelace and I had the privilege of attending a meeting with Bishop  vonRosenberg, Archdeacon Walpole, and representatives of the other "Worship Groups" in our Diocese.  One of the remarkable things about that meeting was how many of those groups viewed themselves as new missions, not rejected dissidents from congregations that had taken a fundamentalist turn. There was a consensus at the meeting that worship groups had made room for people who had no place at the old table. Yet these groups, of which St. Anne's is one of many, would not exist without conflict, and they refute the view that disagreement among Christians is always a shame.  

The Reverend Lucia Lloyd, whose congregation has been so helpful to St. Anne's, preached a sermon last summer at her own church in Virginia on the the potential for good that can come from differences in the church: 

 "The presence of conflict does not necessarily mean that you're right, but Jesus assures us that the presence of conflict also does not necessarily meant that you're wrong...Jesus came and made some changes, and the religious people of his day wanted to go back to the way things used to be."  (Click here to listen to the entire sermon.)

So a year into our life together as a congregation, would any of us want to turn back the clock and go back to the way things used to be in our diocese? To the many members of St. Anne's who had no church home a year ago, or who attended a church where they were tolerated at arm's length, the reasons St. Anne's was formed don't matter at all.  It exists now.

So on behalf of the Mission Committee, I thank  all of you who put your own time, talent, and treasure into starting a new parish.  From setting up on Sunday mornings to practicing hymns on Thursday nights, from bearing the chalice to baking the cookies, from collecting food for CAP to teaching a class of confirmands, from treating your home like a social hall to treating your car like church van, there have been many strong hands a true hearts at St. Anne's.  Let's toast a year well spent, and --lest we grow self-congratulatory -- get back to our joyous work.  We're a church like no other, with those old conflicts becoming less relevant by the day.  

See you Sunday,

Dan Ennis

Senior Warden

http://stanneconway.org/

St. Anne's Gate 10/12/13

Dear Friends,

Greeting from St. Anne's Episcopal Church!  We meet for worship every Sunday at 10am at Lackey Chapel, 105 University Dr.. Conway, SC. You can find a map here.

On this day almost 60 years ago (October 12, 1964) Martin Luther King gave a speech to the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, praising The Episcopal Church for its commitment to social justice.  The next day Dr. King was informed he'd won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here are a few news items:

1.  The Parish Survey.  Last Sunday we were reminded how helpful it would be to fill out the Parish Survey.  Fail to do so and somebody "will be wroth with the whole Congregation of Israel." Folks, we don't want any wroth.

2.  Cell Phone.  We are looking for a cell phone to serve as our parish telephone. We have hired Laura Barr to work a few hours per week on parish administration, and one of her duties will be to answer the phone and check voice mail.  If any of you have a working cellphone to contribute, St. Anne's will set it up with a basic calling plan.  It doesn't have to be fancy -- no need for web browsing, etc.

3.   Lunch Groups were a success! We'll repeat the activity next month, so please sign up by emailing Rebecca Lovelace at rslove@sccoast.net.  The next Lunch Group Sunday is November 3.      

4.  Remember that on November 10th St. Anne's will celebrate its one-year anniversary.  Instead of our normal morning service at Lackey Chapel, we'll be meeting at 5pm at Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church in Conway, followed by supper at the Lovelace home. So sleep in on November 10th, because you'll have to stay up that night.

See You Sunday,

Dan

PS-- As a parish, we don't pay much attention to the ongoing legal proceedings in our diocese.  It has been the consensus of the Mission Committee that we've found the right path for us, and that St. Anne's is a new church, not a congregation-in-exile.  But we also have a connection to our fellow "Worship Groups" -- congregations like ours that formed in the midst of the split, all of us renting space and relying on supply clergy.  I wrote a letter to my fellow "Worship Group" leaders, trying to capture some of the spirit of St. Anne's and our "not interested" attitude toward the property claims.  If you're interested, you may read the letter here. 

Victorious Surrender:

An Open Letter to the Worship Groups of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina

October 6, 2013

My Friends,

As a member of a “worship group,” you probably spent this Sunday morning as I did, helping to set up and then break down a temporary Episcopal Church in a rented space. Maybe you hung the “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign, unloaded hymnals from the trunk of a car, or plugged in a portable keyboard. A few miles away, the church building in which you used to worship still stands, no longer connected to The Episcopal Church. On that building the word “Episcopal” has been inexpertly effaced. The Episcopal shield has been pried from the very structure, leaving something like a wound.

On most Sundays, our joy of being free of the negativity and division that for so long shrouded our diocese competes with rootless anxiety. Worship groups are tenants, with leases subject to change. We get bumped from the schedule when our landlords need the space. We update our websites when we change addresses. From lining up supply priests to storing reserved sacrament in the absence of a tabernacle, worship groups manage week-to-week. We've been reminded how little we need, and how easily we had allowed non-essentials to encrust our faith, like barnacles on a ship. (I should substitute “dock” for “ship,” in deference to the worship group at Okatie, which did for a time worship on a dock. I still repeat their joke about “casting bread upon the waters.”)

Resentment is tempting. Why should we be reduced to rented sanctuaries and makeshift altars simply because we wanted to remain Episcopalian? A man moves here from California, decides The Episcopal Church no longer suits him, and we’re the ones told to hit the bricks?  Why has his decision to leave our church left us in this bind?

Resentment?  We should give thanks. Leaving our buildings has been a blessing, and losing them for good would be a godsend.

As worship groups, we have paid a price for our loyalty to The Episcopal Church, and therefore we’ve earned the right to tell our leaders that we object to the ruinous and expensive legal battle being waged on our behalf.  Let us win through surrender.

For those still bitter over packed vestries and secret standing committees, surrender might be cleansing. Some of us walked away from buildings in which we were baptized, married, and confirmed. We left the names of loved ones on brass plaques attached to donated pews. We served on building campaigns that raised money for churches that we are no longer allowed to use. We painted the narthex, mended the roof, and helped install the playground.

But when two children are fighting on that playground we helped build, with a single toy in both their grasps, the one that lets go first has control. The one who lets go first chose to let go, and at that moment the toy loses its value. The kid who doesn’t let go often ends up on his butt, crying over his hollow victory. The toy’s power springs from its desirability.

What if we let go first?

When we refuse to fight for property, we escape the temptation to worship the space, rather than in the space. Those buildings are tombs. In them are buried all the good works that can’t be accomplished by congregations enslaved by facilities. Refusing to fight for property is not a sign of weakness, but of the kind of strength that says, “Take this building. We have a better refuge and a stronger fortress.”

In the twenty-first century, The Episcopal Church in South Carolina is no longer the establishment church, no longer “The Republican Party at prayer.” Each worship group is a ragged extended family of “indiscriminate inclusivity.” Giving up those buildings is a gesture that suits our new identity – missionary, underdog, stripped-down, self-reliant Christians, tolerant to a fault. Heck, tolerant past fault. So tolerant it drives some folks up a wall. So recklessly tolerant that we might occasionally go too far, but knowing full well that the grave danger is not going far enough.

Yes, in some cases we would be giving up prominent symbols of Christianity in our communities. Many of us would be saying goodbye beautiful churches that have stood for decades (or centuries), with steeples that assert respectable religiosity. The prestige building is a sign of worldly success, the right church for polite company, the correct church to join if you want to advance socially.

We worship groups are called to be the wrong church. To join a church that meets in a barbecue restaurant (as the worship group in Edisto did for a while) is to join a church that grants no social advantage. God’s gentle lesson – replacing Edisto’s pretty white church with a pig-picking joint – is directed at us all. We are not able to point to a lovely building and say “That’s our church.” We’ll have to point to the world instead.

Today’s lectionary included a reading from Habakkuk. It starts with the prophet complaining, but turns to a call for perseverance:

I will stand at my watchpost,

and station myself on the rampart;

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,

and what he will answer concerning my complaint. (2:1-4)

We've been assigned our watchposts: St. Francis Episcopal Church in West Ashley worships in a funeral home. St. Catherine’s in Florence meets in a school. The Episcopal Church in Myrtle Beach is already in its third location, having moved from a back porch to a rented classroom to a building on loan from the Methodists. The Church of the Good Shepherd in Summerville and the East Cooper Episcopalians are also borrowing space from the Methodists. (Thank God for the Methodists!)  These are not the watchposts we would choose, but we are called to keep watch nonetheless.

If after a season we find our mission would be served by owning our own buildings, we will have arrived at that point after a worthwhile (if occasionally inconvenient) period in relative wilderness. We will have to buy or build those watchposts on our own, and we’ll enter them after we’ve been thoroughly reminded that we should view property as a sharp tool –potentially useful, but dangerous to the careless. We’ll be wiser; perhaps wise enough to pity and love those who now appear to be “winning.”

So by letting go – letting all that brick and mortar pass into hands more desperate than ours – we win. We fulfill the promises made at baptism and embraced at confirmation. We avoid a decade of claims and counter-claims with those with whom we used to worship. We devote our resources to the Great Commission, not great attorneys. We can be both in the right and willing to be wronged. 

The property under dispute in our diocese is the second-place trophy in the only race that matters. Wouldn’t we rather come in first?

Regards,

Dan Ennis

Senior Warden

St. Anne's Episcopal Church, Conway

St. Anne's Gate 9/27/13

Greetings From St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Conway, SC!

On this day 34 years ago the General Convention endorsed the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Here is one of the "new" collects that first appeared in the 1979 Prayer Book and led to charges that the new prayer book was too political:

"21. For Social Justice

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

WORSHIP

We meet for Eucharist at 10am in Lackey Chapel (105 University Dr. Conway, on the campus of Coastal Carolina University).

We have special plans for Sunday, November 10.  We will be holding our service that day at 5 PM at Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church (1931 Fulmer St. Conway). There will be no 10am service in Lackey Chapel that day.

Palmetto Missionary Baptist got its start in 2010 in a borrowed space provided by an Episcopal Church. It is fitting that on our one-year anniversary as a community we Episcopalians will enjoy the hospitality of Reverend Cheryl Moore Adamson and her congregation. 

Given that November 10 marks our one-year anniversary as a church, we surely need to have a party, so immediately following the service we will adjourn to the Lovelace home (503 Lakewood Ave) for a BBQ supper.

MINISTRY

Mike and Donna Oyer are organizing a "Meal Train" for Florence Vaught.  There will be a sign-up sheet at church this Sunday.  If you are not able to attend this Sunday but would like to help u, reply to this email and Mike or Donna will get in touch with you.

General James Vaught's obituary and funeral information is available here. An early supporter of St. Anne's, Jim Vaught was kind enough to list our church along with the Horry County Museum and Mercy Care as three institutions designated for memorial donations.

Lunch Groups will begin on Sunday, October 6th.  We will not have refreshments at the church that day, and we are hoping everyone will participate by being in one of the lunch groups. Before that Sunday, you will be told which host home you are assigned to, and we will proceed to the host homes immediately after the 10 am service is over.  The host will provide sandwiches, and each participant is asked to bring a side dish or dessert to "throw in the pot" and share. We will have a maximum of 10 people at each home, and our goal is to have the opportunity to visit and get to know each other better in a small-group setting.  Please email Rebecca Lovelace at rslove@sccoast.net, and sign up (if you signed up at the church, please email her to confirm you will be participating on Oct 6).

The Diocese is hosting a meeting on October 19 in Charleston to discuss ways to rebuild the Diocesan Endowment.  Individuals interested in attending that meeting are invited to reply to this email; we'll provide you with specifics.

VISION

The 1979 Prayer Book contains many differences form its 1928 predecessor, but both books contain these words, suitable for those in mourning this week:

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, 

and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;

and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;

whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,

and not as a stranger."

See you Sunday,

Dan Ennis

 

 

St. Anne's Gate 9/7/2013

Dear Friends,

Greetings From St. Anne's Episcopal Church! You can find out more about St. Anne's on our website, http://stanneconway.org/, by following us on Facebook, or, ya know, coming to church at 10am this Sunday. 

On this day 27 years ago, Desmond Tutu became Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa. Many of Bishop Tutu's sermons and statements are available online, but we can be sufficiently inspired the the words he uttered when he visited Coastal Carolina University in 1999:  "Dream, dream, dream God's dream!"   

WORSHIP

We meet on Sunday at 10am in Lackey Chapel on the campus of Coastal Carolina University.

This Sunday, at the conclusion of the social gathering (about 11:30 am), Bill Warner will be leading a prayer service for those suffering in the Middle East. We'll keep in our thoughts the Coptic Churches of the Middle East, which have made a special request for the prayers of fellow-Christians around the world. Please take some time to participate.

We have three requests that will help us better use Lackey Chapel:

1.  Please don't park in the grass; if you are able, park in the new lot, leaving spaces closest to the chapel for the elderly and individuals unloading service items.

2.  Leave your kneeler up when you leave, and stack hymnals on the table to the left of the door as you leave.

3.  Most importantly, enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

MINISTRY

There are lots of plans for fall, and many opportunities to participate in the life of St. Anne's outside of Sunday morning.  

Rebecca Lovelace continues to sign up individuals and families for our small group luncheons. We aim to mix it up a bit so that parishioners can meet and better get to know newcomers. We'd like to keep these small groups low-key in terms of preparation, so if you host you are not expected to feed your whole group.

Students are already signing up for the college ministry (aka "The Canterbury Club").  The campus sponsors (Michael Roberts, Amy Shea, Nelljean Rice and Scott Parker) will be hosting an organizational meeting on campus next week. After that, we'll be calling on the parish to pray for, worship with, and feed these young people. It is also the case that students have been attending our Sunday morning Eucharists. We hope to get them hooked into the college group as well.

ORGANIZATION

We've overcome some technical glitches and now have all the minutes of the Mission Committee meetings online at www.stanneconway.org.

Some of you may have noticed the Sun News article about The Episcopal Church in Myrtle Beach. They're off and running!

See You Sunday,

Dan Ennis

Senior Warden

St. Anne's Gate 8/24/2013

Dear Friends, 

Greetings From St. Anne's Episcopal Church.  

I write you on the Feast Day of St. Bartholomew. Bartholomew (called Nathaniel in John's Gospel) was the apostle "in whom there was no guile." Tradition tells us he became a missionary after the Ascension and that he traveled to Armenia and perhaps even India.  

Canon Jeremy Davis of Salisbury Cathedral in England explains how a saint like Bartholomew, about whom little is known, can still be an inspiration to us (click here for full sermon):

"On this feast day we are left with very little: which might suggest to us – not that Bartholomew was an under-achiever – but on the contrary that holiness grows by grace within the ordinary and the unsung and the unrecorded. And that broadens my idea of holiness from a cult of the hero to a notion of the everyday and the possibility that you and I are called to be holy: that is to be saints. Our lives will not be recorded in the Church’s sanctorale, and the only miracle that is likely to attach to us is that God ever called us to his service in the first place. But Bartholomew gives us reason to think that, like Nathaniel under the fig tree, we have been recognised, called by name and bidden to follow with service."

WORSHIP

After our road trip to visit our friends in Myrtle Beach last Sunday, we are back home a Lackey Chapel this Sunday at 10am.  Click here for a map. 

We've learned a bit about how worship works best in the chapel, so here's a small note:  

Typically in an Episcopal church, the collection basket is passed during the anthem (thus the nickname of the anthem as "The Money Song.")  But at Lackey Chapel, it works better for the congregation to experience the anthem, and then pass the basket after the anthem is over, as the choir returns to their seats. This will prevent some traffic jams around the altar -- Suade returning to the organ, the celebrant headed to the altar, the choir members headed toward their seats.  Episcopalians don't do slapstick.

So after the anthem ends, we need not leap to our feet anticipating the sanctus ("Praise God from whom all blessings flow...").  Instead, after the anthem Suade will play an instrumental piece on piano while the baskets circulate.  When the ushers are ready to present the gifts, we stand.

By the way, since I mentioned collection baskets, this message constitutes the entirety of our stewardship campaign.

MINISTRIES

Speaking of money, checks written to St. Anne's go into the bank to help pay for clergy, chapel rent, and worship incidentals.  "Loose offerings" (what the youngsters call "straight cash money") always go to ares of need beyond St. Anne's.  Most of the time, our loose offerings are sent to Churches Assisting People, but this Sunday loose offerings will go to the Episcopal Church in Haiti.  If you know of a worthy ministry that we should add to our support list, let a member of the mission committee know.

Our college ministry is in the midst of formation.  The CCU students are back on campus, and we'll be calling an interest meeting to let students know that there are not only welcome at our 10am services, but that we would like to offer them an opportunity for fellowship and worship on Sunday evenings.  Stay tuned and keep those recipes ready.

VISION

If you're curious about the legal developments regarding The Episcopal Church, you may keep up via the diocesan website. At last week's mission committee meeting we discussed how St. Anne's origins and character would help all of us avoid much of the hard feelings and poor witness that comes when churches sue each other. We're a new church, not a "continuing parish," not a "worship group" and certainly not in some kind of "congregation-in-exile." We're right where we're supposed to be, and neither our identity nor our future depends on the outcomes of secular legal skirmishing. We have this clarity because you have chosen to come together and build in His name. 

Can't go wrong praying, but rather than pray for particular outcomes in particular cases, turning God into some cosmic Johnnie Cochran who is going to choose our side, it might be worthwhile to pray for anyone whose life, livelihood, and spiritual well-being depends on the effectiveness of legal counsel. That's a tough place to be. 

See you Sunday,

Dan Ennis

Senior Warden