| To contact us: frbobg@comcast.net Calvary Episcopal Church 667 Mount Road Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 OFFICE 610-358-3571 RECTORY mail@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org |
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| CHIMES Our Newsletter from the Rector May 2008 |
| 667 Mount Road, Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 |
| Small Parish - Big Heart - Inclusive Come and worship with us! All are welcome! |
| Our Mission: To worship the Lord To serve the community To grow the church |
FROM THE RECTOR:
LAST MINUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS:
GAME NIGHT: Friday, May 2, 7PM
This monthly event has become a really wonderful night of fun and fellowship
devoted to just getting together and enjoying one another with some silliness. No
agenda and NO BUSINESS. Bring a snack to share; bring a friend if you’d like. But
mainly, just be there!
CRC WATERSHED CLEANUP: Saturday, May 3, 9AM.
The Chester-Ridley-Crum Watershed Association is holding it’s 11th Annual
Cleanup. Parishioners will be meeting right below the Church at Mount Rd and 452
to clean up the Chester Creek-banks. Gloves and materials provided at the site,
(wear long pants and shoes you’re willing to get wet). Oh, BTW, there’s a picnic,
afterward, at RoseTree Park, where participants will be given a free T-Shirt.
The Clean-up is called “Community Service;” going to the picnic is called
“Community Relations” (aka “advertising”). BOTH are good things!
BAPTISMAL PREPARATION for the Bishop’s visitation: Sat., May 10, 10:30 in the
Church.
All parents and Godparents who have never had a Baptismal Preparation “class” in
an Episcopal or Roman Catholic Church are required to attend (no exceptions)!
Meantime, if you want your baby baptized, you MUST speak to Fr Bob as soon as
possible (having told him weeks ago that you want to have your baby baptized
doesn’t count!) as soon as possible, and he must have your Baptismal Information
Sheet in hand by Wednesday, May 7, latest! (If not, your baby cannot be baptized on
the 11th!)
(End of Last Minute Announcements)
PREPARATIONS FOR THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY…
...celebration are continuing. Chief among them is the gala dinner and dance at
Hennessey’s Restaurant & Tavern on Saturday, September 20.
Because all the arrangements are not yet in place, we can’t yet give you a price, but
please go ahead and mark the date on your calendar!
CALVARY READERS’ THEATRE…
...is a parish activity that most of our members, it seems, have never given a thought
to, it seems. And how unfortunate that is, because for those who have discovered it,
it’s one of the most enjoyable activities we have.
Like Game Night, it’s done mostly for fun—that is, no overt religious content or
intent; no deeply meaningful content: just some folks getting together to share a
enjoyable couple of hours. If you’re like most people you’ve often had secret
thoughts about being in a movie, in a play, or “being an actor.” (But the only person
around who has actually been an actor is Fr Bob, but that was over 40 years ago,
and he’s leaving!) So if you’ve ever so much as thought of indulging that secret
fantasy, COME ON DOWN! (And, of course, being Calvary Episcopal Church,
Rockdale, there are always “nibblies!”) The Readers’ Theatre will meet in the
Undercroft on Tuesday, May 6, from 7:00 ‘till 9:00pm! (C’mon! It’s fun! Just ask Dottie
Laxton!)
FROM THE RECTOR
First, my apologies.
You may have noticed there was no April Chimes, and for that I am sorry.
But what with Holy Week and Easter; then Easter week spent in Augusta, Georgia,
house-hunting; the first week in April the busiest of the month (as is the first week
of every month); and the second week being spent in Riddle Memorial Hospital—our
monthly newsletter just never happened!
So, my apologies.
And now it’s time for the May Chimes—the second-to-the-last chance I’ll have to
speak to all of you, like this, and the last chance you’ll have to speak back.
So this one is important; so important that I want to share with you my last and
biggest concern for the Parish—and the biggest challenge I see facing it. Facing you!
(Warning: this is going to take a while. Please bear with me and keep reading.)
I wish I could leave you with some stirring words about the faith; an uplifting yet
challenging message about faithfulness and the blessings that must come to those
who love the Lord.
But what I really need to talk to you about is a different kind of challenge, yet one
that is, in it’s way, every bit as important.
It has to do with the vitality and growth of this parish. It has to do with the health of
this parish. Indeed, it has to do with the continued life of this parish.
You may recall that soon after I came to be with you, I began using a phrase from the
film, Field of Dreams almost as a mantra.
“Build it and they will come,” I said to you, time and again.
With those words I was telling you that we cannot “grow the Parish,” by going out
and beating the bushes for new members; rather we needed to “build” a church
experience that would make people want to be a part of it. To do that we would have
to work on a number of fronts: physical, educational, social and spiritual—including
worship.
In the years since, we’ve slowly put a lot of elements together:
painting, repairing and improving our Church buildings (think painting, roofing,
wheelchair lift, sound system, undercroft remodeling with lights, carpeting and A/C);
making slow, incremental, updating changes in our worship, including greater lay
participation (but, alas, still no acolytes); working on being a more open, welcoming
congregation for visitors, ( with a Parish Growth Committee, greeters, a year ‘round
coffee hour so visitors are never just “sent on their way after the Service);
getting not just a “nursery” going on Sunday mornings, but a meaningful
nursery/little guys’ program established (using our new Children’s Chapel), while a
half-dozen WONDERFUL young ladies have been prepared for Confirmation!
(Sorry…: not much we can do about what is mostly a gap between the Confirmands
and those little guys!)increased our presence and our visibility in the community
with better signage and more to come, a strong advertising effort, and participation
in programs like the Aston and Middletown Community Days and this weekend’s
creek-cleanup project.
We really have come a long way together, and you should be very, very proud
(though never complacent; whatever we accomplish, there’s always more to do).
One thing above all we need to keep in mind, however: though all of these parts of
parish life where we’ve worked so hard and made such progress, one will always
stand out as the most important, and real key both to growing and maintaining a
parish: that is, what happens at (in this parish) 10:00 on Sunday morning!
(What follows comes with great apologies to our lovely, faithful, 8:00 Congregation.
As important as that service is to all of you, and as much as I enjoy doing it—though
I do tease you about it– no modern congregation can survive, thrive or grow on the
strength of and early, spoken service, with no music, nursery or Sunday School;
there simply is not much continuing demand for it. What follows is about our main
service: 10:00 on Sunday morning!)
What happens between the time first-time visitors arrive, at 5, 10, 15 minutes before
the published worship hour until they leave 1-1/2 to 2 hours later is the PRIMARY
determinant of whether a parish will grow or die.
We do pretty well in just about all aspects of that experience (again—acolytes would
be nice ;-)}), and we’re doing better each month/season/year. But one ABSOLUTELY
KEY ASPECT of that experience is in great danger!
Our music!
Yes, we have a wonderful, professional organist—the first professional—and the
best—organist the parish has had in many, many years! And, yes, we have the
largest choir we’ve had, also in may years. And, yes, this combination has added
immeasurably to our worship experience and our parish growth in recent years.
But our organ is dieing!
Please, please, please don’t jump the gun! Bear with me! I know that our organist,
Bob Johnston and I have both written you about the condition of our organ to the
point where some of you are “tired of hearing about,” but please hear me out.
(Actually, I haven’t passed on to you even half of what Bob has written for the
Chimes over the past couple of years, but only because I didn’t want to overwhelm
you with it. And he’s been trying so hard only because he feels so very passionately
about his music—and about this parish.)
Through many, many decades of unintentional neglect caused by our inability to
afford true, professional organists, our instrument has been deteriorating. We
thought we were all right because we kept up a maintenance contract on the organ
for all those years. But what we didn’t realize is that our contractor was apparently
more interested in the regular income the contract brought than really caring for our
organ! They never took the extra step of telling us, “Hey, your organ is growing old;
and no amount of “annual maintenance” or “tuning” is going to keep it up. You need
to begin some serious preservation and rebuilding efforts!”
Then came Bob—a real musician; a serious musician; and, as I said, a passionate
musician! And he soon began to realize we had problems.
He tried working with our “service people,” but eventually he had to give up and
realize that they either didn’t care enough or just weren’t up to the job! So we
switched to a firm that he has had long experience with over the years. That has
helped. But there is only so much they can do! The damage is done!
And our organ is in BIG trouble.
In fact, it is only Bob’s talent and his real, deep experience and ability that enables
him to play “around” and “make up for” the notes that “disappear” from function,
week by week.
Our organ needs, ultimately, to be rebuilt.
Oh, yes, as some of you have suggested, we could get an electronic organ to
replace this wonderful instrument we have. But electronic organs even work for a
room of the size, shape and acoustical qualities of our worship space are not cheap!
If we were to go that way we would have to spend, probably, 1/2 to 2/3 of what a
complete rebuilding would cost, the instrument would perform a fraction as well,
and would not last anywhere near as long. (And beyond everything else, it would
always sound like an “electronic organ!”) Not that it really matters, at this point: we
can’t afford an Electronic organ any more than we can afford to fix this one!
We are currently working with the organ rebuilders on developing a plan that may—I
emphasize MAY : no guarantees — may allow us to embark on a gradual process of
repairing and rebuilding the instrument in stages over a period of years. Whether
this is even possible, we do not yet know. I pray it will be.
But one thing we do know: we simply cannot afford NOT to address the problem!
This for the simple and undeniable reason that in this early part of the 21st Century,
no parish can survive, let alone grow and thrive, without at least an adequate music
program—which, in turn, requires at least an adequate instrument!
On Tuesday, May 20, I will chair my last Vestry meeting at Calvary. At that meeting, I
am going to ask them to establish a special and separate Organ Fund in order to
seek and solicit funds for the ultimate rebuilding of our organ, and I will ask them to
designate the organ fund as the priority need of the parish. At the same time I will
ask them to pledge to work their hardest to find ways to build that fund as quickly as
possible.
Just over two years ago, we began a drive to repair and restore the Reredos window
of the Church. Our goal at the outset was $33,000. In the end, it cost us over
$40,000—but we met that cost in less than 1 year!
This task is much greater, so the fund-raising goal will be much higher. How the
project will be handled, how we’ll raise the money needed, and how long it will all
take, I do not know.
But two things I DO know: that it MUST be done, and—once this parish realizes and
embraces the need—
IT WILL BE DONE!
Blessings on you all,
frbob
LAST MINUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS:
GAME NIGHT: Friday, May 2, 7PM
This monthly event has become a really wonderful night of fun and fellowship
devoted to just getting together and enjoying one another with some silliness. No
agenda and NO BUSINESS. Bring a snack to share; bring a friend if you’d like. But
mainly, just be there!
CRC WATERSHED CLEANUP: Saturday, May 3, 9AM.
The Chester-Ridley-Crum Watershed Association is holding it’s 11th Annual
Cleanup. Parishioners will be meeting right below the Church at Mount Rd and 452
to clean up the Chester Creek-banks. Gloves and materials provided at the site,
(wear long pants and shoes you’re willing to get wet). Oh, BTW, there’s a picnic,
afterward, at RoseTree Park, where participants will be given a free T-Shirt.
The Clean-up is called “Community Service;” going to the picnic is called
“Community Relations” (aka “advertising”). BOTH are good things!
BAPTISMAL PREPARATION for the Bishop’s visitation: Sat., May 10, 10:30 in the
Church.
All parents and Godparents who have never had a Baptismal Preparation “class” in
an Episcopal or Roman Catholic Church are required to attend (no exceptions)!
Meantime, if you want your baby baptized, you MUST speak to Fr Bob as soon as
possible (having told him weeks ago that you want to have your baby baptized
doesn’t count!) as soon as possible, and he must have your Baptismal Information
Sheet in hand by Wednesday, May 7, latest! (If not, your baby cannot be baptized on
the 11th!)
(End of Last Minute Announcements)
PREPARATIONS FOR THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY…
...celebration are continuing. Chief among them is the gala dinner and dance at
Hennessey’s Restaurant & Tavern on Saturday, September 20.
Because all the arrangements are not yet in place, we can’t yet give you a price, but
please go ahead and mark the date on your calendar!
CALVARY READERS’ THEATRE…
...is a parish activity that most of our members, it seems, have never given a thought
to, it seems. And how unfortunate that is, because for those who have discovered it,
it’s one of the most enjoyable activities we have.
Like Game Night, it’s done mostly for fun—that is, no overt religious content or
intent; no deeply meaningful content: just some folks getting together to share a
enjoyable couple of hours. If you’re like most people you’ve often had secret
thoughts about being in a movie, in a play, or “being an actor.” (But the only person
around who has actually been an actor is Fr Bob, but that was over 40 years ago,
and he’s leaving!) So if you’ve ever so much as thought of indulging that secret
fantasy, COME ON DOWN! (And, of course, being Calvary Episcopal Church,
Rockdale, there are always “nibblies!”) The Readers’ Theatre will meet in the
Undercroft on Tuesday, May 6, from 7:00 ‘till 9:00pm! (C’mon! It’s fun! Just ask Dottie
Laxton!)
FROM THE RECTOR
First, my apologies.
You may have noticed there was no April Chimes, and for that I am sorry.
But what with Holy Week and Easter; then Easter week spent in Augusta, Georgia,
house-hunting; the first week in April the busiest of the month (as is the first week
of every month); and the second week being spent in Riddle Memorial Hospital—our
monthly newsletter just never happened!
So, my apologies.
And now it’s time for the May Chimes—the second-to-the-last chance I’ll have to
speak to all of you, like this, and the last chance you’ll have to speak back.
So this one is important; so important that I want to share with you my last and
biggest concern for the Parish—and the biggest challenge I see facing it. Facing you!
(Warning: this is going to take a while. Please bear with me and keep reading.)
I wish I could leave you with some stirring words about the faith; an uplifting yet
challenging message about faithfulness and the blessings that must come to those
who love the Lord.
But what I really need to talk to you about is a different kind of challenge, yet one
that is, in it’s way, every bit as important.
It has to do with the vitality and growth of this parish. It has to do with the health of
this parish. Indeed, it has to do with the continued life of this parish.
You may recall that soon after I came to be with you, I began using a phrase from the
film, Field of Dreams almost as a mantra.
“Build it and they will come,” I said to you, time and again.
With those words I was telling you that we cannot “grow the Parish,” by going out
and beating the bushes for new members; rather we needed to “build” a church
experience that would make people want to be a part of it. To do that we would have
to work on a number of fronts: physical, educational, social and spiritual—including
worship.
In the years since, we’ve slowly put a lot of elements together:
painting, repairing and improving our Church buildings (think painting, roofing,
wheelchair lift, sound system, undercroft remodeling with lights, carpeting and A/C);
making slow, incremental, updating changes in our worship, including greater lay
participation (but, alas, still no acolytes); working on being a more open, welcoming
congregation for visitors, ( with a Parish Growth Committee, greeters, a year ‘round
coffee hour so visitors are never just “sent on their way after the Service);
getting not just a “nursery” going on Sunday mornings, but a meaningful
nursery/little guys’ program established (using our new Children’s Chapel), while a
half-dozen WONDERFUL young ladies have been prepared for Confirmation!
(Sorry…: not much we can do about what is mostly a gap between the Confirmands
and those little guys!)increased our presence and our visibility in the community
with better signage and more to come, a strong advertising effort, and participation
in programs like the Aston and Middletown Community Days and this weekend’s
creek-cleanup project.
We really have come a long way together, and you should be very, very proud
(though never complacent; whatever we accomplish, there’s always more to do).
One thing above all we need to keep in mind, however: though all of these parts of
parish life where we’ve worked so hard and made such progress, one will always
stand out as the most important, and real key both to growing and maintaining a
parish: that is, what happens at (in this parish) 10:00 on Sunday morning!
(What follows comes with great apologies to our lovely, faithful, 8:00 Congregation.
As important as that service is to all of you, and as much as I enjoy doing it—though
I do tease you about it– no modern congregation can survive, thrive or grow on the
strength of and early, spoken service, with no music, nursery or Sunday School;
there simply is not much continuing demand for it. What follows is about our main
service: 10:00 on Sunday morning!)
What happens between the time first-time visitors arrive, at 5, 10, 15 minutes before
the published worship hour until they leave 1-1/2 to 2 hours later is the PRIMARY
determinant of whether a parish will grow or die.
We do pretty well in just about all aspects of that experience (again—acolytes would
be nice ;-)}), and we’re doing better each month/season/year. But one ABSOLUTELY
KEY ASPECT of that experience is in great danger!
Our music!
Yes, we have a wonderful, professional organist—the first professional—and the
best—organist the parish has had in many, many years! And, yes, we have the
largest choir we’ve had, also in may years. And, yes, this combination has added
immeasurably to our worship experience and our parish growth in recent years.
But our organ is dieing!
Please, please, please don’t jump the gun! Bear with me! I know that our organist,
Bob Johnston and I have both written you about the condition of our organ to the
point where some of you are “tired of hearing about,” but please hear me out.
(Actually, I haven’t passed on to you even half of what Bob has written for the
Chimes over the past couple of years, but only because I didn’t want to overwhelm
you with it. And he’s been trying so hard only because he feels so very passionately
about his music—and about this parish.)
Through many, many decades of unintentional neglect caused by our inability to
afford true, professional organists, our instrument has been deteriorating. We
thought we were all right because we kept up a maintenance contract on the organ
for all those years. But what we didn’t realize is that our contractor was apparently
more interested in the regular income the contract brought than really caring for our
organ! They never took the extra step of telling us, “Hey, your organ is growing old;
and no amount of “annual maintenance” or “tuning” is going to keep it up. You need
to begin some serious preservation and rebuilding efforts!”
Then came Bob—a real musician; a serious musician; and, as I said, a passionate
musician! And he soon began to realize we had problems.
He tried working with our “service people,” but eventually he had to give up and
realize that they either didn’t care enough or just weren’t up to the job! So we
switched to a firm that he has had long experience with over the years. That has
helped. But there is only so much they can do! The damage is done!
And our organ is in BIG trouble.
In fact, it is only Bob’s talent and his real, deep experience and ability that enables
him to play “around” and “make up for” the notes that “disappear” from function,
week by week.
Our organ needs, ultimately, to be rebuilt.
Oh, yes, as some of you have suggested, we could get an electronic organ to
replace this wonderful instrument we have. But electronic organs even work for a
room of the size, shape and acoustical qualities of our worship space are not cheap!
If we were to go that way we would have to spend, probably, 1/2 to 2/3 of what a
complete rebuilding would cost, the instrument would perform a fraction as well,
and would not last anywhere near as long. (And beyond everything else, it would
always sound like an “electronic organ!”) Not that it really matters, at this point: we
can’t afford an Electronic organ any more than we can afford to fix this one!
We are currently working with the organ rebuilders on developing a plan that may—I
emphasize MAY : no guarantees — may allow us to embark on a gradual process of
repairing and rebuilding the instrument in stages over a period of years. Whether
this is even possible, we do not yet know. I pray it will be.
But one thing we do know: we simply cannot afford NOT to address the problem!
This for the simple and undeniable reason that in this early part of the 21st Century,
no parish can survive, let alone grow and thrive, without at least an adequate music
program—which, in turn, requires at least an adequate instrument!
On Tuesday, May 20, I will chair my last Vestry meeting at Calvary. At that meeting, I
am going to ask them to establish a special and separate Organ Fund in order to
seek and solicit funds for the ultimate rebuilding of our organ, and I will ask them to
designate the organ fund as the priority need of the parish. At the same time I will
ask them to pledge to work their hardest to find ways to build that fund as quickly as
possible.
Just over two years ago, we began a drive to repair and restore the Reredos window
of the Church. Our goal at the outset was $33,000. In the end, it cost us over
$40,000—but we met that cost in less than 1 year!
This task is much greater, so the fund-raising goal will be much higher. How the
project will be handled, how we’ll raise the money needed, and how long it will all
take, I do not know.
But two things I DO know: that it MUST be done, and—once this parish realizes and
embraces the need—
IT WILL BE DONE!
Blessings on you all,
frbob
| Celebrating 175 Years: 1833-2008 |
| The Sacraments of CONFIRMATION & BAPTISM Will Be Administered by Our Long-time and Dear Friend, The Right Reverend ALAN BARTLETT, Former Bishop of Pennsylvania, And the Rector, on Sunday, May 11, at 10:00 AM. Your presence is requested! |
| Pentecost - May 11 |