Presbyterian Church USA
United Church of Christ
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This newsletter is best viewed as a web page, or you may miss sections clipped at the bottom Please view as webpage.
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Pastor Letter
By Rev. Rob Mark, Lead Pastor
Greetings Beloveds!
Half-way.
We are just over half-way. No, sadly not the summer – we’re well beyond that – though we still have 3 weeks left don’t despair :-). We are over half-way through our Church of the Covenant 5-point, 5-year Missional Plan that began in 2020:
1. Congregational Vitality
2. Culture of Compassion and Caring
3. Creative Income Generation
4. Christian Formation for Children and Youth (CFCY) and all ages
5. Climate Jubilee Centered Innovative Outreach
While we have prayerfully named this as the “soaring 20’s” as both a contrast to the 1920’s materialistic “roaring” and in sync with Isaiah 40’s plea that instead of growing weary we rise up and soar in our love of God, neighbor and earth this decade – pandemics have thrown us for some loops. However, like the continued appointed work of the Post Office in face of rain, heat, sleet, or gloom, we have pressed onwards. And I give God and this community great thanks for this continued momentum. So at this half-way point as we enter the blessings of another fall season as church together, I offer some questions:
In considering this plan not just in your mind but also your heart, where do you locate yourself?
Where do you most sense the Spirit’s prompting?
Are there things that you are curious about within this plan? Beyond this plan? What needs more or less focus?
Where might you find yourself in two and a half years if you were to engage more fully with any of these points?
And where is the Spirit leading you/ us?
I appreciate your willingness to prayerfully ponder this plan and your relationship to it as we enter this fall season together. Please feel free to share ideas, Spirit promptings, and questions with me, Joshua, your Council, Deacons, or Climate Jubilee Team. I am very excited for how we might continue to be led onwards into this second half of this missional work together as we reach within, and as we reach out, beyond ourselves.
Finally, I wanted to mention a handful of upcoming ways you can become engaged in aspects of this plan this coming month:
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Our Climate Jubilee Team has invited us to a Jubilee Jaunt on our own – see below for more specifics and how to submit a reflection/ photo. What lessons might Mother Earth teach us if we slow down enough to listen?
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We have been deeply missing our regular potlucks that have been such a foundational part of our life together! Hunger no longer as you join us after worship on Sunday, September 11, for our first in over two years (hybrid) potluck! More details below.
- Commit to finding some spiritual grounding every Wednesday by joining our Bible Study at 9:30am, and Evening Prayers at 6pm (starting up again 9/7).
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If you are a 20s30s40s-something, join our day-long Cape Cod Retreat on Saturday, September 17. Info and registration here.
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Join us on Thursday, September 22, at 6pm to mark the Fall (Autumnal) Equinox in a prayerful/ mindful earth & soul way as we gather on the Arthur Fielder Dock along the Esplanade (Quinobequin/ Charles River) guided by our Climate Jubilee Team. Send us a seasonal prayer or reading to help in our preparations for this gathering.
- As our beloved Tom Handel embarks in another Extended Study Leave with our prayers and we are blessed with Kate Salfelder’s interim music ministry once again with us, might you consider joining the choir or offering some of your own musical gifts?
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Are you interested in serving our children and youth this year, or helping prepare All Ages worship services? Email Kate.
- Finally – mark your calendar for our All Church Day-Long Retreat at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, MA on Saturday, Oct. 29 from 9:30am-4:30pm. Registrations coming soon.
And in all things, remember the Psalmist’s refrain:
God is in control. Clothed in majesty, equipped with strength.
God established the earth, it shall never be moved.
Your reign is established from of old.
You are from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O God.
The floods have lifted up their voice.
The floods are roaring.
More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters.
More awesome than the waves of the sea,
Stunning on high is God!
~Psalm 93
In peace & joy, Rob
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Study Leave
By Tom Handel, Minister of Music
Dear Friends,
I’m excited to embark on a study leave for the months of September, October and November with the goal of improving my technique through the study of organ works by J. S. Bach.
You may have noticed that, for the past few years my focus on organ music has shifted from traditional repertory to transcriptions. The latter includes transcriptions of orchestral music by Dvorak and Handel, ballet music by Stravinsky and Copland, Jazz improvisations/compositions by Bill Evans and Maria Schneider and popular music by The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Cindy Lauper and others. These transcriptions work particularly well on the Covenant Organ, which was designed to imitate orchestral colors. While transcribed organ works provide many opportunities for creativity, they don’t necessarily call for the technical rigor of traditional organ
repertoire.
For my study leave, I will study pedagogical keyboard and organ works by J. S. Bach. My plan is to systematically study preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, choral preludes from The Little Organ Book and selected movements from Bach’s 6 Trio Sonatas. I am extremely fortunate to own a two manual harpsichord that includes a full pedal board. It is ideal for studying the works of Bach as it requires incredible sensitivity to touch. My hope is to regain some of the technical proficiency that I had when I was a student and had more time to practice.
I have told my students, countless times that “Bach is your best teacher.” After all, he had many gifted students including several of his own children. Furthermore, his approach to pedagogy was to combine theory and practice. Instead of writing a treatise on how to compose a prelude and fugue, he compiled 24 examples of preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier. The collection serves as an academic study of the genre and a masterful collection of works for performance. I’m very excited to spend the next few months with Bach as my teacher and am incredibly grateful that Church of the Covenant has given me this opportunity.
While I’m away, Kate Salfelder will be covering for me. Kate did so during my last study leave and I received overwhelmingly positive reports on her musicianship and collegiality. You can learn more about Kate here: https://kathrynsalfelder.com
With gratitude,
Tom Handel
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Looking for New CYCE Volunteers
By Kate Carlisle, Parish Administrator and
Coordinator, Children & Youth Christian Education
We are currently gifted with a number of children in our community! How wonderful is this! It is our goal to be able to offer loving and stimulating environments and programs to all of them. We have a group of infants to toddlers, a couple of younger Godly Play-aged children, older Godly Play children, potentially a 10–13 year old group, and definitely a 14 year old group of youth. Do you have interest or questions about being involved in any way at all with children or youth?
This might be an occasional presence in the nursery, or a background person in a children or youth class, or something more often or more directly involved. Please email Rev. Kate ([email protected]), or reach out to Kathy, Karen, or Diane, if you have any interest at all. We are also advertising for a paid nursery care provider, so we encourage you to reach out if you have any interest for yourself or someone you know. We will pass along the listing soon.
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Update on Renew the Light Campaign
to Save Our Tiffany Ornamental Windows
By Lucy Williams, Building Committee
The Building Committee is excited to announce that the final two Clerestory windows on the Newbury Street side of the building will be re-installed on September 2. Eleven more windows from the alley side are still at Serpentino Studios and will not be reinstalled until summer 2023.
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Over 30 years ago, when our church building was in serious disrepair and what we call the Parish House was a virtual shell (meaning that the 2nd-4th floors did not exist), a minister named Jack Bailey, an employee of the Synod of the Northeast, persuaded the Presbytery of Boston to provide a 20% guarantee of the initial loan we received from the PCUSA loan program. Without that loan, the development of the Parish House and the mechanism by which rentals maintain our building would never have happened. He passed away quite unexpectedly shortly thereafter.
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Amazingly, on July 3, 2022, Jack Bailey, Jr. came to Open Sanctuary and described to Simone DeVito what he knew of how his father helped the congregation with Covenant Renewal in the late 1980s. Simone took him to the lobby in the parish house and showed him the plaque honoring his father. She also took him upstairs to the church office suite and explained how different this whole area was before the renovations. According to Simone, he was really touched by all his father did for us and by the fact that we still honored him. He took a picture of the plaque to show his mother. By the way, Rev. Jack Bailey was African-American.
The words on the plaque are: “Friend of this Church, The Rev. Jack Bailey, Synod of the Northeast, His vision enabled the redevelopment of this Parish House for Ministry”
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SAVE THE DATE:
ALL-CHURCH DAY RETREAT:
Saturday Oct. 29, 9:30am-4:30pm, Glastonbury Abbey, Hingham, MA. Please mark your calendars to join us for our annual all-church retreat as we return once again to the sacred setting at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham (2012-2013) where we will get to enjoy a Saturday together to take in the blessings of God’s nature just a few miles from the ocean, surrounded by sacred pines and cedars and the fellowship of our community. “Second” breakfast and lunch will be provided. Stay tuned for registrations to begin in the coming week or so.
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Climate Jubilee Team Update
Coming up! Join us for these events hosted by Climate Jubilee:
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Sunday, September 11 - Plant-based Potluck hybrid event with tables in the Berkeley Street vestibule and people flowing onto the steps and sidewalk, and others sharing a meal and conversation on Zoom.
Thursday, September 22 - Fall Equinox Sunset Evensong on the Esplanade - The Summer Solstice gathering was so popular, we will celebrate the fall equinox as well! Meet at the same Arthur Fiedler pier from 6 - 7 pm.
Sunday, September 25 - Share stories and pictures of your DIY (Do It Yourself) Jubilee Jaunts
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September Jubilee Jaunt will be DIY!
COTCers who live locally and from across the diaspora can participate in this Do It Yourself (DIY) jaunt! We invite everyone to GO OUTSIDE during September to enjoy the beauty, inspiration, calm, and wonder of God’s Creation. Take a walk in the woods, a swim in a lake, or sit in your yard or park—anywhere where you find the beauty of nature.
Record your experience in your mind, a journal, or with photos, and share them with others in and Adult CE on Sunday, September 25, on Zoom or hybrid. Please upload your jaunt photos to share.
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you. ~ Job 12:7-8
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News from the Pews
By Linda Pursley
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Covenant travels—near and far
Trudi Veldman spent one week in Malawi providing training for 6th and 8th grade science teachers in the remote area served by Villages in Partnership (VIP). Her photos show teachers building electricity circuits, delivery of science supplies to the new high school built by VIP, the family who hosted her for several nights in their home, and a group selfie with Cydney - recent
college graduate and now an intern with VIP, Stuwart-VIP's education officer, and Kondwani -VIP's driver in the botanical garden in Zomba.
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Linda Pursley was joined by a friend from San Francisco for a week on the Maine coast. Highlights (pictured below) included being the first in the USA to see the sunrise one morning from West Quoddy Head Lighthouse (Lubec, ME) and a visit to Roosevelt Campobello International Park including “tea with Eleanor” in New Brunswick, Canada. |
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Barbara Darling and Nancy Stockford did a self-styled vegan food tour of Los Angeles in early August. In addition to eating amazing plant-based meals, they walked in Huntington Gardens, visited Santa Monica Beach at sunset one night and Zuma Beach in Malibu one day, toured a farm animal sanctuary north of LA, made a trip to Disneyland (a return trip for Barbara from when she was 11!), and did a Warner Bros. Studio tour in Burbank (picture from the “Friends”-themed Central Perk).
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Mark Huston and Nancy Stockford visited the Covenant diaspora outpost of Christine James and Guy Herman in East Burke, Vermont (affectionately known as The East Burke Mining Camp). The four enjoyed chatting, eating, hiking (see photo) and kayaking in that beautiful part of the
world. An extra bonus was bumping into former Covenant member Alyssa May, who the next
day stopped by the mining camp with her wife Tabitha Bowling and their 11-year-old son Marshall. It was a little Covenant reunion!
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Anita Gram recently enjoyed this book about James Baldwin, the featured book at an online panel that Rev. Joshua invited us to attend earlier this year. She was the winner of a free copy and would like to share the wealth of this book—please send her an email if you are interested! The book covers various aspects of Baldwin’s “radical challenge.” The authors use vignettes of his life with specific actions in each chapter to promote justice. For instance, Learn Skills for Intervening Safely suggests specific ways to go beyond being a passive bystander in situations when we witness violence. If you want to put your faith into action, McGhee & Hollowell have inspiring suggestions. Let me know if I can pass this book on to you. |
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Under the Mango Tree
By Tim Groves for Nicaragua Companions
This column will be a monthly sharing of stories from our sister church community, Dulce Nombre de Jesus, in northwest Nicaragua.
Under the Mango Tree will return next month.
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Council Report
Council did not meet in August, so there is no report this month. The September meeting will be reported in the October Covenant News.
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September Birthdays
2 Joseph Jewett
5 Dorothy Frank
8 Abhishek John
13 Evelyn Loving Azuma
19 Diane Lauber Doherty, Joan Tighe
22 Rachel Kirby
23 Barbara Darling
25 Kenny Bitner
If your September birthday does not appear above, please hit Reply and notify us so we can include you next year!
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September 2022 Calendar
most up-to-date church calendar.
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About This Issue
September 2022 Covenant News
Editor and Graphics: Evelyn Kimber
Deadline for the October 2022 Covenant News is Sunday, September 25. Please email your submissions to Evelyn Kimber at [email protected].
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67 Newbury St.
Boston, MA 02116
617-266-7480
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