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Holy Interruptions Retreat

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Spring_GraveyardThe Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation has developed an online retreat called ‘Holy Interruptions’; a time to pause, center, and refresh in the presence of the Holy.

Please join the Rev. Areeta Bridgemohan on Saturday, April 25, 2020 from 9 am -12 pm for a guided experience of this retreat via Zoom. Sign up by filling out the form below. If the form doesn’t display correctly, please click here. 

After you register, watch for an email from Rev. Areeta with information on how to login for the Zoom call and other helpful information for your personal preparation. Please note that registration closes at 5 pm on Friday, April 24.

Click here to learn more about the retreat or if you’d like to participate in the retreat on your own time.

This online retreat is free of charge, freewill donations to Shalem are welcome.

 

Join the 300th Anniversary Bible Reading Challenge

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As part of our 300th Anniversary celebrations, our rector, Joe Hensley is challenging us to read the whole Bible by May 1, 2021 to ground our 300th celebration in faith. It is not too late to join! We have a suggested reading program (analog or digital) so that we can do this together (over 90 St. Georgians participating with new people still joining).

A weekly email from Rev. Joe provides encouragement and guidance for the readings. And anyone with questions is invited to attend our adult formation session (held virtually) on Sundays at 10 am. You can watch via Zoom Conference Call. Visit https://zoom.us/j/392738239 or dial 929.205.6099 and enter the meeting ID: 392 738 239.

Contact Joe Hensley if you are interested in participating.

Click here for a pdf of the reading schedule for the year.

Falling Down in Worship – March 2020, St. Georgian

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The following is Rector Joe Hensley’s monthly opening message from our weekly e-newsletter the St. Georgian. If you’d like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, sign-up here.

Greetings beloved St. Georgians,

Continuing the “Way of Love” (https://episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love) with this month’s newsletter message, I invite us to reflect on our “worship.” According to the description in the Way of Love: “we gather in community weekly to thank, praise, and dwell with God” as followers of Jesus in the Episcopal Church.

Some Biblical terms for “worship” originally meant to physically fall down in a posture of submission such as kneeling or prostration. We stand more often these days (although kneeling is still a fine option), but worship is still about humbly submitting to God’s authority and love. Our gathering is not just for peace and comfort. We gather to collectively offer ourselves to God as a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,” that God might make us holy.

Ancient worship involved the literal sacrifice of animals. Today we make other sacrifices to be in church, and it is work. We may feel like falling down by the time we find a parking spot, walk across streets, up the church steps or elevator and get situated for an opening hymn which we may struggle to sing. We listen to sometimes difficult Bible readings. We offer the first fruits of our hard-earned money. Why go to all this trouble?

When we fall down before God in community, we stumble into grace. We accept that God is God and we are not. By listening to ancient stories that are not about us (but which connect with our stories) and singing songs that we would not have chosen, praying words that we did not write, gathering with strangers, we move from being self-centered to God-centered. That opens our hearts and possibilities for new life.

During Lent, you may notice that when I preside at the altar, I am not lifting up my hands as I usually do. Priests have many options for what to do with their hands at the altar. I encourage our clergy to do what feels meaningful to them. The different hand motions add to the celebration. During Lent, though, I am doing less with my hands (some actions are required in the Book of Common Prayer) as a sign that it is God grace and not my doing which makes the sacrament holy. Why? In a season when we simplify our worship in many ways, I felt an invitation to still my hands and open my heart.

How might God be inviting you to “fall down” in worship this Lent as a way to open your heart? As we stumble into grace together, may God make us holy in service to the larger story of God’s saving and redeeming love.

Your rector and brother in Christ,
Joe+

2020 Micah Lenten Worship and Lunches

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On Wednesdays at noon during Lent, the Micah Downtown Churches invite you to join in worship and lunch. Young Adult Chaplin the Rev. David P. Casey, O.P. will provide the sermon on March 11 at Shiloh Baptist Old Site. Our Rector, the Rev. Joseph H. Hensley, Jr. is preaching at the Presbyterian Church on April 1.

March 4: Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, 308 Hanover St., Fredericksburg, VA

March 11: Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site), 801 Sophia St., Fredericksburg, VA

March 18: St. Mary Catholic Church, 1009 Stafford Ave., Fredericksburg, VA

March 25: Christ Lutheran, 1300 Augustine Ave, Fredericksburg, VA

April 1: The Presbyterian Church, 810 Princess Anne St., Fredericksburg, VA

Wilderness – February 2020, St. Georgian

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The following is Associate Rector Areeta Bridgemohan’s monthly opening message from our weekly e-newsletter the St. Georgian. If you’d like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, sign-up here.

Wilder · ness
“state of the wild”
The Rev. Lisle Garrity, Founder and Creative Director of A Sanctified Art, a collective of artists and ministers seeking to offer their gifts to the church and to the world, will be our Lenten weekend facilitator this year. Her group has developed Lenten resources on the theme of wilderness, and St. George’s will be drawing on their resources this Lent.
The wilderness is an important space in our sacred story. The wilderness is a place of despair, barrenness, wandering, exploration, growth and purification. The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. In that time, they learned about trusting God, about waiting patiently, and they learned about the risk and the possibilities of freedom. Daily, they relied on God to feed their bodies with manna. They relied on God to feed their souls by holding fast to the promise that God would lead them to the promised land. This was a critical time in the formation of the community’s identity.
Lent also begins in the wilderness. On the First Sunday of Lent we’ll hear that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matt 4:1a). Although the wilderness may seem to have limited signs of life, God uses it to spark spiritual growth. Sometimes the wilderness helps us see more clearly where God is active and moving. Sometimes the wilderness helps us let go of the baggage we don’t need but stubbornly or mindlessly cling to. Sometimes the wilderness leaves us with no choice but to trust God. Sometimes the wilderness helps us discover treasures in the world that we overlooked and reveals hidden treasures within ourselves. In our wandering in the wilderness, we discover that there is no place in our lives or in our souls where God does not dwell. May this Lent be a time for us to discover what God has in store in the wilderness.
Your sister in Christ,
Areeta+
Prayer
The Rev. Sarah Are, A Sanctified Art (2020)
One: God is in the water that restores our soul.
All: And God is in the night when we lose our way.
One: God is in today and tomorrow, raising up leaders, prophets and dreamers.
All: And God is in the wilderness with us—every step of the way.
One: So with confidence we declare—
All: If God is in those spaces, then God is surely here.
One: Let us worship the God of creation.
All: Let us worship the God of wilderness spaces.