The Almanac - Saint Alban`s Episcopal Church

The Almanac
E-mail: generalbusiness@stalbanschurch.info
Fax: 619-444-1561
Phone: 619-444-8212
El Cajon, CA 92020
490 Farragut Circle
Celebrating and Sharing God’s Love
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Visit us on the web
www.st-albans-church.org
Inside this issue:
From the Rector’s Pen
The Treasurer’s Vault
Mark Your Calendar
Round-Up
Sunday School News
Kenya Kids Update
Bishop’s Council Opening
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November 2014
From the Rector’s Pen - Reflection of Days Gone By
Autumn days are behind us and our clocks have once again fallen back
one hour. November will be busy as we prepare for Bishop Mathes’ visit
with us on Sunday, December 7. We are looking forward to a number of
baptisms, confirmations and receiving new members into the Episcopal
Church. On another note, Naomi and I appreciate everyone’s prayers,
thoughts and encouragement through the last two months. For those of
you who do not know; our son Nathan was involved in an accident while
riding his motor-bike home from work on the 6th of September. Both of
his legs were broken, one requiring extensive surgery. His shoulder was crushed and also required reconstructive surgery. The next three weeks of trauma were quite taxing for Nate, his
wife Amanda, our son Joshua, Naomi and I. Nate is now in a rehab center. The doctors are quite
pleased with his progress, but his recovery will continue for months to come.
Our St. Alban’s Strategic Plan Steering Committee has taken a hit in the last two months as
well. Their leader, (yes, that’s me) has been so occupied with hospital visits, and taking care of
the other parish duties that much of the committee work I am responsible for has been left unattended. But, we will work with the data we have and the vestry will present our results to the
church at our annual meeting. We realize that there is no magic date when all of this must be
completed, so we will continue our planning work into the first quarter of 2015.
I especially want to thank all of our wonderful members that take on roles of leadership in so
many different areas. I appreciate the teachers that assist me with Confirmation classes, and the
wonderful team of Sunday school teachers, and also our mentors that assist children’s learning
every Wednesday afternoon. What a wonderful job you all are doing with our precious children.
I have also sensed a new and wonderful atmosphere at our 1st and 3rd Tuesday food distribution
times. We started a Eucharist service on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday from 8:30 to 9:00 am. It has
been encouraging to see 30 to 40 people join us for Eucharist and to also have the sanctuary
open for private prayer and meditation all morning. I want to thank the sacristy team for assisting by setting up the altar and at the service, and also a big hand of applause for all the hardworking volunteers that make it possible to feed 60-70 refugee families on Tuesday mornings.
And, of course we cannot overlook the ECW, the rummage sale and all those involved in that
work. I’ll say more about this in my round-up article. I certainly don’t want to overlook the vestry, which are kept pretty busy lately. I want to thank all of you who planned and orchestrated
the Volunteer Appreciation Day, and lest I forget the volunteers that maintain our front prayer
garden, liturgy team, choir, readers, intercessors, sacristy team, pastoral care team, prayer chain
team, letter writers and phone callers, altar workers, acolytes, ushers, handy-men and women,
Community Garden leaders, Welcome Church Team, all the wonderful committees and committee leaders of this parish, auditors, vergers, schedulers, communications and social media specialists.. And, if I missed someone, I especially want to say thank you, and let me know so I can
mention it in our next newsletter.
And, I especially thank Naomi for putting up with me these past 42 years. She is an amazing
woman.
Father Dave
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St Alban’s Leadership
Staff
Wardens & Vestry
Father Dave Madsen ~ Rector
Mike Park ~ Sr. Warden
619-444-8212, padredavid1@gmail.com
Betty Johnsen ~ Jr. Warden
Office hours: T-F, 9am-1pm, afternoons by
appt. only
Judy Brown~ Treasurer
Victoria Mayor ~ Secretary
Denise Cote~ Assistant to Rector/Secretary
619-444-8212 , dcote@stalbanschurch.info
Judy Setford ~ Vestry Member
Office hours: T-F, 9am-1pm
Caroline Mahon-Hurd~ Vestry Member
Renee Brown ~ Music Director/ Organist
Sharon Hathaway ~ Vestry Member
Caroline Mahon-Hurd~ Sunday School Director
Sandy Parks~ Vestry Member
Penny Park~ Bookkeeper
Brad Cook ~ Vestry Member
Joy Knight~ Refugee Ministry Coordinator
Worship & Learn With Us:
Sunday 9:30 am - Worship Service with Holy
Eucharist & Sunday School
Wednesday 5:15pm— Eucharist Service
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~ cont. from page 9 ~
The Church of England has made a conscious and canonical shift in its expectation. Those who train for
non-stipendiary ministry (NSM) do it in two years; those who expect a “career” take a more traditional
three years. One of our seminaries has begun to explore a two-year academic track with an additional
practical year. The Lutherans have had a model like that for some time – but it’s four years total, three of
the four for academics and the third year as a practicum.
We need responses to changing realities that consider the varied needs of the whole body. We have the
canonical flexibility already to permit different paths of formation. What we don’t have is a willingness to
make resources available to the whole body. We still live in a system that is far more isolated and independent than interdependent. Each diocese makes individual decisions about how to train students. Each
seminary does the same. Each diocese and seminary or training program raises and stewards its own financial and human resources with little churchwide conversation or cooperation.
One of the strategic and big picture conversations this Council deals with is the churchwide budget. This
body has engaged the process with greater vigor and more detail than ever before. We are making conscious and intentional progress in this budget toward financial autonomy for every diocese (or jurisdiction) in this Church. We’ve engaged a self-sufficiency plan for Province IX, which depends on three legs:
the support of the wider church (and not only financial support); the partnership among the dioceses of
Province IX and their willingness to pool a portion of their financial resources; and the willingness of
leaders in each diocese to risk new ways in the hope of developing greater capacity. We’re doing similar
work in Navajoland and in Haiti. The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe has begun this work.
We did not do this kind of work thoroughly enough when we encouraged Mexico, Central America, Brazil, Liberia, and the Philippines to become autonomous. We did not do enough of this work when we encouraged the old missionary districts in the U.S. part of our context to become dioceses. We must repent
of our sins of omission and commission, and amend our common life. We are bound to one another, not
only in affection, but as the body of Christ, committed to love God and God’s world with all we have and
all we are.
We’re not called to build a church that leaves poor and struggling relatives either shamed or incapacitated
by their poverty. We are called to build societies of abundance where resources are directed where
needed, and no one lives in want. The missionary societies of our forebears in the faith “held all things in
common. The challenge is the same, whether we’re talking about the asking from dioceses or what seminaries have to offer. The missional question begins in “what does the body require of us, where is it hungry, suffering, where is it joyous?” All are meant to be shared, not held in reserve for favored parts of the
body or hidden away in shame or fear. Any favor enjoyed is a blessing that grows apace by sharing. Hiding either our pain or what we fear losing never leads to healing.
The great leaders of every age have challenged people to live for others. John F. Kennedy put it this way,
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Martin Luther King,
Jr. in the same era, dreamed: “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time
to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. … Now is the
time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” He went on to speak of the white people of this
nation, saying, “they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We
cannot walk alone.”
We have a dream as well, of a church walking together, doing and living justice, a church equipped and
equipping all its members to do justice. We have a duty to all the members of this body, and to those beyond it who need justice. We are asked for the highest and best gift we can offer, in loving our neighbors
as ourselves. We’re not going to settle for anything less, whether it’s the work we do here or what we ask
of the people of this church. We cannot walk alone, and we cannot encourage others to walk alone. Together, the stony road our ancestors trod flattens out before us – or rises to meet us – and that road leads to
justice, love incarnate for the world.
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From the treasurer’s Vault
Cursillo Corner
Remember, you don’t have to be a Cursillista to attend an
Ultreya. As a matter of fact, it’s a great way to introduce
prospective candidates to the Cursillo movement.
For more information, please see, call, or email Judy Brown, 619-925-0173, email:
jbrown3944@aol.com
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N ovem b e r 2 0 14
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
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Presiding Bishop’s opening remarks to council
October 24, 2014 [Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts
Schori delivered the following opening remarks to Executive Council on Oct. 24 at the Maritime Center,
Linthicum Heights, Maryland.
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Clocks Back at
Midnight!
All Saint’s Day
2 Worship
4 Refugee Food
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9:30
Ministry
Refugee Tutor
Sewing Sisters
All Saint’s
Sunday
10:30am
3:30—5 pm
10 am
21 Pentecost
Election Day
Eucharist 5:15pm
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3
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ECW 10:30
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Worship 9:30
- 12:30pm
Sewing Sisters
Vestry after
coffee hour
Refugee Tutor
10 am
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21
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3:30—5 pm
22 Pentecost
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Worship 9:30
Veteran’s Day
Eucharist 5:15pm
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Refugee Food
Refugee Tutor
Sewing Sisters
Ministry
3:30—5 pm
10 am
10:30am
23 Pentecost
C.S. Lewis
Eucharist 5:15pm
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Church and
Thanksgiving Eve
Meal
Service 6:15pm
Thanksgiving
Day
Office Closed
23 Worship
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9:30
Christ the King
Welcome
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Worship 9:30
1 Advent
Nov 23rd is the
Mother Goose
Parade 10am
plan your route
to church!
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It is very good to see you all again. It’s been a long time since June. I give thanks for the labors of this
Council, and for its growth in capacity in this triennium. We are engaging the mission and ministry of this
Church in larger and more strategic ways than we have in recent years. I continue to believe that the primary mission of this body is those larger and strategic questions, and I firmly hope the Convention will
help us to clarify that role.
The Episcopal Church has crossed a threshold into new ways of being in the 21 st century and in our varied
contexts. I see signs of growth and missional investment and solidarity at every turn. I’ll give you some
examples. In Western Kansas, two women in ranch families – an Episcopalian and a Wesleyan – have
started a camp for inner city kids, growing out of their discernment of the needs of kids who’ve never
seen a cow, who don’t have terribly stable family lives, have never had chores to do, and need to know
what it is to be loved unconditionally in a Christian setting. It’s called Camp Runamuck, and the motto is
‘don’t run amok, run to Him.
Small congregations are thriving in a number of contexts – a church plant in northern Taiwan to serve
children being raised without adequate family support, and in the process is gathering a congregation; a
house church in Western Kansas, that’s growing into its 23 rd year; emerging faith communities in Italy
rooted in the native language worshipping according to the Book of Common Prayer; as well as more
ancient ones in rural Mississippi and Illinois, celebrating 150 or 175 years and deeply involved in mission
in their local communities.
As old models become unsustainable in some contexts, dioceses are finding new ways to form leaders –
like the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry in Topeka that serves students from four neighboring dioceses. Theological education is much in the news, with active conflict in several places, a result of deep
anxiety over looming changes. We have excellent resources for theological education, yet they need to be
redistributed to form and train leaders more effectively for new and changing contexts. In some ways, that
current reality reflects the increasing economic inequality in the developed world, particularly in the
United States. The wealthy have little difficulty in accessing those resources; the poor struggle, yet often
the poor discover and create new possibilities out of necessity.
The average Episcopal congregation, with 60 to 70 members attending weekly worship, cannot afford the
traditional model of full-stipend paid leadership, a building, and a sufficient program to support its members in their daily baptismal ministry. Nor can seminary graduates with educational debt afford to work in
most of them.
Students today can be trained for ordination to the priesthood anywhere, if they can foot the bill. If not,
they have much more limited resources in residential seminaries – a couple of them can provide sufficient
aid to graduate students with little or no additional debt. Increasing numbers of ordination candidates and
lay leaders are being educated in programs like Bishop Kemper School, which require minimal displacement from job and family and produce graduates with little or no additional debt. In order to provide effective formation, those more local institutions and programs work closer to home to gather a community
for formation. As has always been the case, the struggling and the poorer communities have tended to be
more creative in responding to these changing realities. Most of the residential seminaries we have were
started in response to similar challenges – the need for education and the inability to provide it in existing
frameworks and paradigms.
~ cont. on page 10 ~
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…
I never know quite how to start these Round-Up articles, because there are so many wonderful
things going on and around St. Alban’s. Okay, I will start out with Sunday school. How many of
you were able to attend the Sunday school Open House. What a cool presentation. The stories,
pictures and teaching helps on all the walls were fascinating. It makes me want to go back to
Sunday school. A shout-out “thank-you” is in order to Caroline Mahon and all the teaching
staff. It’s wonderful to see dedicated and gifted teachers, and so many new children coming into
our church every month.
I was out of town last year during the ECW Rummage Sale. I had no idea of how big of an undertaking this is. And, it was like an ant-hill of many dedicated workers hauling things in, setting up tables and merchandise, marking prices and lots of other behind the scenes activity. This
is really quite a huge production, and what a gift the ECW does for the bottom line of our
church. Thank you to all those ECW workers and for those that assisted who are not in the
ECW. Thank you for the gift of love and labor, and a big thank you from the Executive Financial Committee.
Just in case you haven’t checked out St. Albans Episcopal Church or the Welcome Church of El
Cajon Facebook pages, I encourage you to take a peek. The Diocese has encouraged all the
churches to take notice of how our social media is handled and to use our models as a good
model for other churches in the diocese. A big “thank-you” to Brad (Our Communications
Chair) who maintains the St. Alban’s home-page and to Victoria our Social Media Director that
oversees Face-book pages and other social media. I bet you had no idea that we are also in the
local papers.
Have you noticed the new shelves and cabinets in the kitchen pantry area and in the Sunday
School room? A big “thank-you” to Jack Pape is in order. I know he doesn’t like the attention,
but let’s tell him how much we appreciate his work anyway.
I especially want to say “thank you” to Judy Brown and the Wednesday Preaching team for
stepping up in my absence in the last two weeks of October. I also want to show appreciation
and thanks to Pastor Sharon Larraine for officiating and preaching at the Welcome Church on
October 26 and for such a committed team from St. Alban’s that puts together lunches, hauls
and sits up tables and chairs, sits up the Eucharist table, and makes the Welcome Church the
success that it is. Without them, we could not do this ministry in the park.
Like I said, this is only some of the things going on around here lately. Stay tuned next month
for the rest of the story, or maybe just more of it. I wish you all a wonderful November.
Father Dave
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Sunday School News
by Caroline Mahon-Hurd,
Sunday School Teacher
Our Sunday school children are continuing to work on our, “What we do in Church” lesson
series. This series teaches our Sunday school children what we do during a Sunday church service and the meaning of the many traditions. The lesson series will conclude on November 23.
On the first Sunday of Advent, November 30, the Children will be making family advent
wreaths during Sunday school. Sunday school families will have a wonderful opportunity of
learning to celebrate the coming of Christ by using an advent wreath. Parents can light their advent candles during each Advent Sunday and spend time Reading the Advent devotionals together. This year’s children devotional is “What do I ABC this Christmas.” The children can
read the devotional, look up the correlating Bible verses, and look and find hidden objects from
each picture on each page. The children will also receive an Advent calendar.
We would like to invite all of St. Alban children to participate in the annual Christmas Eve
pageant. We hope that many of the children will get involved. Since we are a small church, participation is vital to insure that the pageant is successful. We are also looking for parents and
bilingual volunteers. We are also asking for donations of any used Halloween animal or angel
costumes. We will have three practice rehearsals on Dec 7, 14, and 21. The children will perform the pageant during the Christmas Eve children’s service at 5:30pm.
I am so pleased to report that the daughters of Hannah Ngige, the founder of Kenya Kids, were
able to visit some of the children St. Alban’s have helped support over these last seven years.
Daughter Murugi Kenyatta (of San Diego) visited her family in Kenya in August and September. She brought a gift with her from the St. Alban’s funds that had been designated for Kenya
Kids! She met her sister Ciiru and together they made a long journey up to Gatundu, where
seven of the original children Hannah took under her wing lived. Two of the children are now
grown and five are still living in Gatundu with their grand-parents.
I got an e-mail from Ciiru reporting on the first visit in August (see below) and Murugi contacted me when she completed her long trip to Kenya in early October. She is writing a formal
report that will be shared with St. Alban’s very soon. I also received letters of appreciation from
four of the children. I’m just quoting from one of them that touched my heart so deeply:
“My names are Patricia Kanuthu from Myartres of Uganda Catholic Church. I am fourteen
years old. My best hobby is singing praises of which I am very concerned in. I take this opportunity to thank you Joy for what you have been doing for us. As for me, I am as happy as a king
for your care and support. Since we knew each other, you have been a very good friend to us.
There is a credence which states that ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’. We have been receiving so many things like books, pencils, food and going for some trips that I’ve never come
across. I had a B plus and position five out of sixty three pupils. I am very thankful that even I
have no words to say God bless you…THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”
I met this young lady when my husband and I were privileged to visit the Kenya Kids and Hannah in August of 2011 and bring gifts from St. Alban’s—because of many kind hearts in our
congregation. Many, many thanks and more news to come soon!
Patricah Kanuthu: A pair of black shoes, size 42. Books: “The River and the Source”, “The
Caucasian Chalk Circle”, “Betrayal in the City”, “Damu Nyeusi”.
Felix Thithi: Books: “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”, “Whale Rider”, “KCSE Made Familiar Maths, Physics, Biology and Chemistry”.
Jude Thithe: A pair of black shoes, size 41, a mathematical set, book: “Damu Nyeusi”.
Agnes Gatheru: A pair of black shoes, size 39, a school bag, black shoe polish, pens in black,
blue and red, pencils, an eraser, and exercise books.
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