All Saints Gazette: The Church Ecosystem
Greetings from All Saints!
This week:
Thursday: Prayer lab, online, 18:00
No service on Sunday. The next service is 3 November
As you know, I was in Florence last week for the Convocation Convention, which is the yearly meeting of the clergy and lay delegates from each of our churches. A couple interesting things happened. One, which deserves more comment than it got, is that we voted to remove any reference to the United States of America from the Convocation constitution. In aspiration and increasingly in reality, we are not the “American” church.
Another thing is that we were asked to think how we as individual communities are part of the Episcopal and Anglican communities. Someone suggested that we look at the Convocation and TEC not as an umbrella, but an underlayer, a church underneath the individual churches. I like this image, and I want to expand it a bit, especially since many of us at All Saints don’t have much experience of TEC or the Anglican Communion outside of our own community.
In a forest, you might see a tree and think you are looking at a single organism. But, first, only about half of that organism is above ground. Second, the life of that tree is entwined with the whole ecosystem. It depends on birds and insects for pollination and for carrying its seeds to other places; on other trees and animals to make the soil fertile; on fungi to transmit messages to other trees; on atmospheric currents which are tied up with other atmospheric and oceanic currents all over the world; you get the idea. And of course, other life forms depend on it. Even after it dies, it continues to nourish life.
Perhaps we could think of All Saints as a tree (biblical image in many ways. See Psalm 1:3 or 52:8). What are the parts of the ecosystem that support us? And what do we support? Not all of them are “Episcopal” or even Christian. We are nourished by the system of public transit in the Netherlands! Likewise by families, friends, traditions and institutions of education, black and queer activist communities in Amsterdam. But we are also nourished by a local and global Anglican community.
We say prayers and perform rituals according to a rhythm inherited and curated by The Episcopal Church. We receive funding from the Committee on Mission Congregations and the Office of Church Planting and Revitalization. We welcome people who come to us because they heard of our relation to a certain archbishop, sang in a chapel choir, or whose grandmother googled Episcopal churches in the Netherlands. We draw on the wisdom of said archbishop, of campus chaplains in Chicago, seminar professors in Massachusetts, or tech and financial experts on a Zoom call.
Perhaps most importantly, we pray for them and they pray for us. You don’t have to understand or even care all that much about the bizarre structure of the Convocation (I do care, but don’t understand entirely) or know the jokes and stereotypes you would have about Episcopalians/Anglicans if you’d grown up in Connecticut or Hong Kong. But you can pray with them and for them, and make at least occasional use of their prayer book. Come to know the mystical union of the whole catholic church as expressed in The Episcopal Church, and then you can appreciate the structures (or lovingly complain about them).
Prayer Book Spirituality Online
So about this ‘prayer book’ we’re always talking about but you’ve probably never seen… I’m leading a series in prayer lab on the spirituality of it, of how to see it as something besides just a set of rules. This week’s theme is “Cycles and Seasons,” and we’ll talk about the yearly and daily rhythms of our worship and prayer. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, we’re going to do it online this week. But hey, that might let people join who couldn’t come to Vrijburg! 18:00, here’s the link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81805970238?pwd=tev8JD0sMTbXDbv4xCmJDqHo6XI5PY.1
Meeting ID: 818 0597 0238
Passcode: 175793
17th November Parish Meeting
Come to church on November 17 and stick around, not just for a meal, but for a conversation about the life of our community. We will share some things like articles of incorporation and a statement of values that will need for legal reasons. More broadly, we want to talk about what membership in a church means to us, what we think is working, and what we should tweak. That’s inclusive “we,” by the way. In fact, Mpho and I mostly want to listen (we talk to each other at least every week). An agenda and drafts of the documents will be forthcoming.
Some Thursday Variety
That “one-time” online Bible study actually seemed to hit the spot and enabled some people to join remotely who couldn’t come in person. We’re going to add an online meeting to our Thursday line up once a month. We’d also like to add a “moveable feast” where we meet somewhere else for a Bible study, some prayer, or even just some conversation. “Moveable” means we want you to suggest places, and it need not always be at the same time!
Cycles of Prayer for Week of 27 September
Convocation Prayer Cycle: The Board of Foreign Parishes, The Board of St. James (Florence), and the Board of St. Paul’s Within-the-Walls (Rome)
Anglican Communion Cycle of Prayer: Sunday-Église Anglicane de Rwanda; Monday-Diocese of Kansas, The Episcopal Church; Tuesday-Diocese of Western Kansas, The Episcopal Church; Wednesday-The Diocese of Kanyakumari, The Church of South India; Thursday-The Diocese of Kapsabet, The Anglican Church of Kenya; Friday-The Diocese of Karachi, The Church
of Pakistan; Saturday-The Diocese of Karamoja, The
Church of the Province of Uganda
All Other Saints
Our convention in Florence was in a pretty dismal basement that was the best place we could afford that could handle the tech. But this was right across the river! Ongissanti: another Church of All Saints. There was some market going on in front when I took the picture. The crucifix is by Giotto.
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Bank details
All Saints Amsterdam
IBAN NL32 TRIO 0320 8657 62
BIC TRIONL2U
That’s all for Today! Want to talk to a priest? We want to talk to you too!
Website: https://allsaintsamsterdam.church/
Mpho: mpho@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Kyle: kyle@allsaintsamsterdam.church
General: info@allsaintsamsterdam.church
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