Grace Notes

Diocesan Convention
As I write this I am anticipating the Convention of the Diocese of Newark which will be held on Friday, January 27 and Saturday, January 28 in Parsippany, New Jersey.

Conventions and Synods and Councils are nothing new for the Church. The first Church Council is recorded in Acts 15 and was held to settle the a dispute at the highest levels of the Church about whether or not Gentile converts to Christianity were required to keep the Law of Moses, especially regarding kosher and male circumcision. (That first council might also be referenced in Galatians 2, which describes a strong disagreement between Saint Peter and Saint Paul about the same issue). It's interesting to note that the council arrived at something of a compromise: Gentile Christians didn't have to keep kosher or be circumcised, but the consumption of blood or meat improperly killed or prepared was still forbidden. Read more...

Grace Notes

Grace Church Annual Meeting
Today Grace Church holds its Annual Meeting. While most congregations in the Episcopal Church do have their Annual Meetings in January (it's convenient for Treasurers working on a January through December fiscal year and it more or less feels right having it sometime near what most of us experience as the beginning of the year), this is one of the very few Dioceses I've served in which has its Diocesan Convention in the same month that most of its parishes has its Annual Meeting (the most common months for Diocesan Conventions seem to be November and February).

This means a lot of work for a lot of people (including your rector) crammed into a very small window of time. And of course the rest of the Church's usual activities and needs continue. Sundays still come every week. People still get sick. But the work we do in this time is important. Whenever more than a few people work together, some structure is usually necessary to be effective, and the Church isn't immune from that reality. So, though it can sometimes be inconvenient, we gather every so often to make decisions about our common life and mission. Read more...