A Note from Peter (March 2019)

The Church has the ability to transform the world. This fact is patently obvious if one looks at the last 2,000 or so years of world history. What may be less obvious is that the Church has been at its most influential when it has been committed to and sustained by regular spiritual practices. Christians taking on habits of retreat, study, and service have transformed the world in the past and can continue to do so in the present.

As I’ve prepared for sabbatical, I’ve been immersing myself in a great deal of early church history. As I’ve read about 1st-3rd century Rome, 5th-8th century Ireland, 6th-8th century Britain, and 13th century Assisi, a very clear pattern has emerged. That is, a small group of committed Christians, bound together by shared spiritual practices, can turn the world on its head. A few examples:

In the year 500, Britain was in chaos. Rome had long since left the island and with it had gone both literacy and most of the Church. Then, in 563 a group of a dozen Irish monks, led by a fellow named Columba, arrived at the tiny island of Iona in western Scotland. There they established a place of prayer, learning, and outreach to the local population. Sustained by common worship and common work, Iona soon began spreading the faith across Scotland and into northern England while also serving as a center of art, study, and diplomacy.

In 597, the year Columba died, a fellow named Augustine arrived in Canterbury, England. He had been sent to spread the faith in that region by Pope Gregory the Great. Both Gregory and Augustine were monks as well; they followed the rule of St. Benedict. Both men were sustained by regular practices of prayer, work, rest, and study – all done in community. When he arrived in England with his fellow monks, the first thing Augustine did was build an Abbey where these practices could find a home. Within 75 years, the Christian faith would have spread across Britain and the learning of British monks would help transform the educational systems of the rest of Europe.

In 1205, a war veteran named Francis enlisted for the second time, still bearing the scars of his last enlistment. While on the way to battle, a vision stopped him in his tracks and he returned home. Thereafter, he began ordering his days around receiving the Eucharist, contemplation, caring for the sick, and living simply. Others quickly flocked to Francis’ company and habits, and before long, these Friars (or brothers) and their female counterparts, the Poor Clares, were turning the Church and the world on their heads, calling them away from their excesses and back to the heart of the Gospel.

Like our ancestors in the faith, we are at our best as Christians when our lives are ordered around worship, study, and charity. We are most effective at transforming the world, when we have devoted our- selves to the habits that transform us.

Next Wednesday, I will stand in front of the congregation and read those familiar words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy: “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination, and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” Truly, this season of forty days before Easter is our opportunity to recommit to a rule of life – to spiritual habits and practices – that will empower us for ministry just as they did for our ancestors for centuries.

What practices will you take on this Lent? Maybe you’ll recommit to making Sunday worship a priority – both here in Greenwood and wherever you find yourself on Sunday morning. Maybe you’ll recommit to the Bible Challenge, giving up on the idea of catching up, and instead joining us where we are. Maybe you’ll commit to volunteering in a ministry whose mission you believe in. Maybe you’ll join other church members in a discipline of weekday Morning Prayer.

Who knows, perhaps the spiritual practices we take on this Lent can become our way of life far beyond Easter! And with these habits of worship, study, and service sustaining us, who knows? We just might transform the world!

Peace, Peter+

What is Godly Play?

Godly Play is a way of religious education. The goal of Godly Play is to teach children the art of using the language of the Christian tradition to encounter God and find direction for their lives. There are six objectives that help meet this goal.

1. To model how to wonder in religious education, so children can “enter” religious language rather than merely repeating it or talking about it.
2. To show children how to create meaning with the language of the Christian tradition and how this can involve them in the experience of the Creator.
3. To show children how to choose their own work, so they can confront their own existential limits and depth issues rather than work on other kinds of problems dictated by others, including adults.
4. To organize the educational time to follow the pattern of worship that the Christian tradition has found to be the best way to be with God in community.
5. To show children how to work together as a community by supporting and respecting each other and one another’s quest.
6. To organize the educational space so that the whole system of Christian language is present in the room, so children can literally walk into that language domain when they enter the room and can begin to make connections among its various arts as they work with the lesson of the day and their responses in art or other lessons.

(Berryman, J., Teaching Godly Play, 1995).

KEY CONCEPTS OF GODLY PLAY:

• Godly Play grew out of Montessori roots and is based on the principles of Montessori education
• Children will be greeted at the door of the Godly Play room ready to enter the space and say goodbye to their caregiver
• “Work” in Godly Play is child-directed. Children will choose what they want to do, such as art activities (coloring, crafts), discovering Godly Play materials, cleaning the room (sweeping, dusting), etc.
• What children choose to say and do in the Godly Play classroom is sacred; therefore, the Godly Play leaders will not comment on what children said or chose to do each week. Caregivers should allow children to share what they choose to after a Godly Play session

GODLY PLAY AT NATIVITY:

• Children in 3k-5k and grades 1-5 are invited to participate in Godly Play each week
• Class will begin at 9:30 and end at approximately 11:00. *Please be mindful of the start time of 9:30, latecomers might potentially disrupt the Biblical story for the day
• Children should be brought to the door of the classroom where they will be greeted by a Godly Play leader
• There will be two Godly Play leaders present each week
• Children can be picked up at the door of the classroom at 11:00 or they will be escorted into the church to find their parents
• The focus of Godly Play is not on making products, so please do not expect paperwork or organized artwork to accompany your child
• A small snack is giving during the “feast,” but please keep in mind that this is not substantial. The feast typically consists of water and a few pretzels or crackers, the idea is to mimic Communion

We look forward to spending time with your child in the Godly Play environment while learning and growing together. If there are questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Lindsay Powers (lpowers106@gmail.com, 662-466-1114)

Minister’s message is simple: Jesus

To hear Will Willimon tell it, he’s a Methodist preacher who likes to talk about Jesus.

“I think when it comes down to it, Jesus is the most interesting thing Christians have to say to the world and to themselves,” he said in a recent phone interview.

Willimon, who’s also a former bishop of the North Alabama United Methodist Conference, professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke University Divinity School, and the author of 70 books that have sold more than a million copies, will spend next weekend in Greenwood talking about his favorite subject.

Hosted by the Episcopal Church of the Nativity, he will give lectures on the night of March 3 and the morning of March 4 and a sermon at Nativity on March 5. The entire community is encouraged to attend, said Nativity Rector Rev. Peter Gray.

Willimon holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Emory, in addition to 13 honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees.

He said he has been blessed in his long career to “be a bishop for eight years in Alabama, a parish pastor for about 10 years and a professor and minister at a fine university  for 20 years.

“I’ve had a variety of opportunities to see Jesus at work and to see people responding to him in a variety of ways,” he said.

At the heart of his teachings about preaching and about Jesus is Willimon’s strong belief in redemptive possibility. That, he said, is one of the blessings of being a Christian in Mississippi.

Willimon started out preaching in a small South Carolina town and has spent most of his life in the South, encouraging racial reconciliation as a Christian’s duty.  

Most recently he published “Who Lynched Willie Earle: Confronting Racism Through Preaching,” a book rooted in his early life experience and his life teaching others how to preach about difficult issues.

The book begins with a historical narrative “that happened at the hands of people in my hometown,” Willimon said.

In Greenville, South Carolina, in 1947, a black man named Willie Earle was dragged out of a jail cell and brutally murdered in what’s generally considered the last public lynching in South Carolina.

“There was an internationally prominent trial where all 31 white lynchers were acquitted and Strom Thurmond bragged to the governor, ‘Hey, at least we had a trial,’” Willimon said.

Willimon said that  though he grew up in the midst of it, he didn’t hear about Willie Earle until he was in college.

“Since then, I’ve had a kind of lifelong interest in it,” he said.

The part of the narrative that inspired him and others was a sermon by a young Methodist preacher who came to South Carolina shortly after the lynching.

“He stood up and preached and said, ‘Who killed Willie Earle? We all know the answer to that question; it was those men who lynched him,’” Willimon said.

“But that answer was too simple. He went on to say that ‘we’ killed Willie Earle with our segregation laws and economic injustices and our history of discrimination. It was an amazing act of courage, a response to a terrible tragedy of many dimensions.”

The book asks what it means to speak out about race through sermons, and it draws on sermons from some of Willimon’s students following the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston.

“What I try to say is that America’s racism is an opportunity to proclaim the gospel, to say that the redemptive possibilities of God are just limitless,” he said.

Willimon says people would often question him in his attempts to renew and transform the church in Alabama.

“They’d say, ‘Bishop, do you think we can really change the course of history?’ And I’d say, ‘I really believe it is the nature of God to change people.’”

Willimon said preachers are accustomed to talking about things people often would rather they not bring up, and dealing with doubts is one of the great gifts of the ministry.

Recently engaged with students talking about the particular challenges of this time in America, Willimon said the conversation turned to “what a great time (it is) to talk and to see our national situation as a call to teaching and to reflection for sermons.

“It’s great to turn to Jesus for help  just thinking this through,” he said. “The constructive approach is not to fret, to say, ‘I’m going to try to think like a Christian about this.’”

Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.