It’s 8:00 in the morning. On this particular morning it is Mario Ruiz’s turn to unlock the doors to the Parish House while at the same time Dominic DiPaolo is tending to the Church on the Hill on Sheridan Road. Mario and Dominic take weekly turns at which sexton is at which facility as directed by Jim Caldwell, our Facilities Manager. Mario makes the coffee, decaf and regular, and then opens up the Maple Street door in time for the New Horizons weekly band rehearsal in the Guild Room. It’s Tuesday, so that also means the Chapel will need cleaning before Wednesday morning’s service, some 1500 square feet out of the 70,000 square feet the Parish House complex entails.
In the meantime, Dominic has tackled the nave and chancel at the Church on the Hill, but is conscious of the funeral scheduled for Thursday and the reception which will follow in the McClain Room and the attention he needs to give to Church House in general. He’s stewing about the Churchyard, however, because Thursday’s funeral will require digging a hole for the ashes that will be interred and it’s been cold enough to be concerned about breaking through the ground. In the meantime, Mario finds someone from the funeral home in the hallway of the Parish House with the ashes—they’re there earlier than the office expected—but Mario knows to have them placed in the Rector’s office and to make sure Molly knows as well.
It’s 8:50 by now, and Molly parks her “Good Golly” licensed white Rendezvous in the Oak Street parking lot and walks her always well put-together self across the bridge and into her office only to be met by 9 voice mails and 32 e-mails, all requiring a response or at least some triage before she can hang up her coat and scarf. Unflappable as always, Molly goes through an amazing mental prioritizing and has it all sorted out by 9:15 but with the rest of her day very clearly “booked.”
Ned, Patti, and George make it to their respective offices any time between 8:00 or 8:30 and 9:15, or even later depending on early morning meetings or pastoral concerns. On this Tuesday Patti is the first to arrive because she wants to make sure the Adult Forum offering is well publicized in the Parish Paper with Dale Krone panting to get Patti’s copy formatted and the whole issue printed and mailed by the first of the month.
Ned arrives next and Mario intercepts him to say that the ashes are in his office. George is the last to arrive this day—not because he’s got the longest commute, which he does—but because he has been to Northwestern Hospital downtown to see a parishioner who has had a hip replaced.
At 9:00 Susie Peregrine also arrives because she’s the volunteer for the reception desk and wades through the 7 or 8 voice messages that need to be passed on to the appropriate staff members. Susie also has a list of 18 phone calls the Rector has asked her to make to remind the Kerygma Bible Study members of a change in the schedule for the upcoming Thursday class. Susie thinks that with any luck the mailing that needs to be addressed and stuffed won’t appear until she’s ready to leave, but unless Susie has a meeting of the Rummage Steering Committee she’ll always stick around and lend a hand.
Cathy O’Brien has arrived a little earlier this morning because Lawson Whitesides will need some figures for his monthly Treasurer’s report to the Vestry. She also has 6 messages to return from parishioners who have questions about their quarterly statement. Cathy doesn’t mention that they are the same 6 parishioners who always call with questions about their statements, not because Cathy is flawless, but because she’s tactful and compassionate and she knows that not everyone’s cup of tea is deciphering a financial statement.
Ned arrives at 9:00 on this morning, grateful for Mario’s coffee, a little fortification for sorting out his priorities and in anticipation of meeting with the family for Thursday’s funeral. Mario tells him the ashes have arrived and Molly tells him that a draft of the funeral bulletin is on his desk. Three voice mails seem to typify a somewhat unconnected chronicle of need: The first from the Bishop’s office asking if I could give them a guess as to what our Diocesan pledge would be, the second from the Paralyzed Veterans Association asking me “How are you doing today?” The third is from the mother of a potential bride who used to go to Christ Church and whose daughter lives in San Francisco but who remembered her church school class with Mrs. Gormanous and couldn’t imagine being married anywhere else but Christ Church, and since Chicago is kind of midway between Connecticut and San Francisco it would really be convenient on the Saturday after Christmas to have the wedding here and the Women’s Club is free that day. And does it make any difference that her fiancée is a divorced Buddhist?
Sharon Staine, our Rummage Coordinator, arrives about the same time Sylvester Bona has walked over from the train, both to deal with two station-wagon loads of everything from quality rummage to wastebaskets with the trash still in them. And several phone messages about “Could you come by and pick up some stuff this afternoon?”
George gets here about 9:30 and asks Ned whether or not he’s needed for the funeral on Thursday because the sign committee needs some time to strategize their application to the Village. Ned responds that we’ll sort it all out at our staff meeting at 2:00.
By mid morning Melly Turner has arrived and gathers together the Pageant forms that have been filled out and makes some final decisions about who’s Mary, who’s Joseph, and whether we’ll have a little Jesus or a little Jesette. We laugh about John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany who had to suffer the indignity of being the only 4 th Grader ever to have played the baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant.
Rena Kowalski arrives at 11:00 and checks daily updates to the membership database—changing addresses, adding new families, recording births and baptisms, and managing any other number of details we enter in our parish records—all while she’s answering ringing phones, responding to visitors in the parish office, and preparing the outgoing mail for pickup. She also checks the board to see who’s in and who’s out so she can be more informative when calls come in requesting a particular staff member.
In the meantime, Richard Clemmitt is holding down the fort in his office in the Choir Room at the Church on the Hill and has welcomed his once- or twice-monthly choir angel moms who assemble this coming Sunday’s 60 choir folders with attention to an extra Evensong. For 2:00 staff meeting, Richard drives or bikes over to the Parish House library to be joined by Ned, Patti, George, Melly, and Molly. Richard expresses some regret that he can’t spend more time in the Parish House but then recalls when his office was in there and how often he used to cart 60 sets of vestments and choir folders over to the Church when we were a divided campus for the purposes of worship.
At the staff meeting we sort through who’s doing what for the remainder of the week and on Sunday morning, what the schedule looks like for the next 2 or 3 weeks, and then some brainstorming about the Lenten program. At one point Rena interrupts us to say there is a “knight of the road” who has presented himself at the office and would someone meet with him? Ned, Patti, and George look at each other expectantly and then ask Rena if we have a name which might determine whose “regular” he is.
At about 3:00 Jim Caldwell pokes his nose in to see if we’ve got anything for him and Molly tells him we have two more quotes on the boiler repair. Jim says, “Which boiler?” Molly says, “The one that keeps the library freezing and the workroom at 95.” Jim says, “Oh. That boiler.” Jim thinks, “Well, if you spent half the time in the library and the other half in the workroom, you would average out to 70 degrees!” but has the wisdom to keep his mouth shut.
Kirstin Synnestvedt also pokes her head into the staff meeting to double-check with Richard what her marching orders are. “Is it the Bach rather than the Mendelssohn?” she asks. Ned thinks, “I’d love either,” but like Jim Caldwell has the wisdom to keep his mouth shut.
Elizabeth Clemmitt won’t poke her head in because Primary Choir meets on Wednesday afternoons. How anyone has the skill and the patience to mold squirrelly 1 st and 2 nd Graders into those bright, shiny faces we see and voices we hear every month or so is a mystery to me but in its own way is a little piece of Heaven.
Such is a slice of life for part of one day among a dedicated, talented, hardworking, faithful staff of persons committed to supporting the ministry of this great parish. I am personally blessed by these colleagues in ministry and know for a fact that you are too, so I think it’s appropriate to express our gratitude with a round of applause.
The ministry, however, is not confined to a parish’s staff. In fact, it’s fair to say that the ministries our staff are engaged in are valuable to the degree that the ministry of every person of the parish is enhanced. The leadership for lay ministry is certainly represented by the Vestry, and so a slice of life in the part of one day for our Vestry might look like Robin Anstaett e-mailing Jen MacRitchie who in turn could be e-mailing some of us about a newcomers event, Carol Schroeder calling Rick Jones about an Investment Committee report, Rick Jones calling Cathy O’Brien to inquire about the bank balances, Ken Gould holding a meeting of the various outreach chairs to coordinate our efforts on behalf of others, Rick Potter meeting with Elise Covey to plan for the replacement of trees in our churchyard, Steve Anderson preparing a report using Bob Horne’s data on the potential for developing the West Building, Molly Bayley distributing minutes of a Music and Worship Committee meeting, Curt Voges conferring with George Smith on a possible Jr. High event, Esther Berry taking communion to the housebound as part of the Pastoral Care Committee, Steve Hudson collaborating with Julie Flood on finishing the Stewardship campaign, Gary Martin e-mailing Bishop Benito about a mission trip to Southeast Mexico, Jim McGee sifting requests for non-budget expenditures, Barbara Spencer showing someone our parish hall for a potential rental, Lawson Whitesides putting together a budget, John Lien helping with leases for our tenants, and George Harmon sending out Vestry minutes for proofreading. And yet even with that leadership represented by the Vestry, it is only the tip of the iceberg which has been faithfully represented in the Annual Reports which are before you. However, the Vestry works extraordinarily hard to further the mission of our parish and they, too, deserve a round of thanks.
As long as we’re on slices of life, my partner for life can be found volunteering in the office, singing in the choir, driving the Lost Boys of the Sudan to medical or dental appointments, and informing anyone who might listen that celiac disease can be found in 1 of 130 persons. Because she is a loving mother, she knows more about Type I Diabetes, Celiac Disease, and other autoimmune diseases than anyone I know of including lots of medical doctors. Bev is not only my life partner in marriage, she is also my joy and loving support as are our children and their guys and we’re all happy that Nick, our Christmas collie, is to be included in that mix.
Some staff changes of note: Sharon Staine’s resignation as Rummage Coordinator and Irene Maniewski’s enthusiasm for that baton, Julian Collins as a dedicated Rummage sexton, Dale Krone’s resignation as the Parish Paper Editor after 13 faithful and enormously competent years of communicating parish life to all of us, and George Smith’s resignation as he has responded to the call of St. Mark’s, Glen Ellyn, to become their next rector. We hope to hire a Curate next summer, and in the meantime to welcome Heather Voss, interim Chaplain at Canterbury Northwestern, who will provide us with some help with youth groups and Confirmation class in George’s absence. In the meantime, February 12 will be George’s last Sunday and we will have occasion then to thank him for his work with us.
Looking back at 2005, I think the highlight in everybody’s minds was our 100 th Anniversary of the dedication of this Christ Church on the Hill. The planning, the dinner, the service and the publication of Bob Bradner’s history were all of a piece, “magical” even. And it was for me an occasion of enormous gratitude and pure privilege to have played a part in my 14 th year of those 100 years. Isn’t there an expression like “Time flies…?” The icing on the dessert of that celebration was May Leonard’s 100 th birthday on Sunday, December 18. That was the morning of our church school pageant, and we dedicated the pageant to May calling her our official “Bethlehem Star.”
We packed a lot into 2005 including 22 baptisms, 23 persons Confirmed and Received, 7 weddings, 29 funerals, and a very successful choir trip to England numbering 80 parishioners. Remembering that it is this place where so many of life’s transitions can be celebrated or lifted up to the God who welcomes us and walks with us every step of those ways.
Short of another Centennial celebration, 2006 will prove to be just as active and fulfilling as 2005. Part of our Centennial celebration included the announcement of a new sign for Christ Church on the corner of Humboldt Avenue and Sheridan Road. We hope to finance that sign largely through pew dedications, but we hope anyone who might wish to contribute toward it will also feel included. A facsimile of the sign (which does not do justice to the stone sign we expect) is already in place plus the drawing on page 20.
Global Mission is becoming a vital part of our parish consciousness, particularly in the support of our Diocesan companion dioceses of Southeast Mexico and Renk in the Sudan. An exploratory trip to Mexico last spring will be broadened with another anticipated trip this June, working toward a parish companion relationship with the parish of Jesus de Nazareth in Esperanza, state of Vera Cruz. The Vestry has also adopted the support of St. Michael’s parish in Pollack, Sudan, a parish with no building but with two very dedicated priests whose annual salaries of $2,500 each will be our privilege to underwrite.
Global mission, however, is not a matter of an affluent parish making it possible for parishes in struggling areas of the world to survive, but rather to learn how it is that those parishes are thriving in faith and in numbers despite the horrific conditions of their particular cultures. What can we learn from them about Christian joy in the face of poverty and persecution? We have every bit as much to gain by this form of reaching out. We have every bit as much to be enriched in these relationships.
Last year’s Annual Meeting promised a report on the progress of development of the West Building. That report can be found on page 22 and proves to be an exciting prospect of enhancement for the rental value of that building and for the continued, enhanced value of Rummage. Because the plan presupposes financing, all of us will have a chance to vote if that’s what we want to do or not. There will be ample opportunity to look at these plans and have questions answered before we vote, but I believe strongly that we should all be pleased with the prospects this plan represents.
One new venture that we might enjoy is called the “North Shore Opera Hour” envisioned by our choir’s section leaders using the Great Hall and stage in a cabaret setting once or twice a year. This would be a Cynthia–Tina–Luis–Ryan–Bob initiative, a taste of which we enjoyed at the Centennial dinner. More about that as plans unfold.
Church growth, or the lack of it, is much in the news these days. The balance of power in Christianity itself is shifting from the Western Church represented in Europe and the United States to the global South in Africa and Asia.
In the United States we are conscious of the growth in so-called mega churches, growth that is aimed at the unchurched but also seems to come at the expense of traditional, mainline denominations. From my vantage point I see two very different Christianities represented by church growth: one that requires a mind-numbing or a mind-controlling adherence to various kinds of fundamentalisms and another that requires little or no commitment other than showing up.
Mormons might fit the first category with their requirement to tithe and two years of missionary work and belief in a scripture other than the Old and New Testaments. (No smoking, drinking or caffeine either, and they’re probably healthier because of it.)
And Willow Creek down the road in Barrington with one of its franchises right here at the Christian Heritage Academy would seem to fit the second category, namely those churches that require very little, at least initially, in the way of commitment.
Can you imagine in the first instance my insistence on seeing your tax return in order to compare it to your pledge and if you come up short of 10% telling you you’re no longer a member?
Or can you imagine my telling you the last capital campaign was going to finance a food court so that you could come to church with a frappecino in hand to sit in our plush new auditorium and entertainment center with the big screen?
The mega churches came up for some criticism last Christmas by not having services on Christmas Day which was on a Sunday. We did, adding 50 or so to the 1,000 who came for Christmas Eve. Willow Creek, in the meantime, settled for the 50,000 that came Christmas Eve while giving everyone Sunday morning off.
But I, for one, in thinking back over those slices of parish life we’ve just lifted up see an enormous commitment and growth in faith and in service we pray will be pleasing to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—a faith that isn’t afraid to ask questions and to include the inquirer, faith that stretches us rather than confines us. And I see a sacrificial spirit in our giving and in our outreach patterned after Christ’s sacrificial life. I see worship in the beauty of holiness, offering the best we have in gratitude for the God who saves and redeems us. I see minds at work as well as hands, searching the scriptures for the word of God, and I see that word become flesh and dwelling among us. This is Christ’s Church, and we are his family. He has claimed us as his own, and what more could we ever hope or want. To that end we are called, and to that we have come, and to that I will continue to count myself grateful to be your Rector. Thank you.
