Category Archives: Welcoming

Making a welcome, making all feel welcome – and making the coffee!

Easter Preparations: Flowers for Holy Saturday April 23

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If you’d like to contribute toward Easter Flowers, in memory or thanksgiving, please click here for a form to return with your donation.

Acknowledgments will be both printed in News from Nick and on a card placed in a floral arrangement at Easter. Of course, you are still welcome to bring in flowers for Easter on Holy Saturday during the day.

It has been a long-standing tradition at St Nick’s that the main celebration of Easter is actually the night before, on what is called Holy Saturday. It’s a big night, with plenty of extra readings and music, but also lots of light, color, and flowers. The sanctuary starts out pretty bare and dark, but then once the Light of the World is proclaimed, all the lights go up, the choir sings a joyful anthem, and everyone else helps to decorate the altar and the area around the sanctuary with the spring flowers and Easter lilies that they have brought along and left in the gathering space. We still plan for this, but decided this year to ensure that there were plenty of flowers to arrange by ordering some in advance, with dedications.

Easter Sunday is usually a more family-oriented service, but with less of the darkness and drama and more bright colors and flowers. Together with Holy Week, it’s the most important celebration of the year for liturgical Christians, followed closely by Christmas and our own patrons feasts in December.

Commentary on an old @ChicagoTribune Seeker post from 2008

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Your church webmistress and blogmistress found this old article at the Chicago Tribune’s Seeker blog before she found a later one where our Bishop Jeffrey Lee was a guest blogger. It’s an interesting look back at “where we were,” and how glad we are to have put that era of conflict behind us.

Having met Presiding Bishop Schori when she visited St Nicholas Episcopal Church in Elk Grove Village a few years ago, it’s interesting to look back at the negative attitudes that some held against her and the whole “gay Bishop” issue just a few years ago. Enough time has gone by that most of the dust has settled, and those on either side of the debate have had some time to breathe, reflect, and carry on doing God’s work as we see fit.

Lambeth 2008 turned out to be an interesting and frustrating experience watching it from afar; it brought the innovative “Indaba” discussions to the fore, and it also featured the shameful treatment of Bishop Gene Robinson, who was *not* invited although he was (and is until he retires soon) the elected bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. Bp. Katharine was also treated rather shabbily by the traditionalist establishment at Lambeth, a situation she weathered with grace and good humor.

Meanwhile, progressive contacts in the English church continue to ask their American cousins in faith to continue to lead the way to a more inclusive church and not to abandon gay parishioners and clergy for “the bottom line.” The situation in Uganda, with murders and attacks on gay Anglicans, requires us to be a witness for peace, reconciliation, and Christian charity.

Strange as previous commenters may find it, since Lambeth the consensus in the American church is that Bp. Katharine is the right person for the job, as she has skillfully guided us through stormy waters. The discord and unhappiness from the traditionalists has faded as they have either left the “Godless liberals” behind for churches arranged more to their liking, or as they have had a change of heart and embraced change.

Meanwhile, Episcopal churches like St Nick’s continue to welcome new members who are looking for a modern church, with a strong foundation in God’s word, that will *accept them unconditionally.* Those who left are missed, and we hope that they will eventually find their way home, but if they cannot according to their own consciences, we wish them God’s peace.

Yes, some consolidation and shrinkage has happened, but nobody misses the old conficts and discord. And now many churches (like mine) find themselves energized and renewed, able to welcome new people who couldn’t care less about those old issues; they’re attracted by good preaching, good liturgy, and good programs that speak to their hearts and feed their souls.

I’d like to see some newer articles covering Chicago Episcopalian news that *don’t* revolve around the gay clergy/woman clergy issue, such as the work our new Bishop Jeffrey Lee is doing, and what is really going on out here in the trenches. As it’s 3 years on, yet another story with a “those Episcopalians and their gay clergy” angle would not be very interesting.

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Pledges, Time, Treasure… Groceries, Books, DVDs, Kitchenware

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We welcome pledges at any time throughout the year, but we especially encourage those who have not yet submitted a pledge to St. Nicholas for 2011 to do so as soon as possible. You’ll find the pledge form at the church at this link [PDF file: PledgeCard]

In the Episcopal Church, and specifically at St. Nicholas, we pledge to give some of our treasure to St. Nicholas Church. Pledging allows your Bishop’s Committee to accurately budget for programming, staffing, worship, outreach and facilities upkeep each year. But just as importantly, pledging allows each of us to reflect upon the ways in which we choose to share some of what we’ve been given with others. Pledging is a sign of our commitment, not only to St. Nicholas, but to each other as well. When we prayerfully fill out a pledge card, we are saying that we realize the church indeed belongs to us, the people of St. Nicholas, but more importantly that we understand it belongs to everyone. We are sending a message that we wish to be part of helping St. Nicholas continue its tradition of welcoming all.

As much as we’d love to write simply about our mission and ministries, the reality is it takes financial resources to keep our doors open and our lights shining brightly to and for all. Our new building is a blessing, but it requires maintenance. Our instruments – organ, pianos and human voices – assist us in joyful and meaningful worship, but they require tuning and printed music. Our Food Pantry serves countless guests, but the gas and electric bills must be paid so that we have a place in which they may choose their items.

We ask that you prayerfully consider making a pledge to St. Nicholas for 2011. The amount you pledge is not nearly as important as the fact that you choose to pledge as a sign of your commitment to the mission, ministries and realities of St. Nicholas. Click here to get your pledge card and either return it by mail or place it in the offering on Saturday or Sunday.

An additional way to support St Nicholas is to sign up with Dominick’s Grocery Stores to donate a percentage of your purchases to the church if you get one of their Fresh Values cards. This is especially valuable if you purchase healthy non-perishable food items for donations to our Food Pantry on Sundays (or drop off any time the church is open for a meeting).

Yet another way to support St Nicholas is to use the Amazon Search box on each page to purchase books, DVDs, kitchenware, or electronics. This can be especially handy at “St Nicholastide” or Christmas – there are all kinds of things available on Amazon.com that would make great gifts for friends and family. Did you know that there are chocolate candy St Nicholases, and musical snowglobe St Nicholases?

Of course, the most important way to help support St Nicholas and the work that our community does (including the support groups, the little Bulgarian school, and the food pantry volunteers) is simply to be here with us, and to tell a friend.