About 2 years ago my family and I came to Grace Church for the very first time. At our other church I was good friends with the people involved with the youth but not anyone else. Everyone we met that day was so welcoming and took me and my family in like we were already part of their family. I will never forget how the youth that were already here included my sister Kirsty and I in everything from the first day we came. At first there we only a few of us in the youth but in the past two years it has grown dramatically and I’m so happy that I could be a part of it. For me, it’s not only the youth that make Grace Church as great as it is, its everyone that has been a part of it for a very long time that really makes it feel like a family. Everyone can be a part of something in the Church. In today’s society people are very quick to judge people they have never met which sadly I was afraid of when we came to Grace for the first time. As soon as we walked in everyone was so friendly and I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. The environment is always very happy and safe whether it’s very serious or joking around, everyone speaks their mind while others listen with caring hearts. I cannot think of a time where I was ever uncomfortable sharing things with anyone in the church. I am so happy to be a part of this amazing place and to know everyone in it. Thank you to everyone that made me and my family welcome here. -- Kyla Thompson, Youth Group, Mission Team Member & Acolyte The Vestry and Stewardship Commission ask for your prayers and pledge commitment to the mission and ministry of Grace Church for 2015. As of November 23, 2014 ...
Two weeks ago, Al Horton came to me to ask me to do one of these Ministry Minutes. And despite having two weeks to prepare, I find myself reading from this notebook with words I scrawled this morning during Youth Formation and Children’s Church. This is not the result of procrastination. I have spent the better part of a week writing, re-writing, editing, re-structuring… But nothing was coming out right. I would start by waxing nostalgically about how Grace reminds me of the church of my youth, the same sense of family and fun that comes with belonging to this group. But then in the middle I would switch over and start to explore my dissatisfaction with the world I see around me, and at Grace I have found a kinship with people who also feel that dissatisfaction and try to work in small ways to make big changes. And then I would change train of thought again and talk of my personal journey of exploring my beliefs, not really feeling like I fit in anywhere, until finding Grace Church and its collection of wonderfully crazy characters. After a week of back and forth, the whole thing was turning into a convoluted mess that if I continued threatened to turn into a twenty minute sermon, and I know better than to get between a group of Episcopalians and their coffee. By 8:30 last night I was frustrated and ready to throw the whole thing out the window (except I did not want to do that to my laptop). My hope was that in the morning I would have an epiphany and be able to straighten the whole thing out. But as I got up to head to work at 5AM this morning, I still felt as much frustration about the whole thing as I did the night before. I was tired and uninspired. And then I heard my mother’s voice in the back of my head with one of her “Mom-isms”: K.I.S.S= Keep It Simple, Stupid Strangely, it was a revelation. I was over complicating everything, trying to say too much in too little time. This is an all too familiar pattern in my life. I pile things on and become lost in the wash. That was how I became separated from the Church in the first place. I became too busy, and never felt a pull to attend that part of my life. I never stopped feeling like an Episcopalian. If anyone asked me what religion I was, I did not hesitate to answer. But I did not have a place where I belonged. I have found that place in Grace Church. When I feel lost in the chaos that can be my life, being here at Grace somehow grounds me and can help me fee l like life is not overwhelming. Not that Grace is an uncomplicated place. It has its own complexities, but we try to come together as a family to sort it out. That’s what family is. Sticking together through all the craziness, keeping each other afloat. In the whirl that has become my life, Grace Church has become my anchor. For that I thank and love all of you. -- Ruth Bushnell, Children's Church, Prayer Shawl minister, and awesome banner maker! The Vestry and Stewardship Team ask for your prayers and pledge commitment to the mission and ministry of Grace Church for 2015. As of November 16, 2014 ...
I love Grace Church for lots of different reasons. I love the family community, the youth group, the faith everyone here has, but most of all, I love Grace Church because of how close I’ve become with God since coming here. Before coming to Grace, it had been a while since we had been to a church that we regularly attended. It wasn’t until I was in fifth grade that we decided to look for a new church again. Every weekend, we would look for churches in the area, and try them out. We tried church after church, but we didn’t really seem to find a church we loved. We eventually stumbled upon Grace and decided to give it a try. I loved it. I wanted to come back each time, and I really started seeing God. You see, before we found Grace I believed in God, and I prayed when I needed something,when I wanted to have a good day, I prayed when I went to church and I sat at our church listening to stories from the Bible, but I never really worshipped God like I should have. I didn’t thank God everyday, or pray for others to do well and get better, I didn’t recognize all God does for me, and I blamed him when things went wrong. I turned to God when I needed to do well on a test, or when I wanted that new toy or clothes. I wasn’t really a Christian. I knew my faith wasn’t strong, and I didn’t want to go to church, but I told myself, “You’re just a kid, it doesn’t matter if you go to church, you can wait a few years and start worshiping God, its all the same.” Then I found Grace Episcopal, and I started really seeing God. I saw Him in who I was and everything I do. I started worshipping God like I should, not just praying to ask for something and only looking towards Him when I wanted something. Grace strengthened my faith. An example was the first mission trip, I grew closer with the youth group and I grew closer with God. In helping people and doing God’s work and helping others I realized that God was with us and these people we helped were so thankful, and God had brought us there, I saw that God was with us all and that was a time I realized that you don’t have to be a certain age to love and worship God. Now, I want to go to church and I want to see God everyday. That’s why I love Grace Church. Because of Grace, my faith is now stronger than it ever was. -- Julie Horton, Youth Group member & spaghetti chef The Vestry and Stewardship Team ask for your prayers and pledge commitment to the mission and ministry of Grace Church for 2015. As of November 9, 2014 ...
Reflecting upon the point of the ministry minutes, I thought about why I love Grace Church, and of what brought me here. I decided to make that point by speaking of my journey as a Christian-which started some time ago, but did not begin in earnest until I found Grace (the church and the gift). I was baptized into the Episcopal Church as an adult, and I thought I knew what that meant. I attended church regularly. I sang in the choir and served on committees. I believed in God and Jesus Christ and I read the Bible. I got married, I had children, and my life got busy. I slowly drifted away from the church. My family and I moved from New York to Virginia and when we got here, we found a church. We attended church regularly. I served on committees. I believed in God and Jesus Christ and I read the Bible. My life got busy and I slowly drifted away from church. I’m sure you can see the pattern. I was doing well in life; or so I thought. I was moving toward the top of my career field. I had money to buy the things I wanted and to do the things I wanted to do. We were…blessed? Roxanna and I – mostly Roxanna – knew we were missing church and set out to find a new spiritual home. We tried a few churches and once or twice thought we found the right one; but we never really got comfortable. Then I came –rather reluctantly and with some “false starts” to Grace. The first time I sat in these pews, something happened to me. It was a feeling that I had that I was in the right place. The more I came to Grace, the more I saw the truth of my life. I was not entirely happy. I began to put my faith more and more ahead of myself, the more I began to understand why. Since being baptized, I had been calling myself a Christian, but I had not been living as one. Anyone who saw how I lived may have said otherwise, but I had begun to know better. Very soon after coming to Grace I started making changes. I made a decision to live as a disciple (with a small ”d”) of Christ. One of the things I decided was to give the gifts that God had given me back to Him. I made a plan to start tithing, and within a year I was. I don’t want to make this just about money, because it’s more than that. Although during a stewardship drive I do not want to undersell that. It did not take me long to realize that I was working in a career that was contrary to living the Gospel. I had a company that worked in a variety of areas of the US Government supporting mostly Defense and Intel agencies. The work I was doing was in support of programs that were perpetuating many of the bad things we see in the news every day. I decided to take the next step in living right. To give up the life of things and to take real action toward living the life that Jesus tells us to live. To “sell everything and follow” Him. And so I did. Earlier this year I quit my job. I sold out of my company and started toward being a true follower of Jesus Christ. I continue to tithe to Grace, but sometimes it takes longer to make that happen. It has caused pain and fear and struggle; but I am happier than I have been in a very long time. And that is why I love Grace. Grace is truly a place that is filled with the Holy Spirit. A place where, if you let it, the Holy Spirit will work through you. The people here at grace are a big part of that. They are welcoming and accepting and loving. They have made it possible to realize that I am worthy of the Grace that God has given me. I have learned to overcome the fear that I had and to realize that God will give us what we need if we make the decision to give our lives fully to Him. I love Grace Church because it brought me full circle on a journey that I had been on for a very long time. As a point of reference, I had no religious upbringing, had never been in a church, and had a complete disdain for what could be affectionately called “organized religion”. I had no time or interest in seeking a spiritual home. That changed dramatically with a tragedy that struck friends of our family. I was deeply moved by the courage that was shown by this family in the face of incredible loss and asked my daughter where they got the strength to deal with an unimaginable tragedy and level of pain that I knew I could never come back from personally. My daughter informed me that they were getting a lot of support from the community within their church, and that was a large part of what was holding the family together. At that point I realized there was something profoundly missing in my life, and began my journey seeking a spiritual home. I went to the Unitarian Congregation, and they were very nice people. I went to the Presbyterian Church, and they were very nice people. I went to a Non-Denominational Church, and they were very, very nice people. The only thing all these experiences had in common was that everywhere I went I found very nice people, but nowhere did I feel that I had found what I was looking for. I was almost at the point of quitting what I had started to believe was a “fool’s errand” when my best friend said to me “you are an Episcopalian at heart, go look!” So I Googled Episcopal Churches in Brunswick Maryland and Grace Church popped up. I grabbed my cousin and in we came. I was greeted at the door by Susan Mann who was friendly and gracious. I looked around and thought what a beautiful church, and the processional began and the music was inspirational. I thought to myself “this is really going very well” until… The Priest stepped forward after the processional and announced to the congregation “You are not going to hear the sermon that I prepared this week. We have lost a member of our church family. A member of our confirmation class took her own life.” At this point I put my foot against the pew: I had read about this before, suicide, mortal sin, not going to heaven. I thought I could make a discreet exit, but then Mother Anjel Scarborough said “Make no mistake, she was sick. It was an illness that took her life like any other illness and she is with God.” I did not know this young woman, but a wave of emotion flooded through me. People in the congregation started crying and holding each other. Anjel+ came out into the congregation and held and comforted people. It was at that point I realized I had come full circle. A community supporting itself in tragedy, but it was something more. I was the farthest thing in the world from a religious person, but I knew at that moment that I was witnessing God’s love wrapping itself around and through everyone in Grace Church that day. It was God’s love that held that family together in tragedy, I just wasn’t smart enough to see it. I had been looking for a support group, but what I found was God’s love at Grace Church. A couple of weeks later I met with Anjel+ over coffee to discuss Grace becoming my spiritual home, and I stared the conversation with “You are going to think I’m crazy.” She stared for a minute, tilted her head and said “Nah, I’ve met crazy and you ain’t it!” THAT IS WHY I LOVE GRACE CHURCH! |
Ministry MinutesEach year during our Annual Giving Campaign, members of Grace Church tell their stories about why they love Grace Church and why they are involved. Each story is different in details but all reflect the love of Christ which is found in this community of faith. Archives
October 2017
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