Leadership Program for Musicians announces 2013-2014 classes

The new Leadership Program for Musicians (LPM) program year begins September 13-14. LPM is a national program for church musicians, "trained" musicians AND enthusiastic amateurs - choir members, clergy, Music & Worship Committees, and anyone who loves church music. This year's courses are: Liturgy and Music: Foundations for Christian Worship;  Principles of Choral Leadership; Teaching New Music to the Congregation; and Philosophy of Church Music.  Take all four courses or one at a time. Register before September 1 and save $50. Click here for details and registration information.

Volunteer Program for churches seeking to participate in Hurricane Sandy recovery

Volunteers are the key to recovery and renewal for communities along the East Coast devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Episcopal Relief and Development and the Dioceses of NY, New Jersey, Long Island & Easton, MD have set up a Volunteer Program to help your church participate in that recovery. The Volunteer Program is structured to provide a deep, meaningful experience that take volunteers beyond just having a hammer in their hand to a place of better understanding how service, learning and reflection can truly transform all involved. Through this opportunity of community service volunteers have a chance to effect change in their own lives while serving the vulnerable along the Eastern Seaboard.     

We have added a Hurricane Sandy Recovery page to our website to help the churches of Southern Virginia learn more about the Volunteer Program and to connect with each other in planning trips to assist with recovery. If your church is planning to participate in the program and would like to invite individuals to join you, we will post your upcoming trip on our website. After you return, we invite you to share your story and pictures to encourage others to join in this effort. 

Convocation II Day of Service: Community Day at Good Samaritan, Virginia Beach

Convocation II churches are joining with Good Samaritan, Virginia Beach, in presenting a Community Day on May 4 from 1:00 to 5:00pm for the neighborhood surrounding Good Samaritan. The Western Bayside section of Virginia Beach is a community in which many residents are struggling day to day and that has one of the higher crime rates. Neighborhood churches - Good Samaritan, Enoch Baptist and Heritage Methodist Church - have come together as the Western Bayside Churches United in order to better reach out to their neighbors in need. Together they hold a Community Day in May and again at the end of August. City agencies - police, health, and family services - and agencies providing financial assistance are all on hand. The churches provide free food and entertainment for the children. The event requires many volunteers; the fall Community Day drew 3,000 people from the neighborhood. For more information about the Community Day, contact the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson, wendywilk54@verizon.net, or Carol Buckalew, cbuckalew@cox.net.

Convocation III work day at ODU Canterbury Center

Convocation III churches are planning a work day at the Old Dominion University  Canterbury Center, Norfolk, on Saturday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Click here for the event flyer. We hope to see lots of parishes represented! Jobs range from very simple to slightly more complex, but nothing requiring exceptionally high levels of skill. Some require getting up on ladders, others don't. There's lots of landscaping to be done, too, for those who want to dig in the dirt. And we'll need at least one team to help with snacks/lunch for the workers.

This will be such a huge help to Canterbury Center--making the property look much sharper and saving it a lot of money in its maintenance budget. The Canterbury Center has spent well over $30,000 on big-ticket deferred maintenance items since August, so every bit of donated skill and labor and materials to fix the little things is invaluable.

If your parish is planning on sending a group, please have someone call the Rev. Gillian Barr, ODU Canterbury Chaplain, so she can make sure there are enough supplies and supervisors, 757-351-4513. Workers should wear sturdy shoes, and bring work gloves if they have them. Additional gear will depend on which project(s) your team would like to focus on.

Thank you so much for your support of the Canterbury Center!

Belizean beaches, Holy Cross hard work and spiritual sentiments

By William Lee, William & Mary Canterbury

"Toes" by Zac Brown band plays in my headphones, over which I've pulled my cowboy hat, as I and 23 other Canterburians ride the Water Taxi from mainland Belize to the island of San Pedro where Holy Cross Anglican School is located. Fifteen hours of travel total to our beachside lodgings and hammocks. All last semester, Canterbury raised $14,000 (which equaled $28,000 in their currency) to buy the materials to build a palapa, an outdoor classroom with a thatched roof, and reflective paint for some of the roofs of the school.

The actual work consisted of painting the roof of the main school building so as to cool down the classrooms, constructing the palapa, and moving sand in wheelbarrows from one side of the school to the other to reclaim the land on which the palapa was being built from the surrounding mangrove swamp. Most days we also got to spend some time in the classrooms with the kids, play games with them, talk, avoid being pushed over by eight or nine five-year-olds all excitedly hugging you at once. Something that stuck in my mind was a quote that Lydia, a missionary at the school, shared with us from a book that she had been reading: "Only the rich measure poverty in possessions." I certainly witnessed the truth behind this. Several members of the group received gifts from the children they befriended who had nothing; some of the gifts were very sentimental for us and for them.

Those connections we made are what really made the trip as emotionally overwhelming as it was. Not just with the kids, but with each other too. After nightly Compline, most of the group would go and sit on the dock and hang out and inevitably have a D&M (deep and meaningful conversation). We became an incredibly cohesive group; we couldn't go to dinner in groups of fewer than eight, and three was the minimum number needed to be in any group going somewhere. I was warned that the trip would have a powerful emotional effect, I didn't realize how much until we left.

During one of our last dock conversations, someone asked, "What was the most emotional experience you've had this trip?" I'm not normally an emotional person, but this question took me awhile to come up with a clear answer. The more I thought, the more experiences I came up with. Everything from a sense of accomplishment as I watched my effort translate directly to progress on the palapa, to worry as I waited to hear whether the Town Council would permit us to continue work and frustration at being unable to finish what we started. I guess that means we have to go back now. From excitement the first time I walked into a classroom, to sadness at having to say goodbye to new friends. From the aliveness I felt while watching the sunrise, to the tiredness I felt while watching the sunset (both were gorgeous). The short answer I gave was the frustration of leaving a job unfinished and the difficulty I had leaving the kids at the school with whom I had bonded. The long, and probably more accurate, answer I came up with after reflecting more on the trip is "the entire thing." For the first time in a long time, I felt like the work I was doing had meaning, and it felt good. I had a sense of real contentment about where I was in my journey.

United Thank Offering Spring Ingathering

By Rosalyn Neal, UTO Coordinator
As we enter into the Spring Ingathering time for United Thank Offering, we might take the time to look into a few of the examples of Grant giving throughout the world. The following is just a sample of the Grants List from 2011:

• $18,700.00 to the Diocese of Pittsburgh for Youth Arts and Film Project, a project of Neighborhood Youth Outreach Program at St. Stephens Episcopal church in Wilkinsburg, Pa.
• Grant of $8,000.00 to the diocese of Southwest Florida for Solving Homelessness in the Florida Keys through Empowerment Programs.
• Grant of $40,000.00 to the Diocese of Colombia toward purchase of a used dwelling to construct a chapel, Mission Cristo Rey in Quibdo.

Our Offerings can, and do help in more ways than we can ever imagine. This is why it continues to be so necessary that we keep our Thank Offerings coming during the Ingatherings. April is already here, and now begins our Spring Ingathering time! Hopefully, you will continue to respond and give as generously as you have in the past.

As promised, a new Diocesan UTO Coordinator is taking the reins, and your Parish Contact UTO Coordinator will work with your parish, as always, to receive the Ingathering Collections. Your church Contact Person or Coordinator or Representative for United Thank Offerings should then send a check representing the total collections from Ingathering, to the new Coordinator: Ms. Joyce Douglas, 4608 Coronet Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA 23455.

Thank you for all the support you have given during my short term as Diocesan Coordinator, and I do leave with sincere regrets. Other responsibilities dictate, however, that I relinquish this position. I am most confident that Ms. Douglas will serve you and our Diocese with great competence and enthusiasm. 

Sustainable landscapes for churches

God's Earth Ministry (GEM), a Peninsula-based interfaith creation care association, is hosting a lecture on Sustainable Landscapes for Churches at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hampton on April 21 at 2:00 p.m.  Diane Rosilius, an award winning certified Landscape Designer and Horticulturist, will be speaking on "Sustainable Landscapes for the Church: A Guide On How to Work With the Environment to Improve It, Not Destroy It."  This talk will teach how churches can work with the environment, not against it, when designing landscapes, columbaria and social areas.  We hope that you can join us, and spread the word on to others you think should be interested. It's free and open to anyone!