Food for the Soul Retreat

Join us for our Food for the Soul retreat offered September 26-27, 2020. Participants last year enjoyed wonderful fellowship, incredible food, a cooking lesson with Chef Rafael, worship on the bluff, and learning about and tasting Virginia wine as well as discussions about the importance of nourishing your spirit. Questions? Contact us at hospitality@chanco.org or 888-7CHANCO (888-724-2626).

Clarification about singing during worship

Several have expressed confusion about the guidelines around the action of singing in worship during this first phase of regathering during Covid-19. We hope these clarifications will help.

• Congregational singing during PUBLIC worship is not permitted at this time. This includes public worship that is indoors or outdoors.
• Singing by a soloist, cantor or small group (4-6 people) is permitted in outdoor public worship when the singing is more than 30 feet away from any other person. Masks should be worn.
• Singing by a soloist, cantor or small group (4 people) is permitted in indoor public worship when the singer(s) are placed either in a balcony or in another room or behind a screen. Masks should be worn.
• Singing that is previously recorded to be used in virtual services may be done if singers are spaced at least 10-12 feet apart and do not face each other. This includes pre-recorded services and live-streamed services. Masks do not need to be worn provided that personnel in the church number below 10 persons. When these events are streamed or photographs of them are posted on social media, a statement should be made that this is not a public worship service.

As you might well imagine in this Diocese, there exist all sorts of opinions on the pandemic and the issues we face. Singing is a beloved activity which we all greatly miss; just as there are those who do not want to attend worship without congregational singing, there are also those who will not attend even an outdoor worship even if only one person is singing. To abstain from singing, except as the guidelines above mandate, is a sacrifice we make because we believe that abstaining will help to keep us all safe. Canon Roy Hoffman and I were privileged to be part of a zoom conference yesterday with Dr. Anthony Fauci. One of the most encouraging things Dr. Fauci said was that there WILL be an end to this pandemic. The day WILL return when we can resume our beloved worship in the ways that we love. That day is not now, but it will come. Meanwhile, we all try to do our part to beat this virus back.

 

BE JOYFUL IN THE LORD, ALL YOU LANDS; SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS AND COME BEFORE HIS PRESENCE WITH A SONG. (Psalm 100:1)

 

What will the Church's song be during a time when our voice cannot produce the sound?

 

-- Bishop Susan 

Repairers of the Breach book study series begins with White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

The Repairers of the Breach will be embarking on a series of diocesan wide book studies to help us engage in conversations about racial justice. The first book we will be reading is White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo.  Bishop Haynes has this to say about the book: "For those who are just beginning to step, even if tentatively, into the waters of racial justice conversation, Robin Diangelo's book White Fragility is an excellent place to start. Diangelo gives us permission to look at all the reasons that racism is so hard to talk about and then encourages us to begin the conversation. We hope you will join us in taking this step toward respecting the dignity of every human being."

Participants are asked to read a chapter each week prior to gathering via Zoom on Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. for a facilitated discussion related to the week's chapter content. The first Zoom gathering will be held on August 19 at 6 p.m. and all the sessions will be recorded. If you are unable to attend on Wednesdays, we still invite you to join us in reading this book together and hope you will be able to watch the recordings. Click here to join the study. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing log in information.

New resources our COVID-19 web page

COVID-19 Spiritual Survival Kit - a free course on ChurchNext that offers approaches to maintaining spiritual, emotional, and physical health during the Covid-19 crisis.  

 

Resources for Addressing Anxiety - a variety of resources curated by Virginia Theological Seminary's Center for Lifelong Learning. You can find additional resources addressing grief and loss on the Diocesan website here.  

 

COVIDWISE Exposure Notifications App - A free app from the Virginia Department of Health to help protect your community while protecting your privacy.  

 

Reopen.church is an online platform that could be helpful for churches when they are ready to re-gather and to do so more safely. It provides a simple (and free) registration form that distributes people across multiple services and rooms.  

 

What's going wrong in your church building while you're gone? - a good article about caring for your building while it's vacant or seeing very limited use.

Parish Book Store wants to know what you're reading

Help the Parish Book Store at Eastern Shore Chapel, Virginia Beach, add to its lists of recommended books on its website on bookshop.org by sending your best read for the summer - just email it to books@easternshorechapel.org. The title does not have to be spiritual or religious or for adults only. Check out what they have already spotlighted by going to bookshop.org; click on "find a bookstore," put in "Virginia Beach," and click on the Parish Book Store website. While you are browsing, remember that you can order a book from bookshop.org, and the Parish Book Store gets a portion of the sale.

Book Group via Zoom 

The Parish Book Store Book Group is reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.  The book is a "young adult" remix of Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, a National Book Award winner by Ibram X. Kendi.  The group will meet in late August by Zoom. If you would like to read the book, you can order it from Parish Book Store via bookshop.org. Parish Book Store will send out a notice when the discussion date is set.  

Community of the Gospel prays for end to racist violence, everyone invited to participate

The Community of the Gospel, an ecumenical non-residential monastic community with standing in The Episcopal Church, announces a 24 hour prayer vigil for the end to racist violence on Holy Cross Day, September 14, 2020. The Community offers this vigil to everyone wishing to participate as a response to this nation's four hundred year history of systemic racism.

In announcing the prayer vigil, Br. Daniel-Chad Hoffman, Guardian, stated: "As monastics, we engage in regular prayer, study, and service aimed at the establishment of a society marked by justice, dignity, and equal opportunity for all. This is grounded in our baptismal vow 'to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.'"

 

The vigil will be launched with a thirty minute Zoom prayer service officiated by the Community of the Gospel Chaplain, the Rev. Tyrone Fowlkes, Rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Raleigh, N.C. This virtual service is scheduled for Sunday, September 13, from 8:00 to 8:30 p.m.

 

Participants are invited to sign up for one or more hour-long prayer segments on Holy Cross Day, Monday, September 14, from 12 a.m. throughout the day, with the vigil ending at midnight.

 

Sign-up for the Zoom prayer launch on Sunday, the 13 as well as the prayer vigil itself on Monday, the 14 is by Doodle Poll. Zoom invitations will be sent to all persons who sign up. Please follow this link to sign up. 

 

The Community of the Gospel was founded in 2007 and currently numbers nearly fifty members and friends across the United States and in the Bahamas. While holding day jobs, members commit to embody Gospel values through disciplined prayer, study, and service.

#DiosovaRingsOut bell ringing

For some time now churches in our diocese have been invited to ring their church bells on Thursdays at noon for three minutes to express appreciation for health care workers and first responders.  As the pandemic continues to affect our lives we all realize the heroic efforts of health care workers and first responders serving on the front lines of the pandemic response.  

 

During the last months as parishes have engaged in bell ringing some have noted, in addition to those on the front lines of the pandemic struggle, our communities are also deeply struggling with other challenges: racial disparity, food insecurity, affordable housing, economic equality, issues of social justice and the list goes on.  

 

Perhaps members in your parish leadership would like to highlight prayerfully those challenges too. It could be helpful for your parish leadership to discuss or highlight those struggles as well while the bell ringing continues.  Should you decide to highlight these or other struggles in your community, you are encouraged to use the hashtag #DiosovaRingsOut on Facebook or Instagram. Whatever direction or decisions you make, thank you for offering your continuing prayers of remembrance and thanksgivings through the ringing  of church bells.