The Episcopal Diocese of Utah
Living Boldly

Connecting with each other, our communities and the world

Living Boldly aims to inform, enrich and equip you to build connections to individuals and groups; to stimulate information sharing, conversation and growth opportunities in your areas of ministry.

Nov. 28, 2007

The Christian hope of the future is that this, the true meaning and message of the incarnation, will come to be more deeply understood, and the demand on our worshiping love and total self-offering will receive a more complete response--a response stretching upward in awestruck contemplation to share that adoring vision of the Principle which is "the inheritance of the saints in light," and downwards and outwards in loving action, to embrace and so transform the whole world. ...
-- Evelyn Underhill, in Worship

A bit about Advent

The season of Advent is understood today to be a time of preparation for Christmas, the feast of the birth of Jesus. The name of this season is taken from the Latin adventus, which means "coming", and in the early Church the word was used mainly for Christmas itself, the coming of Jesus, the Son of God, into the world. Gradually, however, adventus began to have a slightly different meaning and referred, as it does today, to the season of preparation for the feast of Christ's coming to humanity. Advent 1 is the first Sunday of the Church year. Click on Advent for more background ... Find online Advent Calendars and other resources at Anglicans Online.

The Color Purple in Advent: In the ancient world purple dye was very expensive and could only by afforded by kings. The purple vestments and purple candles in our Advent wreaths tell us that the one whose birth we are preparing to celebrate is our true King. The rose candle (3rd Sunday) tells us that Advent is half over and Christmas is getting nearer and nearer. Its lighter color is a symbolic anticipation of our joy when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

In some Anglican and Lutheran churches, blue is the liturgical color for Advent, a custom traced to the medieval Sarum Rite. This color is often referred to "Sarum blue," not a 'bright blue' but rather a medium Indigo, a little 'dusty' color - somewhere between Royal Blue and Midnight Blue.

For a collection of materials from across the internet to help you enter the journey of Advent, see St. John's Lutheran page.

Dates & Deadlines

Thursday, Nov. 29, 11 a.m.: Payday Lending Session at Good Shepherd Lutheran, 8600 So. 700 E. Meet with interested individuals from Coalition of Religious Communities about payday lending. We plan to talk about legislation for the upcoming session that would put some regulations of the payday industry in place. We are one of the most unregulated states.
-- Courtesy of Libby Hunter.

Advent music workshop cancelled
Saturday, Dec. 1, 9 a.m.-Noon O Come, O Come Emmanuel: The Music, Gospels and Spirituality of Advent has been cancelled due to small enrollment. The workshop is labor-intensive for leaders and requires more people to make it go, since leaders had planned for the group to do some music-making as well.

Campus Ministry celebrates 140 years
Saturday, December 1, 7 p.m. -- 8:30 p.m.
College ReUnion: An Anniversary Celebration of Campus Ministry in Utah and thanksgiving for the role of Higher Education in the 140 years of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah's history, and the centennial anniversary of Lutheran Campus Ministry in America. Special Features: The event will include music provided by students of Lumen: Episcopal/Lutheran Campus Ministry, student remembraces, and an address by Bishop Irish.
Place: University Guest House Room C (and Ft. Douglas Chapel, starting 7:45 p.m.)

United Thank Offering Grants Deadline
Dec. 1, 2007: Send applications to EDU, Attention: The Rev. Isabel Gonzalez, PO Box 3090, Salt Lake City UT 84110-3090. Incomplete or late filed applications will not be considered. For more information contact Isabel Gonzalez.

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2008 is World AIDS Day
Sunday Bulletin inserts are available at TEC.

Prepare Him Room
Friday, Dec. 7, 9 a.m.-Noon Affirmations: The Bishop's Advent Quiet Morning will take place in St. Mark's Cathedral Chapel, 231 East 100 South, SLC. The title will be the Deep and Dazzling Darkness. Sign up early, by Dec. 1. Email Angela Rogers or call 801-322-4131.

The Ordination of a Priest
Saturday, Dec 8, 2007 at 10:30 a.m. By the grace of God, and with the consent of God's people, The Right Reverend Carolyn Tanner Irish Tenth Bishop of Utah will ordain Claudia Louder Giacoma to the Sacred Order of Priest in Christ's holy catholic church at St Luke's Episcopal Church, 4595 N. Silver Springs Drive, Park City, Utah Clergy: Red stole. Your presence and prayer for her ministry are requested.

Upcoming Youth Events
Friday, Dec. 10, 2007 at 7:30 p.m.
Youth of St. James are sponsoring a holiday concert to benefit The Road Home shelter for homeless individuals and families. The Sally Bytheway Chorale will perform at St. James Church, 7486 South Union Park Ave., Tickets are $10. Attend if you can, and please pass the word along.

Jan. 26-27, 2008
Junior High Winter Retreat
Grades 6-8, At Camp Tuttle, $40 per person

February 23-24, 2008
High School Winter Retreat
Grades 9-12, At Camp Tuttle, $40 per person

Worship - Revised Common Lectionary

The Revised Common Lectionary
Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007: The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) becomes the standard eucharistic lectionary of the Episcopal Church on this Sunday, Advent I, replacing the 1979 Prayer Book lectionary.

New lectionary for the BCP
Adam Linton, Rector of Good Shepherd in Ogden, adds, "All new copies of The Book of Common Prayer purchased (estimated availability in January 2008) from Church Publishing will now contain the RCL on the Eucharistic Lectionary pages. Substantive changes in the readings will take place during the season of Pentecost. Psalmody is substantially revised throughout the whole course of the year."

A brochure resource
Lee Shaw, Rector, St. Stephen's in West Valley City writes, "Forward Movement also has a very good little tract, Using the Revised Common Lectionary written by The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers. I have been using parts of it in my newsletter explaining the aspects of this change in our worship." See Forward Movement to order.

A primary source
Mary June Nestler, Canon for Ministry Formation, recommends the original book on the RCL published in 1992 for interested lay and clergy readers, The Revised Common Lectionary by the Consultation on Common Texts. The work contains not only the lectionary itself, but also a very good introductory chapter on how the new lectionary came into being, the reasons for the changes, and the shape of the year with the RCL. This chapter makes very good introductory reading for an adult class and is a rich resource for writing a newsletter article for your parish on the RCL.

Education & Spiritual Formation

Major Continuing Education Opportunity
Jan. 28-Feb. 1: Epiphany West 2009 - Sacred Text as Window: Seeing Oneself through the Eyes of Another offers an amazing array of classes, workshops and speakers. Notable among the conference speakers is Peter Phan who is addressing the question, Can We Read Religious Texts Inter-religiously? Possibilities, Challenges, and Experiments.

Phan holds the Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Theology Department, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. For more information and to register, go to CDS P. This is a dynamite opportunity for continuing education - 22 contact hours - and CDSP awards continuing education credit.

Winter Affirmations, 2008

The Affirmations Series of lectures, workshops and retreats offers intellectual growth and spiritual refreshment. All offerings are open to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Please Take Note: Affirmations programs have a minimum number of people for which they will be offered. That minimum number is stated with information on each program. If the minimum is not reached by one week before the offering, it will be cancelled. As much as we would like to hold programs when even two or three are gathered, we must also honor the time and work commitment of each program leader as well as being good stewards of physical meeting resources. We therefore encourage you to make your reservations early by calling 801-322-4131 or toll-free 800-343- 4756 or by emailing Angela.

Here are the February offerings:

The Last Week of His Life: The Passion Stories of Jesus
Saturday, February 2, 2008 - 10 a.m.- 2 p.m.
The Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler
Place: To be confirmed
When we recall the Gospel narratives about Jesus' passion and death, we tend to conflate them, that is, we combine the stories into one story. This study will give us time to look at these narratives separately, to appreciate the details that are common to all the stories, but more importantly, to recognize how they are different from one another, and how each telling aligns with the evangelist's purpose and larger themes. By a close reading we may come to appreciate not only the viewpoints presented, but nourish our own souls as a pre-Lenten spiritual discipline. Minimum of 8 registrants. Registration deadline is January 26.

So When Are you Going to Become a Priest?
Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
St. Mary's Episcopal Church
50 West 2nd North, Provo, UT
This program takes its title from a question most frequently asked of deacons. The conversation about deacons in the Church is for all who wonder about who deacons are, what they do and why, and how their ministry differs from that of other ministries of the baptized, including that of priest. Speakers and panelists will talk about the diaconal vocation, education and mission. Suggested donation: $10 to cover lunch and materials. Registration deadline: February 2nd.

Hooker on Worship: Book Five of The Lawes
Saturday, February 16, 2008, 10 a.m.- 3 p.m.
The Rev. Adam Linton and Dr. Mark S. LeTourneau
Episcopal Church Center
75 South 200 East, SLC
In a recent opinion piece in Episcopal Life entitled "Hooked on Hooker," Ellen Baer confessed that, despite being a lifelong Episcopalian, she knew little of Richard Hooker, the great Reformation architect of our Anglican heritage. The Rev. Adam S. Linton and Dr. Mark S. LeTourneau have been hooked on Hooker since they began studying his magnum opus Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie three years ago, and they would like to continue sharing their findings and their (always decorous) enthusiasm for Hooker with other Utah Episcopalians.

Our first Affirmations introduced Hooker's doctrines of law, the Bible, and the Church, setting them in the context of both the English and Continental Reformation. In this class, we examine his treatment of the subject perhaps closest to our collective heart: public worship. Book Five of the Lawes has been well described as a massively learned defense of The Book of Common Prayer. Following an overview of the book, we present, for discussion, Hooker's doctrines of preaching, prayer, and the sacraments (baptism and eucharist). Our purpose, once again, is to show how Hooker puts us in touch with a dimension of our history as a Reformed Church that, we think, has much relevance to our contemporary situation. Suggested donation: $10 to cover lunch and materials. Registration deadline: February 9th (see above).

The Last Week of His Life: The Passion Stories of Jesus
Saturday, February 23, 2008 - 10 a.m.- 2 p.m.
The Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler
Church of the Good Shepherd
2374 Grant Avenue, Ogden, UT
(See Feb. 2nd for details)

Let us pray:

We pray for our enemies and those who wish us harm. We pray for those who are risking their lives on our behalf, we pray for the civilians in harms way, and for the families that worry and wait for them.
-- a petition in the Prayers of the People, prayed each Sunday at St. James,' Austin.

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The Rev. Jessica Hatch
Education and Resource Office
801-322-4131 Ext. 362 jhatch@episcopal-ut.org

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