ECW Test Site #2

Author: ECW-NC

  • Altar Guild Festival \’09: Making the Ordinary, Extraordinary

    View photos from the festival here

    “…Grant that as we adorn and make ready your altar we may learn greater love and reverence for all that belongs to your service, and through all these outward symbols come to a clearer vision of the inward and spiritual truth taught by them.”
    (From the Altar Guild Prayer)

    On Wednesday, May 6th, 45 women and men from across the diocese gathered in the gymnasium at Haw River State Park’s Summit Conference Center in Browns Summit for Altar Guild Festival 2009.

    The festival, a triennial event sponsored by the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina, was organized by Vivian Edwards, who as Altar Guild Coordinator for the diocese sits on the Diocesan ECW board. Its theme was, “Flowers Rarest, Blossoms Fairest: The Altar Through the Liturgical Year.”

    Leading the program was Hal Peck, a floral arranger and interior designer who helped found and co-chairs the flower guild at his home parish, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rocky Mount. Drawing on natural wit and years of experience, Peck offered humor, cost-saving tips and practical how-tos in equal measure as he created a stunning assortment of on-the-spot arrangements for the liturgical year, beginning with Advent.

    Bishop Michael B. Curry, the celebrant at Holy Eucharist during the festival, put the work of altar and flower guilds in theological perspective throughout his sermon. The guilds, he said, carry on a tradition in the Christian church that date to the story of Mary Magdalene and the other faithful women who rose early and with spices and oils in hand went to Jesus’ tomb to prepare his body for burial.

    “There’s a lot that’s ugly and mean and hurtful in this world. One of the jobs of the Altar Guild is to transform what’s ordinary into something of beauty and holiness. That is in a real way the stewardship of creation,” said the bishop. He added, “Your faithfulness in this stewardship is a witness to the Church.”

    Tips from Hal

    First and last: Do not stress out about floral arrangements. Preparing the altar should be fun. “Only Jesus was perfect. The altar and altar flowers don’t have to be perfect; everything doesn’t have to exactly match.”

    Be inclusive. Allow an altar or flower guild to be intergenerational. At the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rocky Mount, members of the Flower Guild range in age from 13 to 80. Newcomers and younger members start by spending a few Saturdays observing how things work, and then first contributing to arrangements for, say the narthex.

    Use what’s available and affordable. It’s perfectly acceptable to use greens and flowers from the church yard, your own yard, the roadside, or to buy these things from Wal-Mart or a grocery store like Harris Teeter.

    Likewise with containers. Be creative. Use what’s on hand such as clear glass or cut glass or lined woven baskets or even terra cotta pots. These can be very effective, even on more formal altars. Containers don’t always have to be brass or silver.

    To add texture and some fragrance, which helps eliminate a musty smell, use fresh eucalyptus. This greenery can then be dried and put in arrangements for another season. Use cedar at times other than Christmas.

    Asymmetrical designs allow for different textures within an arrangement.

    To dry greens, leave them sitting in a bucket in the corner of the kitchen.

    On Palm Sunday save the palm branches, which are often expensive, for use in other arrangements.

    To make purple flowers or other dark colors show up better, especially against a darker altar, back them with lighter colors such as yellow.

    “A small fortune can be spent at Thanksgiving for all the gourds and pumpkins. It’s overkill, really, for what’s usually a sparsely attended service. Instead, when trying to convey ‘bounty’ use fruits and vegetables readily available at your local grocery.”

  • 2016 UTO Grant Application Timeline

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    The national UTO has announced the timeline for the 2016 granting cycle. NOTE: All questions about grants and all grant requests from the Diocese of NC should first be directed to the diocesan ECW interim president.

    2016 United Thank Offering Focus and Criteria, Fifth Mark of Mission:

    “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”

    Monday, January 4, 2016:  All UTO grant information available on UTO website.

    NOTE: the Diocesan ECW is responsible for all statements and signatures from the bishop’s office. Please do not contact the bishop’s office directly.

    Included are focus, criteria, hints for grant writing and the application form (see links below)

    Monday, February 8, 2016:  Submission deadline for individual parish UTO grant applications.

    The applications will be reviewed by the diocesan ECW review committee. All grant applications should be submitted directly to ECW Interim President, Mary Gordon, by e-mail (interimpresident^ecw-nc#org) or by regular mail, 1211 Watermark Ct., High Point, NC 27265

    You may be asked to re-submit your application with the committee’s recommendations.

    Monday, February 22, 2016:  Submission deadline for edited versions of the selected applications for final submissions.

    Friday, March 4, 2016 (5:00 PM):  Deadline for ECW to submit selected UTO Grant applications from the Diocese of NC to the national UTO office.

    Here are links to all the forms:

    2016 Grant Application Process Form (PDF) Please note this critical information!

    Grant Application Sample Budget #1 (PDF)

    Grant Application Sample Budget #2 (PDF)

    United Thank Offering 2016 Grant Application Form (Word)

  • 2017 UTO Grant Application Timeline

    2017 United Thank Offering Grant Focus and Criteria

    Evangelism-Reconciliation:

    Following Jesus’ way of creating loving, liberating, and life-giving relationships with God, each other, and all creation.

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    Friday, February 3, 2017:

    Submission deadline for individual parish UTO grant applications.

    The applications will be reviewed by the diocesan ECW review committee. All grant applications should be submitted directly to ECW United Thank Offering Coordinator Barbara Longmire by e-mail (UTO^ecw-nc#org) or by regular mail:

    1818 Hideaway Lane

    Durham, NC 27712 

    You may be asked to re-submit your application with the committee’s recommendations.

    Friday, February 17, 2017:

    Submission deadline for edited versions of the selected applications for final submissions.

    Monday, February 20, 2017:

    ECW to get to the Bishop for signature on applications.

    Friday, March 3, 2017 (5:00 PM):

    Deadline for ECW to submit selected UTO Grant applications from the Diocese of NC to the national UTO office.

    Links to all forms:

  • 2018 United Thank Offering Grant Applications

    Focus:
    Becoming Beloved Community: Racial Healing, Reconciliation and Justice

    \"\"Friday, February 9, 2018:
    Submission deadline for individual parish UTO grant applications.
    The applications will be reviewed by the diocesan ECW review committee. All grant applications should be submitted directly to ECW United Thank Offering Coordinator Barbara Longmire by e-mail (UTO^ecw-nc#org) or by regular mail:
    1818 Hideaway Lane
    Durham, NC 27712

     NOTE:  An email submission may speed up the Committee review process

    You may be asked to re-submit your application with the committee’s recommendations.

    Friday, February 16, 2018:
    Submission deadline to UTO coordinator of edited versions of the selected applications.

    Monday, February 19, 2018:
    ECW to submit selected applications to the Bishop for final signature.

    Friday, March 2, 2018 (5:00 PM):
    Deadline for ECW to submit selected UTO Grant applications from the Diocese of NC to the national UTO office.

    Links to all forms:

     

  • Stopping Traffic Starts Here, Now

    At its convention in November of 2014, the ECW of the Diocese of NC voted to make human trafficking a ministry focus for the 2015-2018 triennium. The ECW of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Pittsboro, with the help of the parish’s Health and Environment Committee, is beginning to address this global scourge by helping to educate people of the Durham Convocation about the ever-growing problem of human trafficking in NC. Speakers for a public meeting this comingTuesday, June 23rd, at St. Bartholomew’s will include representatives from Pittsboro’s Family Violence and Rape Crisis Center, the Siler City Police Department, and the Salvation Army’s Project FIGHT. The flyer below offers more information. Feel free to share. All are welcome.

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  • Convocation Chair Carolyn R. Townsend: In Her Own Words

    Carolyn R. Townsend, RN

    Born and grew up in Riverside, California. Enjoyed Girl Scouting and traveled with the regional troop to the 1956 first National Girl Scout Round-up in Michigan. Earned a B.S. in Nursing from UCLA. First public health nursing job was with the Los Angeles County Health Department. Earned an MPH in Public Health Nursing from UNC-CH School of Public Health.

    Moved to Durham, North Carolina in 1964. Worked in patient care at Duke University Medical Center, then in public health with Operation Breakthrough antipoverty program. Continued in public health nursing with the District Health Department-Caswell, Chatham, Lee, Orange, and Person Counties. Later served as a regional nurse consultant and Program Coordinator with the Division of Public Health until retirement in 2006.

    Religious Life: Grew up in the Congregational Church, confirmed Episcopalian in 1989 at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Durham, N.C. Transferred to St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Pittsboro. Active member of Episcopal Church Women, serving as President of the St. Bartholomew’s ECW. Participates as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, Altar Guild, Lector and clerk to the vestry. Received into the Mary and Martha Chapter of The Order Daughters of the King in January of this year.

    Active volunteer in the community serving as an ombudsman with the Chatham County Community Advisory Committee for Adult Care Homes and Assisted Living, Circles Chatham, and the St. Bartholomew’s Care Team.

    Awards and honors: Recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine the state’s highest civilian honor for meritorious service. Recipient of the first Carolyn R. Townsend Rail-Trail volunteer award after having served 19 years as volunteer administrator and chair of the North Carolina Rail-Trails board of directors.

    Married and mother of two daughters and grandmother of one granddaughter.

  • Marching for Justice

    [The following article appeared in the July 15 edition of \”The Daily\”, which is published during General Convention/ECW Triennial]

    By Jim DeLa

    \"\"Bishop Greg Rickel of the Diocese of Olympia leads Disney hotel workers and supporters on a protest march from the Anaheim Convention Center to Disneyland.Episcopalians attending General Convention linked arms with hotel workers July 14 to march to the gates of Disneyland to demand economic justice for 2,300 Disney employees protesting a planned hike in the cost of their health insurance.

    “It seems to me, as our church has moved toward a position of justice for all its members, particularly in the area of health care, this is the perfect opportunity for the church to witness to the world about its convictions regarding economic justice,” said the Rev. Lisa Hackney from the Diocese of Ohio.

    Ada Briceno, an official from Local 11 of UNITE HERE, a Los Angeles-based union that includes hotel and restaurant workers, said they had been working without a contract since February 2008. Disney wants to replace the union-funded health plan with a corporate plan, she said, which, in time, will cost a minimum-wage worker about $500 a month for insurance for a family. “These are low-paid workers, making on average about $11 an hour,” she said.

    \"\"Marchers approach the convention center from the Disney-owned Paradise Pier hotel where they had been picketing earlier in the day.Several hundred people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to hear a prayer by Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles before joining more than 1,000 others already on the march to Disneyland.

    “I cannot think of any reason more than the gospel proclamation of ‘do justice’ and ‘do God’s work.’ This is where I need to be,” said the Rev. Yamily Bass-Choate, a deputy from the diocese of New York.

    Lynn Tyler, a deputy from the Diocese of New Hampshire, was marching to support Disney workers, 75 percent of whom, she said, are women. “And of those women, many are single parents. They’re pretty much living on the edge as it is.”

    A letter in support of Disney workers signed by 13 Episcopal bishops said they were taking seriously “our call to stand with the poor and those who are suffering from injustice.” The protest included Episcopal bishops Greg Rickel (Olympia), Gene Robinson (New Hampshire) and Barbara Harris (retired of Massachusetts).

    Henry Atkins Jr. of the Episcopal Church Peace and Justice Commission of the Diocese of Los Angeles is asking Episcopalians to boycott Disney hotels if the workers ask.

    “We’re now marching with these people who are working for Disney for their rights, their privileges that they deserve as human beings,” said Bruno. “We ask you to let us turn the eyes of Disney toward justice and mercy; toward benefits, and the things necessary for people to live a just and abundant life.”

  • Bishop Curry: \”Go!\”

    \"\"Photo: Beverly RuebeckPresent at the United Thank Offering Sharing Dinner Friday evening were 400 people from throughout the Anglican Communion—including bishops, priests, deacons, ECW members and diocesan UTO coordinators.

    Our own Bishop Curry addressed the assembly. Using the 20th chapter of the Book of John as his frame of reference, he continually referred to the sister ministries of the United Thank Offering and Episcopal Church Women as “a mission of witness” sorely needed in “a time of absolute and unprecedented change.”

    “If you remember just one word from what I say tonight, it should be this: Go. You know, you won’t find the actual word ‘mission’ in the Bible, but mission is all over the Bible. It’s there because ‘go’ is there and ‘go’ means mission,” he explained.

    “And if you take the word ‘go’ seriously, it means you’ve got to trust the Lord. No more is there easy Christianity or easy religion. In a time with religious institutions finding themselves swimming upstream, remember that you don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to have a mission,” he said.

    The mission of the UTO, founded and administered by women since 1889, is to further the work of the church that addresses compelling human need by promoting daily offerings of thanks in parishes throughout the Church, receiving those offerings, then distributing that money across the Anglican Communion via grants.

    It is a vital ministry, said Bishop Curry. And in a closing that brought the crowd to its feet, he added, “I’m telling you, it makes a difference. You make a difference. So I ask you to continue to go and spread the good news of Jesus. Do not falter. Go and love without abandon! Go and spread his justice! Go UTO! Go ECW! Go!”

  • Katerina Whitley’s ‘Yet We Persist:’ The story of women in the church, the story of my life

    [In addition to blogging, I\’ve been asked to contribute to the in-house newspaper about the proceedings at General Convention and ECW Triennial. This is taken from an article I wrote for the July 10 issue of The Daily.]

    \"\"The Rt. Rev. Barbara C. HarrisThe Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris and Gregory Straub, executive officer and secretary of General Convention, and the other women and men who attended the ECW Welcome Dinner on Wednesday were reminded why the telling of our collective history can at once be liberating and soul wrenching.

    \"\"Katerina Katsarka WhitleyAsked to produce a program for the dinner, Katerina Katsarka Whitley, an Episcopalian, author, dramatist and retreat leader, opted to write a play chronicling the history of Episcopal Church Women in order to “show how God worked through admirable Episcopal women in the course of long years and struggles to bring about the accomplishments taken for granted today.”

    Nearly 140 years of history—from an early plea to the leaders of the Protestant Episcopal Church to seriously consider the contributions of women “who labor for their Lord” to the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop—played out in under an hour, but still had people talking well into the following day.

    \"\"An ActressDee Doyle, Triennial delegate from the Diocese of San Joaquin, said, “I thought it was great. It was, in a real way, the story of my life. I’m coming up on 80 years old. I’ve lived a lot of what they were talking about. I graduated from college with a degree in business in ’51, and all potential employers wanted to know was how fast I could type. The young men got the great jobs. The story of our church and the story of our society really parallel one another. The play last night showed that clearly.”

    First-time delegate Sharon Massey of the Diocese of North Carolina said, “It was wonderful to see all that history so neatly laid out. I laughed. I cried. What a great gift.”

  • Just In

    The House of Deputies has adopted five priorities proposed by the Program, Budget and Finance Committee that will guide the mission of the Episcopal Church for the next three years. Included is reinstatement of a triennial budget line appropriating 0.7% in revenue for specific Millennium Development Goal spending as well as Christian education and formation. The resolution now goes to the House of Bishops for consideration.