Safe Church Meeting 1/22 Postponed

Due to the winter storm the meeting scheduled at Mercer School on Safe Church training tomorrow evening, January 22, will be postponed. The meeting will take place a week later, Wednesday, January 29 at Mercer School, beginning at 6:30 pm.

Be careful if you're on the roads. 

-----------------

Thoughts on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity January 18-25

Dear Friends,
Each year the Church community over the face of the planet is invited to celebrate a week of prayer for Christian unity from January 18th to the 25th.  This year's theme comes from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  Chapter 1, verse 13 opens with a question: "Has Christ been divided?"

Our instinct, thank God ultimately, is to respond strongly in the negative.  There is only one Christ.  He cannot be divided, and we are united in him.

But to look around the ecumenical landscape in a following moment is to be compelled to grant that. though Jesus Christ is not divided, we who worship and serve in his name have proven ourselves all too divisible from the beginning.

At least once a year, and more properly once a day, once an hour, once a breath - we should recognize these two truths and act out of them.  Not simply to lament our lack of unity, but to actively pray and work for deepened and restored unity in the one Christ.

You can learn more about the observance of this week online at http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/week-of-prayer and elsewhere as well.

If your parish church has not actively noted and prayed the week this year, make a mental note for 2015.

Here is one of the suggested prayers for this week of prayer:

Most loving and gracious God, we give thanks for the gifts of your grace that we experience in our own tradition and in the traditions of other churches. By the grace of your Holy Spirit, may our gratitude continue to grow as we encounter one another and experience your gift of unity in new ways. This we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Pax,
John P. McGinty
Canon for Formation
Dean, Mercer School