Announcing May 3 Long Island Faith Formation Convocation: Let Us Be Repairers of the Breach

3rd Week of Lent
March 26, 2014

Dear Friends,

A first word here today about the Diocese of Long Island's second annual Faith Formation Convocation scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd. Much more information will be coming soon, including posters about the event for our parish communities, registration information, and a finalized list of workshop presenters and themes.

But today, I want to share with you the theme for this second gathering of those in our diocese who share the faith with children, deepen the faith with adults, and sustain the faith of all. This Convocation will focus on the vital issues around race, racism, appreciating diversity and building up one community embracing us all.  Nationally and within the church we are often reticent to face issues around racial divisions head-on.  Yet if we are to be truly one in Christ; if we are to be able to pass on one faith with one effective voice, we must talk together about race, racism, and diversity among us.

So, we are delighted to be able to welcome as our keynote speaker on May 3 the Executive Director of the Tracing Center on the Histories and Legacies of Slavery, James DeWolf Perry.
The Center expresses their mission in these few words:

Our mission is to educate the public about the history and legacy of race and other forms of discrimination, in order to change hearts and minds, foster dialogue, and encourage healing and justice. 
To carry out that mission, the Center engages with corporations, municipalities, churches and non-profits to educate and to encourage dialogue.  Traces of the Trade: a story from the deep north (http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/) is the Center's 2008 Emmy-nominated documentary film on the slave trade history of one family, the DeWolf family of Bristol, Rhode Island, and how that trade's effects reach from that one point in space and time to affect so many and so much.  We will be screening the film at the Mercer Library during the week prior to the Convocation on May 3rd.

The title of James DeWolf Perry's opening address will be: 

Let Us Be Repairers of the Breach: Addressing the Legacy of Race and Building Beloved Community.

You can learn more about the work of the Tracing Center at their website - www.tracingcenter.org.  

I hope that a great number of faith formation workers in our diocese will plan to be here at Mercer on May 3rd.  It will be a day to be remembered.

  
Wishing you and yours all the blessings of this season,

John McGinty+

Canon for Formation

Diocese of Long Island

How is Lent going for you?

Dear Friends,

What is your experience of the season of Lent this year? Is it passing by almost unnoticed, or do you find yourself forgetting the discipline you had intended to undertake for the season? Is the season overrun by the ongoing stresses and responsibilities that form the picture of your daily life?

The questions raised above are probably and unfortunately the most likely experience of the average American Christian here in the 21st-century. It takes a definite and ongoing intentionality in order to experience Lent truly in our time.  One  key to maintaining and growing a sense of the season may be found in the liturgy of Lent.  Praying the morning or evening prayer of the season, taking time at the beginning or conclusion of your day to read and pray over the Scripture readings for Eucharist each day: these simple commitments can radically deepen our lived sense that there is something substantial in the season, something transformative for life, something well worth grasping and allowing oneself to be grasped by as well.

You can find the Scripture readings of each day and morning and eveing prayer online.  There are apps available for your smartphone that can bring meditations on the season to you daily, wheverer you are and no matter how fast you are moving.

This season is a gift to the baptized, a renewed taking to heart again who we are and who we are called to be.  Take the gift and open it.  It's not too late.

Check out Mercer's offerings for the season by accessing our Coming Events/Regsiter button to the left on the Mercer School homepage.  And check out our lenten resources page as well.

Blessings,
John+

The Bible in the Life of the Church

March 21, 2014

Second Week of Lent

March 21, 2014

Dear Friends,

This past Wednesday, the third and last of three meetings here in the diocese with the Reverend Stephen Lyon, director of the Anglican Communion's Bible in the Life of the Church Project took place at Saint Philip's on MacDonough Street in Brooklyn.

Father Lyon presented the 2012 first report of the project.  After consultation among the regions of the 165 nations of the Anglican Communion, a number of excellent resources regarding Scripture in the Church were brought together.  We have these now here at Mercer and they can be available to parishes as desired.  I hope to share some of them in the upcoming months.  

The BILC prokect continues through 2016.  Its ongoing work seeks to open new and continuing lines of dialogue Church-wide as to how we engage at the congregational and diocesan levels with the Word of God; how that Word defines who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

I am deeply grateful to Fathers Wilfredo Benitez and Stuart Huntley, as well to Archdeacon Israel, for having hosted so generously these sessions with Father Lyon at St George's in Flushing, St Stephen's in Port Washington, and St Philip's, MacDonough Street, Brooklyn.  They have helped us, as others are doing as well, to schedule Mercer School events in a variety of settings around the diocese.

As I have invited before, explore our calendar, found under the "Coming Events/Register" button here  on the Mercer School homepage. See it across there to the left?  If you see something interesting, call or email to talk about it. Above all if you find something you're interested in among Mercer events, share that news with three friends or family members. Come together. Even with all the electronic means of communication today, there's still no substitute for word of mouth. If you see something good, talk about it.

Wishing you and yours all the blessings of this season,

John McGinty+

Mercer: we're your school.

Canon for Formation

Diocese of Long Island

PS. If you are on Twitter, so are we @MercerTheology.  Throughout Lent we are sharing a daily word intended to help us keep focused on the matter at hand: living in Christ together.  Pax!

Institute of Spirituality Day 1; and Coming Events

First Sunday of Lent
March 9, 2014

Dear Friends,

Yesterday from 2 to 7 pm a group of laity and clergy gathered at Mercer for the opening of our newly-established Institute of Spirituality. Dr John McDargh of Boston College's theology department led the group through an interactive introduction to, and experience of, focusing as spoken of by philosopher and writer, Eugene Gendlin. Participants agreed the workshop was a helpful and powerful experience and a fine opening to the Institute's initial series on Being Human. The next Institute event in the series will be scheduled for fall season 2014. Watch this space for details.

Coming up sooner are many gatherings for this Lenten season. This week, two group spiritual direction opportunities for the season begin: for laity on Tuesday evening and for clergy on Wednesday morning. Visit the Coming Events/Register button on the Mercer School homepage; navigate through the calendar to the dates of March 11 and 12 and click on the series title to get full information. All are welcome.

Also this coming Wednesday evening at Saint Luke and Saint Matthew's in Brooklyn the Mercer Avenue series on Spirituality and the 12-Steps begins. Information on registration and ordering the book for the series is also on the Mercer calendar on the March 12 date. Incidentally our online book reading for Lent on our Conversations at Mercer Facebook page is on the same book, Richard Rohr's Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps. 

While you're at the Mercer calendar, check out next weekend's chance to learn about the Anglican Communion's Bible in the Life of the Church Initiative as its director, the Reverend Stephen Lyon, visits from England. There are three scheduled meetings next weekend in Queens, Brooklyn, and Nassau County. You'll want to hear this.

There's more going on here as well. Explore our calendar; call or email to talk about it. And above all if you find something you're interested in among Mercer events, share that news with three friends or family members. Come together. Even with all the electronic means of communication today, there's still no substitute for word of mouth. If you see something good, talk about it.

Wishing you and yours all the blessings of this season,

John McGinty+

Opening of the Institute of Spirituality This Saturday (and a note on Safe Church trainings)

March 6, 2014

Dear Friends,

This season of Lent with its invitation to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving provides a life-giving reset button to us all in our Christian lives.  We at Mercer School are to assist in the accepting of this annual and generous invitation from our merciful God.

Check on the Mercer School website (www.mercerschool.org) a link to a plethora of resources on and offline for the lenten season.  This is meant to be interactive; that is, if you have a resource you would like us to share, email at the same Mercer office address with the subject line; Another resource for Lent.  We will post it.  The direct link to the Lenten resources is this: http://www.mercerschool.org/lenten.html

Our online shared book reading for the season on our Facebook page, Conversations @ Mercer is underway.  Discussion will begin on or FB page tomorrow.  The first reading is the Introduction and Chapter 1, "Powerlessness," of Richard Rohr's book, Breathing Under Water. 
Our reading will be in tandem with our lenten series on the spirituality of the 12 steps which will begin at Saint Luke and Saint Matthew in Brooklyn on March 12.  Registration is through the Mercer website.  Click on the "Coming Events/Register" button and then navigate to click on the event title on our calendar for March 12th.  The book is Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps by Richard Rohr (Franciscan Media, 2011).

And  do not forget, the Mercer Institute of Spirituality will be born this coming Saturday, March 8.  Here are the details below.  Be present for something new and inspiring as this Lent begins . . .

Focusing and Spirituality,presented by Dr. John McDargh of Boston College's Theology Faculty

 

 

Saturday, March 8, 2-7 pm
The Mercer School 

The work of philosopher and therapist Eugene Gendlin has taken hold in both the therapeutic and ecumenical spiritual direction communities. Gendlin and his colleagues teach the skill of paying close attention to the "knowing that is deeper than saying" and the body's "felt sense" of reality at any given moment. 

This workshop introduces participants to this way of attending to their own embodied experience.

 

$20 includes the cost of dinner.  Please register by calling the Mercer School at 516.248.4800, ext 140.

Presently we are expecting twenty-five guests for the opening of the Mercer Institute of Spirituality on Saturday.

Mercer: we're your school.

Blessings,

John McGinty+

Canon for Formation

Diocese of Long Island

PS. If you are on Twitter, so are we @MercerTheology.  Throughout Lent we are sharing a daily word intended to help us keep focused on the matter at hand: living in Christ together.  Pax!

PPS.  Click on the Coming Events/Register button to the left and navigate to March 29; click on Safe Church title there to gain info on the next Safe Church training at Mercer.

Entering Lent Together

March 3, 2014

Dear Friends,

Here we stand at the brink of the season of Lent.  In my less serious moments I have often spoken of the season as the time of year when we Christians take seriously who and what we are actually called to be all 365 days of the year, and not only through the 40 days of the season.

At Mercer School we have planned gatherings and assembled resources with the intention of helping us to live a Lent both worthwhile and transformative - for both individuals and communities.  Monday, March 3 at 3pm we are sending far and wide an email detailing Lenten events.  If you do not receive our emails, please email us at merceroffice@dioceseli.org with the subject line: Send me Mercer emails.  We will put you on the list (if the gremlins of technology allow it!).

Beginning on Ash Wednesday we will have on the Mercer School website (www.mercerschool.org) a link to a plethora of resources on and offline for the lenten season.  This is meant to be interactive; that is, if you have a resource you would like us to share, email at the same Mercer office address with the subject line; Another resource for Lent.  We will post it.

Beginning after Ash Wednesday, we will be having an online shared book reading for the season on our Facebook page, Conversations @ Mercer.  Our reading will be in tandem with our lenten series on the spirituality of the 12 steps which will begin at Saint Luke and Saint Matthew in Brooklyn on March 12.  Registration is through the Mercer website.  Click on the "Coming Events/Register" button and then navigate to click on the event title on our calendar for March 12th.  The book is Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps by Richard Rohr (Franciscan Media, 2011).

And  do not forget, the Mercer Institute of Spirituality will be born this coming Saturday, March 8.  Here are the details below.  Be present for something new and inspiring as this Lent begins . . .

Focusing and Spirituality, presented by Dr. John McDargh of Boston College's Theology Faculty

Saturday, March 8, 2-7 pm
The Mercer School 

The work of philosopher and therapist Eugene Gendlin has taken hold in both the therapeutic and ecumenical spiritual direction communities. Gendlin and his colleagues teach the skill of paying close attention to the "knowing that is deeper than saying" and the body's "felt sense" of reality at any given moment. 

This workshop introduces participants to this way of attending to their own embodied experience.

 

$20 includes the cost of dinner.  Please register online or by calling the Mercer School at 516.248.4800, ext 140.

Mercer: we're your school.

Blessings,

John McGinty+

Canon for Formation

Diocese of Long Island

PS. If you are on Twitter, so are we @MercerTheology.  Throughout Lent we will be sharing a daily word intended to help us keep focused on the matter at hand: living in Christ together.  Pax!