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The Dio Log
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news and events in
the Episcopal Diocese of Maine
since 1999
Volume 20, Number 2 ~ January 19
, 2018
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It's not too early to think about summer!
"There's something special that happens here that you can't get other places. It's all about being in the woods and being in the lake. There's no wifi, no telephones, no electronics. At Bishopswood we leave all that at home. At Bishopswood it's about connecting people
face-to-face and creating genuine relationships."
-- Bishopswood Director Mike Douglass
Check out this great new video about our own Camp Bishopswood!
Registration for the 2018 season is now open at
Bishopswood is for everyone! Finale Camp for all ages will be August 20 - 26, full and half-weeks available. Learn more and register
here.
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What's New in the Episcopal Church in Maine
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In Thanksgiving ...
The Rev. Nancy Moore of Christ Church, Norway, shared these photos taken at Paris Elementary School where they recently celebrated a Diocese of Maine Domestic Poverty Grant of $5,000 to support the local food pantry's efforts to alleviate child hunger.
More than 800 children are fed each week through the school outreach program.
In its third year, the Domestic Poverty Grant program is open for applications from Maine congregations each September. They are considered by Diocesan Council at its fall meeting.
Stay-tuned for 2018.
Voices among us...
Check out the first edition of St. Elizabeth's Jubilee Center's new monthly
email newsletter.
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Around the Diocese...
Sacraments in a Time of Flu
According to the Maine Center for Disease Control's
weekly report, we're in the midst of a severe influenza season with new cases still on the rise. To prevent the spread of the flu, I invite churches to adopt the following for the next several weeks:
1. Please make hand sanitizer readily available in church and parish hall. Wash your hands before eating at coffee hour.
2. Rather than shaking hands, please consider passing the Peace with gestures and nods. Refrain from holding hands for the Lord's Prayer.
3. The safest approach to communion is to receive the bread only. Communion in one kind, as it's known, is complete communion. Children and folks in recovery receive this way every week.
4. I urge you to discourage intinction. Intinction brings fingers into the common cup and is the most likely way for flu bugs to spread. A sip from the common cup is much less likely to spread flu. Intinction makes you more likely, not less likely, to spread or catch someone else's cold or flu.
These may seem like extraordinary measures, but the flu is causing numerous hospitalizations and deaths this year. Please be good neighbors and do your part to prevent the spread of the flu.
Bishop Steve
Bishop Quest website now up and running
The new website offering all information about the quest for the tenth Bishop of Maine is now live.
Bookmark the
bishopquest.episcopalmaine.org and stay-tuned for information from the Discernment Committee and the Transition Committee as their members begin their work.
The Discernment Committee
invites each Maine congregation and ministry to send a photo to display on the home page slideshow. They would love to see each parish represented. Please send your photo with a brief description (horizontal orientation and at least 200kb, please), to Kate Wing, the new transition assistant, at
[email protected].
Time to help update the diocesan directory
The diocese is preparing to publish an updated directory this quarter. Please send any contact information updates or changes (email addresses, web addresses) to Teresa at
[email protected] by the end of January.
Resources for newly-elected vestries
ECF Vital Practices
- the free monthly newsletter. Sign up everyone on your vestry for this great resource.
New Initiative Fund grant application deadline extended to February 23
Is your congregation ready to embark on a new ministry or community partnership? Do you need some money to do it? Now in its ninth year, the Diocese of Maine New Initiative Fund grant program is designed to help congregations and groups fund exciting and creative new ministries in their communities.
Since no applications were received by the recent January 1 deadline, Diocesan Council has will extend the deadline to Friday, February 23. Council members will consider applications at their March 17 meeting.
For more details and links to the online application and application worksheet, please visit the
New Initiative Fund page of the diocesan website.
United Thank Offering grants available for 2018
The 2018 United Thank Offering grant application materials are now available at
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/2018-uto-grants. The focus of the 2018 UTO grants will be "Becoming Beloved Community: Racial Healing, Reconciliation and Justice."
Instructions, forms, and guidelines are available on the UTO website posted above. Because each diocese is allowed to submit one application, all applications must first be submitted for the Bishop's review. The diocesan deadline for submission of a completed application (and required documents) is Friday, February 16, 2018. One application will receive the Bishop's endorsement with the final application submitted to the UTO office by the deadline of March 2.
If you need assistance or have questions about the application, please contact our new Diocese of Maine UTO Coordinator Tracy Shaffer at [email protected] or the Rev. Canon Heather Melton, Staff Officer for the United Thank Offering at [email protected].
Also, there will be two how-to webinars
in February: Tuesday, February 6, and Wednesday, February 7. All webinars will
be held at 7 p.m. Join online at
https://zoom.us/j/8140408194
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Help for keeping a holy Lent
Stop, Pray, Work, Play and Love
is a perennial favorite from SSJE.
"So much of our stress and anxiety derives from our pollution of Time. God has given us the gift of time, and called it holy, yet we often experience time as a curse," say the Brothers of SSJE. Join the Brothers in rediscovering time as a gift.
This series is highly recommended by the Rev. Lisa Smith Fry of St. Thomas, Camden, who says, "I can't recommend this enough. It is the one Lenten series that parishioners still remember and ask if we can repeat."
Join the Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in the Good Book Club - read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts during Lent and Eastertide.
Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John
. This is a six-week journey and reflection offered by SSJE and the Center for the Ministry of Teaching. They say, "Have you ever wished to deepen your relationship with God? To experience a warm friendship with God? Maybe even fall in love with God - again - or for the very first time?" This is a FREE and robust resource - with prayer journals, facilitation guidance (for small groups), videos and emails. Either use it with your small group, or encourage individuals to subscribe to the daily video and prayer emails.
You Are the Way: Devotions for Lent 2018 are
available from Augsburg Fortress publishers for $3. This beautiful, full-color devotional explores one or more "I am" sayings of Jesus during each week in Lent. The pocket-sized version is breakfast table ready! Large-print and ebook editions are also available.
Lent Madness: Whom do you admire more - Hildegard or Saint Francis? Pitting diverse saints and saintly figures against each other may seem absurd, but it's fun, makes you think about what you truly value, and teaches a lot about saints of the faith. You can follow Lent Madness and vote at
www.lentmadness.org.
Scroll down to the "Seasonal Picks" on the home page of Building Faith, and you'll find the Lord's Prayer Tracing Cross, and other activities and articles. And you'll find additional creative ideas for families, adults and children on their "Seasonal Resources" page.
Share your ideas for Lent....
Each Lent, many congregations offer amazing opportunities for spiritual growth. Some are cost-free. Others are low-cost. There are spiritual practice groups, service opportunities. Please take a minutes and share your favorites from past years with [email protected] so we can share them in the next Dio Log and on the Adult Formation Resources Exchange web page.
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Upcoming in Maine and Beyond
Learn how to put your Faith in Action: three opportunities this winter in Bath and Portland
Grace Church, Bath, January 27
On Saturday, January 27, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. the people of Grace Church, Bath, invite you to an interactive workshop designed to put our faith into action with John Hennessy, Director of the Maine Episcopal Network for Justice.
We will explore the concepts of faith-rooted organizing and an asset-based approach to engaging our church and community. Learn how to bring your voice of faith to the public square.
In our time together, we will talk about creatively and realistically developing a strategy to bring about local change based on the theological perspective that God offers us all things necessary to realize
shalom - the state of living in peace and prosperity as the people of God.
Please bring a bag lunch; b
everages will be provided. Snow date:
Saturday February 10.
St. Luke's, Portland, February 3 and 13
Saturday, February 3, 9 a.m. to noon
Tuesday, February 13, 1 to 4 p.m.
An asset-based approach to engaging church and community is centered around the belief that individuals, groups, and communities have the gifts they need to address the needs they see around them. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that each of us are given
different gifts to serve the community and we are all a part of the body of Christ working together.
Join Dan Riggall, Director of St. Elizabeth's Jubilee Center, John Hennessy of the Maine Episcopal Netwo
rk for Justice, and the
Rev. Maria Hoecker of St. Columba's, Boothbay Harbor, for an introduction to Asset-Based Community Development or ABCD. Each presenter has participated in a four-day training co-sponsored by the Episcopal Church's Office of Domestic Poverty and Episcopal Relief & Development to learn how to share the principles of ABCD in a ministry setting. The identical three-hour sessions will include an introduction to ABCD and many practical exercises to see how this new way of approaching ministry in a neighborhood context.
Email Heidi Shott at
[email protected] to indicate your interest in attending. Refreshments and snack will be served but participants are encouraged to bring a brown bag lunch to the Tuesday session.
Harpsichord Recital at St. Saviour's, Bar Harbor
Harpsichordist Daniel Pyle will present a recital of music from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods on Sunday, January 28, at 4 p.m. at St. Saviour's, Bar Harbor. The program will include works by Girolamo Frescobaldi, William Byrd, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and Louis Couperin. Admission to the concert will be free, but donations are requested, to benefit the Friends of Music Fund at St. Saviour's in support of their concert-series.
Dr. Pyle is the new organist/music-director for St. Saviour's. He is the founder and director of the ensemble Harmonie Universelle, and co-founder and harpsichordist for the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, serving also as its Resident Director for seven years.
Maine sites for Trinity Institute 2018: Faith in Values, February 2-3
At least three Maine congregations - Trinity, Castine; St. Peter's, Rockland; and
St. George's, York Harbor (click link for details on how to participate) - will serve as partner sites for the 2018 Trinity Institute, Faith in Values.
This year's conference features leading activists, theologians, authors, and experts on how to integrate core values into strategic and effective action, including the Most Rev. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness; Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and mediator; Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and undocumented immigrant; and
more.
Diocesan Music Workshop: Paperless Songs - on Saturday, February 3
Everyone who leads or loves music is invited to the diocesan music workshop on Saturday, February 3.
Thew Elliott will teach chants, rounds, intercessions, acclamations and other pieces that can easily be shared with choirs and congregations and worked into community life. These pieces work on a variety of levels, and can be used with multiple levels of accompaniment, harmony and participation.
Attendees will have a chance to try leading and teaching some of the songs, and Thew will also provide sources for continuing exploration and practice (print and on-line).
This free workshop will be held at Emmanuel Lutheran Episcopal Church in Augusta
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Register here.
Grow Closer to God this Lent
The ecumenical Ignatian Jesuit Spirituality Partnership of Maine invites you to participate in a Lenten time of prayer and reflection. Using material taken from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, this offering is a six week at-home retreat. It includes a series of daily prayer exercises.
Participants are asked to pray 20 to 30 minutes a day, use a journal to record their reflections after prayer, and meet once a week with a prayer guide. There will be a group meeting in Portland at the beginning and end of the retreat.
The retreat begins with a group meeting Sunday, February 11, from 2 to 3:30, in St. Pius X Hall at Our Lady of Hope Parish, 492 Ocean Avenue, Portland. At that time, you will be given an overview of the retreat, meet briefly with your prayer guide, and receive materials for the first week of the retreat. The six weekly meetings with your guide will be arranged by you and the guide, so bring your calendar.
The closing meeting will be confirmed later, probably April 8.
The cost of the retreat is $50, due at the meeting on February 11. Financial assistance is available if needed. Click here for more information about the retreat and a registration form.
Benefit ukulele concert at Trinity Church, Portland
The FLUKES (Falmouth Library Ukulele Society) will be performing in
concert to benefit Greater Portland Family Promise on Saturday,
February 24 at 7 p.m. at Trinity Church, Portland. Click here for a flyer for more details.
Youth Ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine is gearing up for an exciting New Year!
REACH: Reaching In, Reaching Out, Reaching God
March 2-4, 2018 at Christ Church Episcopal in Gardiner
For middle schoolers in 6-8 grade
We will reach inside ourselves to understand who we are right now, reach out to our community to help other people live out who they are, and reach to God through song and worship to find who we are called to be. Kids in grades 6-8 are invited to spend the weekend playing games, doing a service project, making friends, eating awesome food, and worshiping God together.
Called to Serve
March 16-18, 2018 at Grace Episcopal Church in Bath
For high schoolers in 9-12 grade
Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as a part of that love, we are called to serve. What does it mean to love? What does it mean to serve? How do we find the strength to do something that sometimes feels so hard? A team of youth staff and adults will lead us, as we spend a weekend together doing the work of serving others, while figuring out how to keep up the energy to do that work. We will laugh together, sing together, serve together, pray together and make friends we can rely on as we figure out how we are called to serve.
Summer Finale Camp
August 20-26, 2018 at Camp Bishopswood
For youth who have finished 6-12 grade
(A link to registration will be available soon.)
Spend a week in a youth cabin with you friends at Camp Bishopswood. You'll do all the typical camp activities - swimming, boating, running around in the woods - while also deepening your spiritual life, and worshiping God in the midst of nature.
Lift Every Voice: Interfaith Advocacy Days in Augusta
Monday, March 19, South Parish Congregational Church
Tuesday, March 20, Maine State Capitol
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n 2017, more than 150 people of faith from across Maine gathered in Augusta for the first Interfaith Advocacy Days to learn about pressing issues from policy experts and faith leaders and to visit the State House to engage with our elected leaders with all we learned.
This year, join us for worship, a panel discussion on "Mobilizing Faith Voices and Faith Voters," a keynote address by
the Rev. James Gertmenian, a welcome
from Bishop Stephen T. Lane, and workshops on
- Maine's Drug Crisis
- Environmental Justice
- Race & Immigration
- Child Poverty
- Health Care
A $20.00 registration fee includes the program, resource materials, refreshments, Monday lunch, and Tuesday lunch voucher for the cafe in the Cross Office Building behind the State House.
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