Grace Notes Weekly is a newsletter of Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, TN,
and is used to communicate the upcoming activities of this community.
The Season after Pentecost
NOVEMBER 24, 2021
Advent at Grace
Sunday, as you will have surmised from all the preceding articles, is the first Sunday of Advent, the season of expectation that precedes the birth of Christ. Its four Sundays provide time to hear scripture that foretells his coming, sing and listen to wonderful hymns and anthems, and create a breathing-space for preparation and contemplation of the broken world, the God who seeks its healing, and the manner in which that healing entered human life. In the midst of a culture that leaps avidly into brightly-lit and loudly-orchestrated Christmas the moment the last trick-or-treater has left the front porch, Advent provides a way to slow down and appreciate not only Christmas itself but the yearning and need that it fulfills.

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IN THIS ISSUE
Advent Opportunities
Morning Prayer Cancelled for 11-27
Congratulations/Thanks to Vestry
Adult Class on Sunday
Walmart Cards for Seraphim Bush
Food Pantry
Worship on Sunday
Church Offices Closures
Daily Worship
Seasonal Music Opportunities
More about Bishop Sanders
Parish Prayer List
Advent (continued)
Advent Quiet Day -- Saturday November 27, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Amid a global pandemic, perhaps we recognize in a greater degree the need for Christ to come again. Life in quarantine has exposed the complexities of pain and suffering in the world. As a result, we have uncovered the rich tension of hope-filled expectation. We feel the pain and suffering that exists in the world, yet we know that Christ is Lord. We grieve the current order of the world, yet we believe that Christ will deliver us.

We yearn for the day Christ will make all things new, but we cannot forget the pain and suffering of the crucified Christ, nor can we sidestep the aching of this world. We grieve and cry out to God; we lament. As we get set to begin the season of Advent, the time of hope-filled expectation for the birth of Christ, we will take time to explore the meaning of and call to lament. Using videos, scripture, and music we will take time to lament individually and in community, to join together and share our hope-filled expectations and our calls for God to act swiftly to bring forth God’s kingdom this day.

A light lunch of soup and bread will be provided. Email David Stanislawski for more info (David.stanislawski@chattanoogastate.edu).

Advent Wreath-Making

Families with children are invited to come to the Pavilion around 9 a.m. -- after the 8 a.m. service concludes -- to make Advent wreaths.

Create + Connect Circles for Advent 2021

Join Ginger Huebner for a four-week Create + Connect Circles experience during Advent. We will gather virtually to share, reflect, and connect in response to the weekly sermon and readings through Ginger's Create + Connect process. This process guides participants by using simple tools of collage and color to interpret ideas and emotions that are often beyond words. There is no artistic experience necessary. More information and registration is available here.

You can hear Bishop Brian talk about Advent and Create + Connect Circles HERE.
Saturday Morning Prayer Cancelled (11-27)
Morning prayer devotees, please note that this Saturday's online service will NOT take place -- holiday obligations have given all its potential leaders other things to deal with that morning. It will return to its normal slot on the following Monday; details about how to access the service online are available further along in the newsletter.
Congratulations and Thanks to New and Retiring Vestry
Last Sunday's Parish Meeting saw the election of four new Vestry members -- Cara Cassell, Jerry Evans, Roberta Fish, and Ali Stahlwood. We wish them a happy and productive term and greatly appreciate their willingness to serve!

Thanks are due to the four members whose term concludes at the end of the year: Albert Howell, Sue LaGraff, Susan Lazenby, and Phaen Stone. We are thankful for their service and leadership and wish them a regenerative respite after their three very interesting years of service (extra credit for laboring to guide a parish during pandemic years!).

We will have further information from the annual meeting in later issues, so keep an eye out for details about finances, endowment, and the truly amazing accomplishment of this resilient and faithful parish in spite of very challenging historical times~
Adult Classes on Sunday
During Advent, the Sunday Lectionary class will be looking at lament through videos and scripture, in particular the psalms of lament and Lamentations. Lament moves us beyond mere grief for the world we live in, the pandemic, the political divide, racial injustice not to mention personal grief for lost friends, broken relationships, etc. It moves us to trust in the Lord, that his kingdom will come. Therefore, it seems like an appropriate way to prepare for Christ’s birth. Join us Sunday mornings at 9:30 in the Barth Room.

If Sunday morning is not a feasible time for you but you would like to learn more about lament and try this practice during Advent I will hold a Zoom discussion group on Thursday evenings from 6:30 – 7:30 if there is enough interest. Please let me know if you are interested in this option by catching me before or after church on Sunday or emailing me at David.stanislawski@chattanoogastate.edu

David Stanislawski
Walmart Cards for the Seraphim Bush
Grace is again taking a group-home under its wing for the Christmas season, and instead of sending you all out to look for slippers and gloves that might or might not fit, we're requesting $25 Walmart gift cards. Tom Carroll and Jerry Evans, in their infinite cleverness, came up with that idea during last year's dark pandemic winter, and the folks in the group home loved it and requested that we choose that path again.

If you'd like to provide some necessary goods for those in the group home, please bring one (or more!) gift cards to the church no later than Sunday, December 19. You can tuck them in the almsbags; Tom also has put a receptacle in the Narthex. You may also send them via mail or bring them to the church during normal operating hours.
Food Pantry
In this season of gratitude, Grace must figuratively bow down and kiss the feet of the parishioners and neighbors who are so responsive to our cries for assistance. The pantry, riddled with empty shelves after last week's session, were miraculously restored by the time this Wednesday rolled around! We can't thank you enough for your generosity and willingness to leap in to supply an unfortunately deep need in our community.

This week's demand was light -- Jim Dorris and Dixie Riall took care of 8 visitors, and two more arrived late; all told, we sent food for 27 out (15 adults and 12 children). Supplies are in good enough shape that I think thanks is enough this week -- have a wonderful Thanksgiving and know that all of you are at the top of the list of things we at Grace count as our blessings!
Worship on Sunday
Sunday's services will include the lighting of the Advent wreath and a musical introit from the choir at the beginning of the service. Families are invited to make advent wreaths between the services (see first article for details).

For the safety of the community, we encourage all to take advantage of vaccinations and boosters, and we ask that all who attend either service or any indoor activity wear masks. The 10:45 a.m. service will be streamed online for those who are unable to attend. You can access the service at Grace's Facebook page , and you can find the bulletin for that service HERE.

If you have questions or concerns about worship practices, please feel free to contact April (aberends@saygrace.net) or Senior Warden, Andy Belcher (belcherandrewr@gmail.com).
Church Offices Closed November 25 and 26
Grace's Offices will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (11-25) and the day after (Friday, 11-26) in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Normal operating hours will return on Monday, November 29.
Daily Worship
Grace offers Compline services at 8pm each evening; you can join

& the password is: compline 

Morning Prayer continues every day (except Sundays) via Zoom, beginning at 9:00 a.m.; click the link below or paste the URL into your browser.

For Morning Prayer, click here:


or paste this URL into your browser:


Meeting ID: 746 8859 6599

Passcode: amprayer
Opportunities for Seasonal Music
Advent Lessons and Carols at Christ Church -- 12-5

Celebrating Christmas carols, hymns, and poetry both new and old, this service of lessons and carols is sure to get you in the Christmas spirit! The nine lessons told as a part of this service walk through the Christmas story, from Earth's creation to the arrival of the Magi to witness the birth of Jesus Christ in the manger. Each choral carol and congregational hymn is meant to accentuate the stories told through these lessons, and to inspire joy and wonderment in the miracle of the Christmas story.

Featuring carols by:

  • Morten Lauridsen
  • Sarah MacDonald
  • Ethan McGrath
  • Dobrinka Tabakova
  • David Willcocks

Sunday December 5, 2021 7:00pm
663 Douglas Street, Chattanooga TN
Masks Required. Admission Free. Donations Welcome.

Metropolitan Bells

Metropolitan Bells will present its usually-annual Christmas program on three different days at three different locations:

Thursday, December 9: First United Methodist Church in Cleveland
(3425 N. Ocoee St.) 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, December 14, Brainerd Baptist Church (300 Brookfield Avenue),
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, December 16, Christ United Methodist Church (8645 E. Brainerd Rd.), 7:30 p.m.
More about Bishop Sanders
See below for an article from the November 19, 2021 issue of The Living Church, written by Kirk Petersen.

William Sanders, Longest-Serving Bishop, Dies at 101

The Rt. Rev. William Evan Sanders, the VIII Bishop of Tennessee and the I Bishop of East Tennessee, passed away at home in Nashville in the presence of his family on November 18, at the age of 101. He would have turned 102 on Christmas Day. At the time of his death he was the senior bishop of the church, in terms of length of service.

Shortly before his 98th birthday, Sanders attended, vested, and processed at the consecration of the fifth and current Bishop of East Tennessee, the Rt. Rev. Brian Cole. Cole told TLC that “one of the great gifts” and great memories of that day, December 2, 2017, was seeing the reaction of the many people in attendance whom Sanders had baptized, confirmed, or ordained.

“He was not a tall man, but he loomed large in the story of the Episcopal witness in this state and in this region,” Cole said. “I think in ways he didn’t realize, he has blessed this generation simply by his presence that day.”
 
Sanders’s death came four days after the passing of the first Bishop of West Tennessee, the Rt. Rev. Alex Dickson, 95. “The state of Tennessee lost two significant bishops this week,” Cole said, both of whom were the first bishops of new dioceses.

Until the 1980s, the Diocese of Tennessee encompassed the entire state. The see city was Memphis, at the southwest tip of the horizontal state — fully 500 miles away from St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Bristol, in the northeast corner. As Bishop of Tennessee from 1977 to 1985, Sanders oversaw the partition into three dioceses in a two-step process, after approval by the 1982 General Convention.
West Tennessee was created in 1983, based in Memphis, leaving Nashville as the see city in the center of the state. When East Tennessee bloomed in 1985, Sanders chose to become the first bishop in the new Knoxville-based diocese, and resigned as bishop of the continuing Diocese of Tennessee. He continued as Bishop of East Tennessee until retiring in 1992 — the year Cole received his master’s of divinity degree.
 
A biography on the East Tennessee website says that Sanders established two major programs during his episcopacy:

The first was Venture in Mission, in which the statewide Diocese of Tennessee gave particular support to church growth, urban ministries and companionship funding for the [Anglican and Episcopal churches] in Costa Rica, Haiti and Central Africa. The other was the Opportunity Fund program of the Diocese of East Tennessee, which provided funds for a new diocesan center, congregational development and social ministry.

Sanders was born December 25, 1919, in Natchez, Mississippi. He grew up in Nashville, and his entire ordained ministry was in Tennessee. After studying at Vanderbilt and obtaining his master’s of divinity at Sewanee: The University of the South, he was ordained as a deacon in 1945 and as priest in 1946. He served as a deacon at St. Paul’s in Chattanooga, and from 1946 to 1962 he was assistant, and later dean, at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Memphis. Sanders also earned a master’s of sacred theology from Union Seminary.

He was consecrated bishop coadjutor on April 4, 1962, meaning he would automatically become bishop diocesan when the incumbent left office. These days it’s a role that often lasts for a year or two, but Sanders served as coadjutor for 15 years, before becoming Bishop of Tennessee upon the retirement of Bishop John Vander Horst in 1977.

Todd Ousley, the bishop for pastoral development on the presiding bishop’s staff, said that with the passing of Sanders, the Rt. Rev. David Benson Reed is now the senior bishop of the Episcopal Church. Reed, 94, was consecrated as Bishop of Colombia on April 25, 1964, and later served as Bishop of Kentucky from 1974 to 1994.

Sanders married Kathryn Cowan Schaffer in 1951, and they had four children. She predeceased him in 1999, and in 2005 Sanders married Marlin Jones Phythyon, who has three daughters. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Pictured above: Bishop Sanders, 97, at the consecration of Bishop Cole, his successor’s successor’s successor’s successor. (!)
Parish Prayer List
Please remember: Joseph, our President; the Senate, the House of Representatives, and our Courts of Justice; together with all elected officials, and the other leaders of our country and the nations of the world.
 
We pray for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury; Michael, our Presiding Bishop; Brian, our Bishop; for April, our priest; for David, our Curate; for Sarah and Caroline, our seminarians; for our missionaries, and all other bishops and ministers.
 
We pray for the unemployed and underemployed, especially those in our congregation and community. We pray for the homeless and the hungry, and for those in special need of prayer, especially
 
Charles Evans, Wilma Laney, Bill Clark, Mary McDonald, Patricia Kelley Williams, Tony Hill, Jennifer, Scott, Julia, Tony, Mary Cooper, Russell, Susan Landis,
Martha Smith, Sue Sears, William Simpson, Neil Robinson, Ash Gunlock, Bill Strang, Sally Cauthen, Mary Lou Walden, Jennifer Thompson, June McEwen, Amy, Deborah, Jim Hinkle, Andrea, the Brown family, Reba, Niysah, Terrie, Alex, Angela,  Dwight McMillan, Doris, J.R. Hicks, Libby Workman,
Jean Williams, Barbara Reed, Jim May, and Ann Swint; 

We pray for Wil Mabry, Jake Dorris, Kevin Kelley, Tripp Mouron, Mike Mabry, Alexander Ross, Russel Webb, Logan Roberts, Jim Makepeace, Sean Benson, 
Evan Watkins and all of our Armed Forces, here and abroad;
 
We pray for Emily Brelsford and Katie Poulos Moore, who are with child.

We pray for this community: For our local leaders; for our schools and marketplaces; for our neighborhoods and workplaces, for protesters and for police. Help us to honor your image in one another. Give us courage to strive for justice and peace among all people, beginning here at home. 

We pray for all whose homes are in peril or uprooted because of climate change, for all displaced because of hurricanes, fires or other disasters. We pray for the people of Haiti as they recover from the earthquake, and for the people of Afghanistan during political upheaval.
 
We pray for those who have died, that they may share with all your saints in the full revelation of your eternal glory.

In the Anglican Cycle of Prayer: Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil. The Anglican Communion has adopted a cycle of prayer called "From Aba to Zululand," praying its way alphabetically through its members on a daily basis between January 1, 2021 and September 2023. The newsletter and, in the future, the printed bulletin, will include the prayers for Sunday; if you would like to see the daily prayer requests, you can find them at ACoP.

In the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: Pray for Church of the Nativity, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, and for these South Dakota churches: Christ Church, Fort Thompson, and Christ Church, Chamberlain.

Those in need of continued prayer: 
Valorie Lephart, Jeanette Cureton, Wanda Kirkpatrick, Emma Andrews,
Jim Strickland, Michael Conner,  Helen Williams, Peggy Fugate, William Simpson, Timothy Penny, Donald Jones, Cooper Jones, Charles Smith, John Woodham,
Elaine Harrison, Marcia Magers, Major McCollough, John Cox, 
Gayanne Silver, Heather Nelson, Robert Clark, Dexter and Helen Williams,
Cheryl McCurry, Ethel Rutledge, Lanie Lundgrin, Terri Harvey, Anne Getz,
Michael Roberts, Jeannie and Andy Williams, Jaime Cooper, Teresa Noel,
Tina Knowles, Joyce and Greg Snyder, Martha Killeffer, Robert Durham, 
Jessica Ricketts
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