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Congregational Development Grant Applications

The deadline is earlier this year July 1 – so the committee can include the specific grants in the budget presented to Diocesan Convention in October. The advantage is that congregations will know the amount of their grant in October instead of January or February after Diocesan Council meets. Applications received after deadline will not be considered. Questions: Canon Jane Teter at 800-358-5655 x228 or email.

Download the application form which may be completed online.
Download congregational_development2009.pdf

Bishop's School – Fall 2008

The Fall Semester of Bishop's School will be held at St. Peter's Church in Hazleton from 10 to 3:30 on September 20 & 27; October 4, 18 & 25; November 1, 8, 15, 22; and December 6 (December 13 is reserved for a snow day).

The morning class will be "The Message of the Old Testament" led by The Rev. Daniel Gunn; the afternoon class will be "Church History" led by Mr. Brian Pavlac.

The Designated Lover -- Changing the Game of Life ... By Bishop Paul Marshall

[This is Bishop Paul Marshall’s May 2008 column for secular newspapers, usually 600 words or less and different from his column in Diocesan Life. The column is sent to newspapers throughout our 14 counties. It is published by The Morning Call, Allentown, on the first Saturday of every month. It usually appears also in six or seven additional papers at some point during the month. The combined circulation of papers that publish the column regularly is about 400,000. Some 130 columns have been published over the past 12 years.]

The past is never quite past.

I was quietly watching Game Seven of the 1952 World Series on my computer, hoping the Dodgers would fare better this time. Just as Red Barber’s voice had me once again sitting on my grandfather’s lap watching the tiny screen on his Philco television back in Astoria, the laptop gave out its little you-have-mail ding. I am the slave of duty.

The past had come calling in the email as well. A person totally unknown to me had come upon a column published in this space almost twelve years ago and was writing to reply.

I had suggested in that column that we are helped by understanding our intimate moments as “making-love” rather than as the cruder unemotional expression, “having sex.” I observed also that American prudery had stripped from the wedding service of my church the wonderful expression, “With my body I thee worship.”

My correspondent misread me. She thought that the idea of making love must mean something gentle, expressing tenderness and devotion. She observed that in her serial relationships having sex meant the wild moments.

newSpin 080425

Download 080425newspin.doc

DOK Retreat

The Daughters of the King retreat took place on April 4-6 at the Franciscan Retreat Center in Easton. Deacon Johanna Depue from the Geranium Farm was the presenter. Mother Gwendolyn-Jane and Deacon Marion Meiss, who are Daughters of the King were participating with the retreatants. Attached is a picture of some of the women who made the retreat. It was a blessed weekend.

Joan De Acetis
President
Daughters of the King
Diocese of Bethlehem

Download the photo below.
Download 0804.DOK Retreat.jpg

New Ministry/Carbondale and Forest City

Trinity Church Carbondale and Christ Church Forest City celebrated their new ministry with the rector, Father Don Schaible, on Sunday afternoon, April 20. Download more information, with pics, below

Download new_ministry_celebration.pdf

A Brush with God -- Icon Painting Retreat

Peter Pearson, a well known iconographer, teacher of iconography and author of A Brush with God: An Icon Painting Workbook, will offer a five day icon painting retreat at the Fatima Renewal Center in Dalton, PA (near Scranton) from May 18 to May 23.

During this retreat the participants will gather for prayer several times a day, study various aspects of Byzantine iconography, and paint their own icon of Saint George and the Dragon from start to finish.

This is a beginner level experience and there is no requirement for prior artistic experience. The cost for the entire week is $500 (including room and board). Further information is available by contacting Peter at 412-848-2642 or by email at pearson@nb.net.

Jubilate, Pentecost Season 2008

Hymnody for the Pentecost Season (May 11 to November 23, 2008), published by the Diocese of Bethlehem for our diocesan community and for free distribution to the world, may be downloaded below as an Acrobat or MSWord file. Jubilate is a service of our Liturgy and Music Commission, specifically Canon Cliff Carr who has been doing this for more than 30 years.

Download jubilate.Pentecost A 2008.doc

Download jubilate.Pentecost A 2008.pdf

In 600 words or less ... A bishop engages the culture beyond his church

By Bill Lewellis
Communication Minister, Diocese of Bethlehem

Soon after becoming Bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem in 1996, Paul Marshall wanted to connect with people he would not see in his church or in any church.

He decided to write a monthly column and offer it to local newspapers "to provide a polite but direct alternative to an extraordinarily conservative religious and political culture ... to offer good news particularly to those who cannot identify with or who have begun to question that culture, in either its protestant or Roman Catholic manifestations."

Since that time, daily and weekly newspapers in his 14-county Episcopal diocese in eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania have published some 130 of his monthly columns.

He is the only bishop in the Episcopal Church -- perhaps the only bishop of any church -- whose columns have had such a long run in area newspapers.

The column is almost always different from another column he writes for Diocesan Life, the monthly newspaper of the Diocese of Bethlehem.

"Given that most of the ink in the space allotted to religious columns in area newspapers is taken up by the dominant religious culture," he writes in the preface of his new book, Messages in the Mall: Looking at Life in 600 Words or Less (Seabury Books, 2008) a compilation of more than 90 of his columns, organized along thematic lines, "I have from the first spent most of my time each month attempting to reach those who think Christianity is irrelevant or anti-intellectual, and those who have been burned by rigorist religion."

[Click here for more information about this and other books by Marshall]

In his columns, Marshall addresses all aspects of life, from the intimate and complex relationships of couples and families to thorny social and religious issues. With dry wit, gentle humor, deep compassion and, sometimes, anger, he writes about topics from the tragic Columbine school shootings to the spiritual ramifications of the TV series The Sopranos.

Download the entire story below.

Download messages_in_the_mall.doc

Sermon at Memorial Service for Henry Pease

Sermon in Loving Memory of the Rev. Henry J. Pease
Given at the Requiem Eucharist
April 19, 2008 in St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre
By the Ven. Richard I. Cluett

[More on Father Pease here]

Precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints. Precious, too, is the life of that saint. Beloved Henry J. Pease is such a one.

What calls to mind a beloved person? When you think about this man, what is it that comes to mind? The life and the death of Henry J. Pease have brought us to this day and to this service. I know some call him Mr. Pease, and that is an honorific, befitting this man. MR. Pease. Others of us know him as Father Pease, or Professor Pease, or Dad or Grampa, or simply as friend, colleague, or neighbor, Henry.

But now that we are here, what comes to mind – what comes to your mind – such a man whose life and death has brought us all here this day? Each of has had our own experience with this extraordinary ordinary man. So what is it for you?