The Episcopal Church of the Mediator invites you to Raising Children in the Faith, a workshop for parents led by The Rev. Anne E. Kitch, the new diocesan Canon for Formation in the Christian Faith, on Saturday, September 13, from 10:00-noon. Childcare is available. Please call Mediator at 610-434-0155 or email revmariat@verizon.net to register by September 10. Mediator is located at 1620 Turner St., Allentown.
Lehigh Valley Episcopal congregations join to offer welcome and presence at Lehigh Valley Pride-In-the-Park for the first time
By T. Scott Allen
Enlarge the site of your tent,
and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;
do not hold back; lengthen your cords
and strengthen your stakes. Isaiah 54.2 (NRSV)
On a beautiful August afternoon the Episcopal churches of the Lehigh Valley joined together to have a ministry of presence and hospitality at the Lehigh Valley Pride-In-the-Park festival at Cedar Beach Park in Allentown.
The “Episcopal Tent” was graciously loaned by Mr. Mickey Brown of St. Andrew’s Allentown and owner of Michael Thomas Floral Designs. Father Patrick Malloy of Grace Church, Allentown, coordinated the volunteers and contents of the tent. All 500 red bag clips, emblazoned with the Episcopal shield and the phrase God made YOU for a purpose, the Episcopal Church welcomes YOU were handed out. Official attendance was set at over 5,000.
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Murder in a church backyard
‘No matter how close the darkness comes, we will never sell out’
By Bill Lewellis
[A young man was murdered behind Grace Allentown on August 10. It was Allentown's 13th homicide this year. Two Sundays later, parishioners of Grace processed to the spot of the killing to read God’s word and to recommit themselves to holding out
a corner of grace in a troubled neighborhood. Read a news release composed by the senior warden, an op by the rector, published in The Morning Call, the sermon preached by the rector, and the Aug. 25 news story in The Morning Call. Below is a story on the service and Grace Church in context.]
Jameel Clark, 20, predicted he would die. Two days before his prediction came true, he fought with Roman, a Latin Kings gang member, in a center city diner in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Roman told his friend, Melvin Velazquez, 18, known as Trigger.
During the early morning hours of Sunday, August 10, Clark went to a house behind Grace Episcopal Church to try to straighten things out peacefully, according to friends who warned him not to go there because friends of Roman might be nearby and might cause trouble. Clark was more concerned that trouble might find him when he was with his one-year-old daughter.
A witness said Clark and Velazquez fought outside the home. Clark ripped a black-and-yellow bead necklace, a Latin King symbol, off Velazquez’s neck. Velazquez pulled a handgun and shot Clark several times on a bleak, macadam parking lot.
Last Sunday, two readers proclaimed a version of this responsively, at the spot where Clark had been gunned down, the lot where Grace Church builds an Easter fire to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The people of Grace Church processed to the spot where the killing took place “in an endeavor to stand in solidarity with the good people of their neighborhood,” according to Grace Church senior warden Libby House, “and to pray for Jameel and others who have died violently in this city, to read God’s word and to recommit themselves to holding out a corner of grace in a troubled neighborhood.”
The killing was the 13th homicide in Allentown this year.
[From Mark Laubach]
Dear Friends:
If you’re looking for a new and totally different way of celebrating Halloween this year (named from “All Hallows Eve” – the eve of All Saints’ Day), your friends at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 35 South Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre have just the answer!
On Friday evening, October 31st at 7:30 p.m. St. Stephen’s will present the immortal classic silent movie, The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney!
An op-ed by Patrick Malloy
Rector, Grace Allentown
The Morning Call
August 22, 2008
[Also find Father Malloy's August 24 sermon, Marking a Death in Our Backyard, here.]
Jameel Clark was only 20 when he died on Aug. 10. That morning, one of his friends took sidewalk chalk and wrote outside his apartment building, ''I am my brother's keeper.'' Sidewalk chalk is a child's toy. Jameel was hardly more than a child. I had to walk over the words because I live in that building, too.
Jameel was shot to death behind Grace Episcopal Church at Fifth and Linden in Allentown. The members of the parish went there for Sunday morning worship just eight hours later. They had no idea that only feet from where they parked, a man had been killed in the darkness. I had to go to Grace Church on Sunday morning because I am the priest.
Continue reading "On facing evil in a dark downtown parking lot" »
As City Reels from 13th Homicide of the Year
Downtown Allentown Church Will Not Cower Before Murder in Its Backyard
By Libby House, senior warden, Grace Allentown
Allentown, Pennsylvania… This coming Sunday morning, on August 24th at 10 o’clock, the people of Grace Episcopal Church, at the corner of 5th and Linden in the center of Allentown, will stand together against the hopelessness, chaos, evil, and darkness that fill their streets. Once again the people of Center City Allentown have suffered a senseless homicide, the thirteenth this year, and the people of Grace Church will not remain silent. Instead they will stand up from their pews and move into the place where this tragic loss of a valuable human life occurred, into the streets. They will confront the violence head on.
On Sunday, August 10, Jameel Clark, twenty years old, a man not much more than a boy, was murdered on the parking lot behind a building owned by the church, which until very recently had housed the church’s AIDS ministry for more than a decade. The people of Grace Church, in an endeavor to stand in solidarity with the good people of their neighborhood, the true victims of the senseless mayhem, will process from their church to the very spot on the bleak, macadam, parking lot where the killing took place. There they will pray for Jameel and others who have died violently in this city, read God’s Word, and recommit themselves to holding out a corner of grace in a troubled neighborhood.
The lot where Jameel was gunned down is the same lot where they build the bonfire each Easter for their Vigil. On Sunday, they will go back to that spot. They will carry with them the fire from Easter night, a sign that the darkness has not and cannot extinguish God’s light burning in the world. And, just as at the Easter Vigil, they will light individual candles and move back into the church. They will proclaim again that Christ is the Light of the World, and they will recommit themselves to letting the Light spread through them into Center City Allentown.
Continue reading "Downtown Allentown Church Will Not Cower Before Murder in Its Backyard" »
At Christ Church Carbondale
Tiffany Windows to be Restored
June 2, 2008 05:20 PM –– WNEP-TV
The three Tiffany stained glass windows at Trinity Episcopal Church in Carbondale are being removed, restored and will then be reinstalled.
By Josh Brogadir
Fixing three buckling windows in Carbondale, section by section, will take a few months because those windows are special Tiffany stained-glass. Inside the chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church in Carbondale is a view 140 years into the past. Three Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows were a gift to the church that dates back to the 19th century. The years have taken their toll on the windows and now begins the painstaking process of restoring them.
Continue reading "Trinity Carbondale gears up for 175 years" »
The Church School at Trinity Easton has a missionary offering every program year. They undertake a small fundraiser or two, but mainly they collect spare change from their alowances, their families and fellow parishioners at Trinity from mid-September through May.
The 2007-08 Church School Missionary Offering was designated for the New Hope Campaign. At both Sunday services, children from the church would take turns collecting small change in two specially made "school houses," made by Trinitarian Carmen LoBaido Wilson to underscore that one of the tasks of New Hope is to rebuild school buildings in Kajo-Keji. At each service, the children would present their gifts at the altar along with the regular offerings of money and food, bread and wine.
During the year in class, they learned about Loopo Primary School, our adopted school, and other activities to learn about the Diocese of Kajo-Keji.
When Bishop Paul came to visit on April 20th, he was presented a check for $664, which was collected up through Easter. But they weren't done. The Church School collected a total $1850 for New Hope through this year's Church School Missionary offering.
By Ray Harbort
St. George’s Church, Hellertown has collected over one hundred bears and other stuffed critters for the children at New Bethany Ministries in Bethlehem.
It all began when seven year-old Sam Vandergast and his family viewed a news story on TV about the increase in homelessness. His parents told him about the families who resided at New Bethany Ministries in Bethlehem.
Sam was surprised that there were children in the shelter and asked, “If they don’t have homes, does that mean they don’t have toys?” He was upset about it and wanted to do something for them.
Soon after, he had a visit to the emergency room and took his favorite bear with him and told his parents how much better it made him feel. He related his experience to the news story about homeless children and again asked if the family could work on a project to help children who were scared or sad.
St. George’s Bears for New Bethany project was launched when Sam and his mother, Shari, made an appeal to the congregation at St. George’s for 70 bears. A few weeks later, more than 100 bears and other stuffed toys were crowding the front pews of the church, waiting to be delivered to New Bethany.
[The Rev. Raymond L. Harbort is rector of St. George's Hellertown.]
[Photos by Henry Baird. Click on the photos to enlarge them.]
