Christian Formation

The Saint Thomas Book Club continues on Tuesday, February 5 at 10 am in the South Room with Dr. Perry’s book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, discovering how trauma affects the child’s mind and how traumatized children can recover. Our next discussion is on Chapter 11: Healing Communities. Relationships are the agents of change for traumatized children, and the most powerful therapy is human love. How do we build such a community in a modern world?

What’s Your Story? – Seeing Your Life Through God’s Eyes. We all have a story. How can you live a great one? Envision your life as an adventure co-created by God. This study explores Joseph’s story. He accomplished great things in Egypt, but he didn’t really understand his story’s significance until he recognized what God was doing through him. Sarah Heath helps you explore your own life story in the same way. By doing so, you’ll discover how to co-create with God the kind of life that will be a page-turner. This is our final session small-group study. It will be presented by Mother Joy, and will include opportunities for discussion. We will meet on this Sunday, December 16, in the South Room from 11:30am-1:00pm. Please join us. Lunch will be provided. Check out a brief summary by the author of this series, The Reverend Sarah Heath: https://youtu.be/isqjcZNEY18

Virginia Theological Seminary – who are now offering AdventWord – warmly invite you to participate in a global gathering of prayers via an online advent calendar. During Advent, a daily email featuring the #AdventWord of the day will go out at 5 a.m. each day, and respondents are encouraged to share their responses to the meditations and images on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. (Please note this is now a separate email offering from Brother, Give Us a Word.) You can also visit www.adventword.org, for a collection of each day’s contributed images and prayers. This year, meditations will also be available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese (Traditional), German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish available via email with and ASL videos via YouTube and on www.adventword.org. Join an international community in prayer to explore the mystery and wonder of Advent! www.adventword.org www.instagram.com/adventword www.twitter.com/AdventWord www.facebook.com/AdventWordOrg

Standing in a dirt road in Kajo Keji, South Sudan, I am immersed in a surreal scene. There are no paved roads, no electricity, no cars, no internet, and no cell service. Surrounded by a leper, a cripple, a blind grandmother being led by her granddaughter, it is as if I am walking through a scene in the gospels. Our diocese has finished building our third primary school in the county, and we are there to officially hand the keys over to their bishop and the village elders. Their joy, our joy, is indescribable. There is a feeling of electricity in the air. That feeling, of course, is love and New Hope for their beloved. The opening of this school, this gift from Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) to the people of Dwani, South Sudan, is a gift of unheard extravagance. And the poorest people on the earth proceed to give us a…

Throughout time, humans have been obsessed with all things large and grandiose. In ancient times, the pyramids were the quintessential example of this, massive structures built to deify pharaohs. The Colosseum, Parthenon, and other ancient wonders draw visitors to this day. In our time, we build towering skyscrapers, glittering metropolises, and larger-than-life government buildings. Even our homes are significantly larger: The average square footage of a house in 1920 was 1,048, as compared to 2,657 square feet in 2014. But bigger is better, right? After I read today’s Gospel lesson, I immediately related to the disciples’ awe of the temple. One of my favorite places in all of this country is Washington National Cathedral, just a mile from where my mother and her sisters were born and raised. I’ve been to the cathedral multiple times over the years, most recently after we buried my grandmother in 2014. It’s a place…

Every morning before 5 a.m., my great aunt Gladys rises to bake bread for the small island of Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas. She’s been doing this six days a week for some 50 years. She shapes loaves in a small bake house behind her home and makes enough coconut bread, cinnamon raisin, and white sandwich loaves to sell at the store near the ferry’s dock. While the loaves rest during the first rising, Aunt Gladys goes off to Bible Study. When she returns, the loaves are prepped for the second rise and finally baked, bagged, and sent off to be sold. Aunt Gladys has put her children through school, supported missionary needs around the globe, and will tell you without prompting that she has never wanted for anything. When I think of sacrificial love and sacrificial giving, her strong hands kneading pounds of dough before sunrise come to…