St. Andrew’s FISH – Families Integrating Sunday and Home

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Like many churches these days, St. Andrew’s had limited volunteer resources and sporadic attendance at Church School. The “regular” families were frustrated and burned out. And my experience had taught me that parental involvement is the single most important success factor in Christian formation. We were ready to do church differently.

We’re an Episcopal church, with a rich liturgical tradition. I have long believed that worship is the most formative thing we do, and worship was working well. We have strong and consistent attendance for our Family Service, which meets during the readings, sermon and prayers of the primary service. We do all the same things, in a more family-friendly setting. Then we rejoin the primary service for Communion, every Sunday. We don’t have any rules about what ages belong where, or parental accompaniment; we let each family make the decision that suits them best. Many parents choose to worship with their children. Continue reading →

Peace Garden

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After Easter—Spring and Summer in the Garden! Wondering what to do with kids and adults in Ordinary time? Go outside!!! Our Christian Education team invited adults’ and children’s classes to come out to the Sweetwater Garden behind our church to make a Peace Garden. This garden is part of the Wylde Center neighborhood gardens. We enlisted folks who could help us but were not the usual teachers: a person who volunteered in the garden, another to build benches out of recycled wood, an artist to help paint the benches and the peace pole we erected as well as a bird bath that we decorated with mosaic tiles. Continue reading →

Flag Day

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This Sunday marks a holiday in the United States that is mostly forgotten–Flag Day. It commemorates the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes as our national flag on June 14, 1777. Before this there were many flags in use and so the adoption of one flag style was an act of unifying the colonial forces fighting during the Revolutionary War.

Flags of the American Revolution

In many sanctuaries this flag is accompanied by another called the Christian flag. Did the Christian flag come to be as an act of unifying the forces during the Crusades? Was it designed by an ecumenical church council that drafted an accompanying creed or confession? Continue reading →

The Church Finding a Voice

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Von Clemans offers these important insights on how the ways we communicate information in the church are changing. This is a reblogged post from the APCE Adovocate via Kaye Bledsoe.

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Goldfish Have Eight by Von Clemans (copied from APCE ADVOCATE Journal)

On a recent Sunday I passed through the narthex and noticed the large pile of bulletins left by departing worshipers. At least three-quarters of all the bulletins printed for that day were destined for the recycling bin. In each folded paper were dozens of carefully crafted announcements designed to engage and attract people to essential opportunities for their growth in faith. I’d like to think church people had memorized all the pertinent details for future reference. But the truth is many of them did little more than scan them. I know that because our weekly email newsletter is opened by less than half of the recipients, with a click-through rate of less than five percent.  Messages are going out but not being received.

Why?  Because communication patterns have changed. Information hits us from every direction in every possible media…

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Copyright and Educational Fair Use- Part 3

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Still have questions about fair use exception? Here are several more helpful guidelines to help you make the appropriate decision.

The general guideline is that authors or creators keep copyright at least 70 years after their death. If a work is of corporate authorship, the copyright lasts 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.

You ask what percentage of a work is okay within the fair use exception. The following table might help. Continue reading →

Selecting Children’s Bibles

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At a recent gathering of the East region the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators, Elizabeth “Lib” Caldwell, retired professor of Christian Education at McCormick Seminary, led a discussion of things to consider when choosing a children’s Bible.

She offered a variety of criteria, or lenses, through which to examine children’s Bibles. Continue reading →

Copyright and Educational Fair Use- Part 2

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In my previous blog, I introduced the rights of the copyright holder or owner. When the Founding Fathers set up the copyright laws, they were aware of the social impact that innovation and new research can have on an emerging society, especially at the time when copyright law was created. In addition, they believed that the public should have access to these creations, particularly ones coming from academic research and scholarship. The Founding Fathers, therefore, created Section 107, which is an exception to the copyright law and is called the fair use exception. Continue reading →