From the Rector
A Change of Pattern
I’ve come to trust some truths over my years in parish ministry and a couple of them are about vibrant worship. One is that when Christian worship is alive there is a feeling, a shared encounter that is profound and rare among human experience. There is something about the communal experience of worship that is different. I’ve also learned the truth that architects and liturgists have taught over the decades, that the space always wins. It’s with these two truths in mind that the worship reimagining task force, the staff, the Vestry, and I have been discerning over the past several months.
Depending on when you came to All Souls, you may or may not know that until 2013 we had two Sunday services, at 8am in the chapel and 10am in the nave. Over time the services in those two spaces were full enough Sunday to Sunday, that in order to create room for new people to continue to find their space at All Souls, we added a third Sunday morning service. As of the fall of 2013 we had a 7:30a service in the chapel, and 9am and 1115am services in the nave. And while that transition was not without challenge, it did create the space for new people to participate, along with the opportunity for a robust and meaningful adult formation hour.
And then, in 2020 COViD happened. And with the great reckoning and resorting, there was an exodus of All Soulsians from the Bay. Within the space of a few years, more than 44 households left this part of the world for another. And scores of All Soulsians found online worship to be a poor substitute for the in person experience they had come to know and to trust. As we have slowly, but surely emerged from pandemic, we have found that the contours of parish life at All Souls have changed, some of them significantly. While our 9 o’clock service has come closer and closer to the form that we knew in the Before Times, the 11:15am service in general has not. We have found that when there are 65 people spread across a space that can hold 300, it becomes challenging to have the vibrant experience of Christian worship. In short, the space wins.
As a staff, we have been listening and contemplating and wondering for about a year. Then, at the beginning of this year the Vestry began its own contemplation and organized a task force to engage in more listening and discernment. Some of that discernment was in the form of a survey, the results of which you’ll see later in this Pathfinder. The task force recently offered a set of recommendations and after discernment and prayer, conversation with the staff and Vestry, a new pattern for Sundays has emerged. Starting on Pentecost, Sunday May 28th, we will be piloting the following schedule:
8am Contemplative Eucharist in the Chapel
9:15am Teaching Hour in the Parish Hall, Common Room, and other areas
10:30am Choral Eucharist in the Nave with Sunday School, Coffee Hour will follow this service
5pm Sunday Night Service in the Chapel
As with just about any practice held in common, our new schedule involves a series of compromises. After over three years of being outside of the Chapel on Sunday mornings, it was important to restore the early morning contemplative service in the Chapel. Then, in order to have some time for pastoral conversation and preparation after the 8am service, the Teaching Hour will begin at 9:15am. Similarly, to allow for a chance to breathe before the next service, the worship service in the Nave will begin at 10:30am. (to keep our recent practice of streaming a service, the 10:30am service will be streamed, with offscreen areas in the back of the church) A time for food, conversation, and fellowship will follow the 10:30am service. The Sunday Night Service will continue to worship at 5pm in the Chapel.
My experience with change tells me that starting this schedule (don’t forget, first Sunday is May 28th) will bring both loss and gain. It is hard to establish new patterns, something that the pandemic has driven home. And, in other ways life will be a bit easier––especially for our musicians, our staff, and the legion of All Soulsians who make church together each week.
One question that we have asked as part of this discernment has been, “What happens if we grow so much that the space doesn’t hold us again?” It feels like almost every Sunday we see at All Souls someone who hasn’t been to the corner of Cedar and Spruce for months, perhaps even years. And, the steady stream of newcomers that we had known for decades has begun to flow again. So, if there is a similar sense in the years ahead that we don’t want to close the proverbial door behind us, we can look to shift the service schedule once more––we’ve done it before, and if needed we can do it again.
In all, I am tremendously grateful to the task force, the staff, the ministry leads and the Vestry as we listened for what changes were needed for the growth of the parish. As you can see from the results of the survey, many people find great meaning in our liturgy: the preaching, music, prayers, thanksgivings, and sacraments. I continue to trust that this central act of worshiping God will continue to transform us for the life of the world––just at a different time.
Peace,
Phil+
From the Associate Rector
Reporting Our Findings and Recommendations
As you’ve just read in Phil’s article, a lot of work and discernment went into the decision to change our Sunday worship schedule, on a pilot basis. While the decision was ultimately Phil’s to make, he commissioned a task force, led by vestry member, Ryan Greene-Roesel, to gather input from the congregation and make some recommendations for him to consider in making the final decision. In the process of that discernment, the task force solicited feedback via a survey sent out to our mailing list, and taking those responses, which you can see here, they made a recommendation for a change in our Sunday schedule. It is the custom of this parish that when we ask for feedback, we report back, as best as we’re able, the feedback we have received and if and how we intend to act on it. This is why we are sharing this with you now.
As you have just read in his article, Phil has decided to follow the recommendation of the task force, with only a slight variation to allow for more transition time between events. Some other recommendations that came through clearly in the feedback and from the task force were that Children’s Chapel/Sunday school should take place during the principal service, in this case, the 10:30am service, and that adult formation should come before the service, and coffee hour after to allow families enough time to get home for lunch while still allowing parents to attend formation earlier. You can read a summary of the entire recommendation here.
In the weeks to come, there will be some fine-tuning as we work out this new pattern, especially with things like Open Door Dinner and coffee hour, and we ask for your patience and openness as we smooth things out.
Many thanks to the Reimagining Worship Task force, Ruth Meyers, Dent Davidson, Molly Nicol, Mark Wilson, and Tess Taylor for their hard work, and especially to Ryan Greene-Roesel for her leadership.
Maggie+
From the Associate for Ministry Development
Save the Date for a Pentecost Ministry Fair!
Pentecost is the day that we traditionally celebrate as the birthday of the Church. It’s a day when we wear red and we read the story of the Spirit of God falling as a rushing wind with tongues of flame on the people of God. This year, we’ll also celebrate this day with an opportunity to connect deeper into the community at All Souls.
Just after the service that day we’ll have a fair (and Continuing the Feast potluck) in the courtyard where all of the different ministries of All Souls will be showcased and where we’ll have a chance to eat together and take a look at all the different and varied ministries of this place in one glance (it is truly quite impressive!).
So save the date for May 28th, after the service, to hang out, eat lunch, and enjoy the ways we connect to our own gifts in this place, to each other, and to God by the ways we serve each other and this community.
-Emily
Save the Dates
- May 28, Pentecost!
- July 14-16, All-parish Big Sur camping trip
Weekly Worship
Join us for worship this week:
- 9am, in-person, indoors
- 11:15am, in-person, indoors. (click here to access the live stream)
- 5p, the Sunday Night Service, in-person, indoors, in the Chapel.
You can access the live stream through our website or by tuning into our All Souls Episcopal Parish Youtube page. Click here to watch on Sunday morning.
If you miss a Sunday, you can always catch the sermon on our homepage or as a podcast, anywhere you listen to podcasts!
Wednesday 9am Service
Join the Zoom call here, or join us in person in the Nave at 9a. Password: 520218.
Formation
Adult Formation Classes
- Reading Between the Lines Bible Study @ 7:30a. Click here to join by Zoom, or join them in-person in the Common Room.
- Reading Between the Lines Bible Study @ 10:15a. Click here to join by Zoom, or join them in-person in Phil’s old office, (now called the Shadrach Room).
- Mission, Race, and Empire: April 16, 23, and 30 @10:15a in the Parish Hall or on Zoom (click here).
Dr. Jennifer Snow, Associate Professor of Practical Theology at CDSP, will give a series of three talks on the history of the Episcopal Church in the context of Mission, Race, and Empire, drawn from her forthcoming book from Oxford University Press. The talks will draw from the complex interactions of the church’s mission and identity with the British Empire and the expansion of the United States through indigenous lands; the history of enslavement, emancipation, and Civil Rights; the development of a theology of “welcome” and inclusion in the 20th century; and contemporary debates, conflicts, and uncertainty about the church and its mission in the modern world.
Coming up in Adult formation
The Desert Ammas and Abbas: May 7 and 14
A profound movement beginning around the 3rd century gave birth to what we now know as monasticism and had a deep impact on the Christian faith. In this course, taught by The Rev. Dr. Daniel Prechtel, we will explore what forces influenced those hermits and ascetics that came to be known as the “desert fathers and mothers” to form a variety of communities in the wilderness regions in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. We will get impressions of what life was like and what prayer practices evolved. We will sample some of the “sayings” of the desert elders that have endured over the centuries and the fascinating people behind those sayings. And we will learn about the sophisticated spiritual psychology and anthropology of highly educated monastics, Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian.
Children, Youth, and Family News
Nursery The downstairs nursery is open and available to you for your use whenever you’re at All Souls. This is not a staffed nursery, so an adult must be there with your child, but if you need a quiet place to take a time out, change a diaper, let your child play or take a rest, the nursery is open for you to do all of those things. If there is a service going on that’s being livestreamed, you will be able to watch the livestream on the computer in the nursery as well.
Sunday School This week, join us for Children’s Chapel during the 9:00am service where we will hear the Godly Play story of the Good Shepherd. Children are invited to follow the Children’s Chapel leaders down the center aisle after the gospel reading, and rejoin their families before communion!
Faithful Families the next Faithful Families will be Thursday, May 25th from 5:30-7:15pm! Join us for dinner, intergenerational formation, and a short evening prayer service. Click Here to RSVP!
Confirm Not Conform continues this Sunday at 10:10
Youth Youth in grades 6-12 are invited to meet in the “Fiery Furnace” downstairs in the undercroft for a check-in on Sunday mornings. Youth Group Continues this week for Grades 6-12 at 7:00pm in the “Fiery Furnace”
Youth Walking Pilgrimage to Grace Cathedral: May 21st after the 9am service for grades 6-12!
You may recall that last year, Phil led a group of young people on a walking pilgrimage from All Souls, that left after the 9:00am service, to Grace Cathedral, mostly walking, and taking the ferry. Last year, this was something that we did, just as our youth group, because we had been talking a lot about pilgrimage, and thought it would be a fun way to experience a taste of what a pilgrimage is like. WELL, lots of people got excited about our idea and this year, it has turned into a much bigger event with churches from around the diocese planning to participate and meet up at various points along the way to Grace Cathedral for dinner and an evening service, that youth will have a chance to participate in. We will be participating in collaboration with other churches in the Alameda Deanery, meeting up at St. Augustine’s on our way to Jack London square. Like last year, we will leave at the end of the 9:00am service and begin walking, and the day will end around 7:00pm at Grace Cathedral. Click here to sign up!
High School Immersion Trip This year’s High School immersion trip will be to Mexico City, led by Toni Martinez-Borgfeldt, seminarian Michael Drell, Maggie Foote, and parishioner Teresa Muñoz. Eight youth are signed up to go, and are looking forward to a meaningful immersion experience widening their perspective on the Episcopal Church by connecting with youth from Anglican churches in Mexico, experiencing a day of pilgrimage, eating lots of good food and immersing ourselves in the culture. Keep an eye out for updates on our fundraising efforts in the weeks to come, and in the mean time, if you would like to financially support the youth attending this trip, you can send a check to All Souls with High School Immersion Trip in the memo line. Thank you!
Email Maggie for more information about Children, Youth and Family Ministries at All Souls.
Episcopal Summer Camp Registrations are Now Open!
Episcopal Camps across the country are starting to open for registration, including the Diocese of California’s not one, but TWO summer camps: St. Dorothy’s Rest, and The Bishop’s Ranch. You can find more information about the dates, age ranges, and cost for each camp at the links below:
Other News & Notes
Need a parking spot?
We’ve got a parking lot under the Jordan Court apartment building that is available to anyone with challenges with mobility or anyone who regularly drives someone with challenges with mobility. If that is you, and you would like access to the parking garage on Sundays or other times when you are at the church, please reach out to Annie Rovzar, annie@allsoulsparish.org.
Flowers on Sundays at Church
If you are interested in dedicating the flowers in the Church on Sunday mornings to a loved one or a particular remembrance, please fill out this form and indicate which day you would like to contribute the flowers and what you would like the dedication to say. The dedication will appear in our announcement sheet on the Sunday you have selected. The suggested contribution for flowers is $75, which can be paid to All Souls either electronically or by check (see the giving page on our website for more information there), and be sure to write in “flowers” in the memo line.
Please contact Maggie Cooke for any questions, dmcooke92@comcast.net.
Healing Prayer Ministry
Do you often sit in church with something weighing on your heart? Especially during Eucharist? All are invited to the back of the church to receive healing prayer on Sundays. This is a beautiful way to know that the prayers on your heart are also being held by another person at All Souls. There’s also anointing oil available to be a comfort to you as you leave this place and head out into your life. Or perhaps you are interested in being a healing minister and offering these prayers for others in our midst? If so, we would love to have your gifts in this ministry. Please text or call Erin Horne at 206-850-8886. It is a remarkable experience to walk with another in this way.