Have you been wanting to know more about worship? We are excited to present a short, 4-part video seminar on worship, taught by Pastor Esther.
Christ Our Peace - Church Plant Update
Deacon Sandy Richter shares with us what the last 9 months have looked like, as she and Ian have followed the Lord’s calling on their life.
When a small group of us began meeting in January 2020 to dream and pray about a new church in Oak Park, we had no idea what the next few months would hold. We gathered around the idea that God was at work in Oak Park and seemed to be stirring our hearts to join him. Looking back 9 months later, so much has shifted and changed, but that conviction has remained.
Here’s how we have seen God at work over these past few months...
Building Our Team
We now have 11 adults and 8 children as part of our core team. After meeting a couple of times in person before the lockdown, we decided to move ahead with meeting weekly via Zoom. What at first seemed an unfortunate necessity showed itself to be an unexpected gift. Our schedules were all clearer, our hearts more open to God and one another; and it was a relief to work together on something constructive in the midst of so much uncertainty and loss.
Clarifying Our Vision
Over the summer, individuals on our team faced various personal hardships and together we grieved over the loss of Amaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black image bearers. Through this collective grief, God knit our team together and further crystallized the desire for our church to embody the values of: Spirit-led hospitality, vulnerability, truth telling, and a commitment to racial justice.
Out of this came our new name--Christ Our Peace Anglican Church. Christ’s Peace is what creates hospitality; frees us to tell the truth about ourselves, God and our world; and opens the way to eternal peace through reconciling us to God and one another.
The Call to Racial Justice
A few things are clear to us:
The Church, and in particular the white church, has often served to perpetuate rather than overcome racism within our country. One result of this is that the American Church is largely segregated.
Oak Park is a multiethnic, multiracial village and our desire is that our church would reflect this diversity.
We believe we are called in this season to examine ourselves, to repent of our racial malformation and be led by the Spirit to new internal and external expressions of his love and justice in Oak Park.
What we don’t know is where God is taking us. In the next few months, as our all-white core team works through books like White Awake and curriculum like Be the Bridge 101, we are also praying for a black pastor to join our staff and persons of color to join our team. If this is going to be a multiethnic church, it is imperative that this early work of vision and gathering be done in a multiethnic culture of mutuality and togetherness.
At the same time, we’ve heard many stories of how multiethnic churches have been a source of further wounding rather than healing for persons of color, and we strongly believe in the power of minority churches to create safe places for kingdom work, healing and restoration. How our dreams and convictions fit into all of this, we still aren’t sure. We are holding these questions before God and waiting to see where he will lead.
Christ Our Peace and Our Hope
Early on in our time together, a wise mentor called to share with our team a word he had received when in prayer for us. You may think, he said, that this is a strange time to build a church, with so much uncertainty and so many limitations, but the reality is, this is the perfect time. You will join Moses, Esther, Elisha, Mary, Peter and so many others who heard God’s call but had no idea how he would lead them. You will see from the beginning that this is truly a work of God.
That really is our only hope: It is Christ who builds his Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. (Matthew 16:18)
People Who Stood Up - by Ted Olsen
Note from Fr. Kevin: In my recent sermon on “Community,” I said that “justice requires a community” and mentioned one such community: the historic church, where many people stood up for justice. Helping us meet some of these people is Senior Warden Ted Olsen, who once served as an editor of Christian History magazine.
By Ted Olsen:
Memorable pioneers for racial justice include Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and John Woolman. Or meet Jarena Lee, the first African-American woman to preach the gospel publicly.
Further back, meet Gregory of Nyssa, St. Patrick, Bartolomé de las Casas (big asterisk, of course, but still), and the abolitionists George Bourne (not well known, but as an editor and writer I’m a fan) and Thomas Clarkson. I also love Quaker radical Benjamin Lay (though I expect he’d be as critical of me as he was of everyone else!).
William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect have received a lot of attention in recent years for their work against the slave trade and other injustices. I'm a big fan, too. But I am eager to remember that their efforts were imperfect and troubled. I don't find that discouraging but rather encouraging — even our heroes had trouble and faltered when it came to pursuing righteousness and justice. Nevertheless, they persisted.
But I'm most eager to emphasize the work of Black Christians who pursued justice. Some of those names: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Nick Chiles (he was a new one for me), Henry McNeal Turner, and African Methodist Episcopal Church founders Absalom Jones and Richard Allen. Finally, I’ve been coming back time and again to the sermons of Francis J. Grimke, the Presbyterian preacher who helped to found the NAACP.
Church of the Savior
Senior Warden
Prayer Support For The Saavedra Family
This week we lift up the dear Saavedra Family in our prayers. The Saavedra’s first came to Church of the Savior in Fall 2019, while on furlough from the mission field in Quito, Ecuador.
The Saavedra family has lived as missionaries in Quito, Ecuador since 2007, with David working in education and Beth in the local church. We are grateful our furlough in the U.S. connected us to Savior, where we have found encouragement and rest. We invite the friends of the Savior to join us in prayer for Ecuador, which has been hard hit by Covid-19.
Infections and fatalities are especially high among indigenous people groups, many of whom live in remote areas with limited access to medical care. Please pray with us for our friend, Pastor Manuel Chacaguasay, and his family, who work with Kichwa pastors, as well as running a holistic children’s drop-in center.
Another vulnerable population in Ecuador is Venezuelan refugees, many of whom have had no way to earn income during these months of quarantine. Our church in Quito has a large number of Venezuelans. We ask for prayer for Oscar and Camila Palma, our pastors, as they work in food distribution and providing social and spiritual support for the community.
Finally, we ask for prayer for our school, Alliance Academy International, where David is currently teaching high school Bible. May community be built and spiritual growth happen, in the midst of the challenge of adapting to the required online format for all schools in Quito.
For those who want to learn more about the Saavedra Family or to support their ministry, please visit here.
Meet The Barringer Family!
This week we have the joy of sharing another “new Attendee” within Savior’s community. If you haven’t already met the fun and creative Barringer Family, join me in getting to know them!
Who is in your family (children, pets, etc.)?
Blade and Alyssa, and Auden (age 5) and Hazel (age 2). We have no pets, though a particular neighborhood squirrel is unsettlingly brave around humans and is trying to get us to adopt it. We’re staying strong.
Where do you live? Where are you originally from?
We live in Carol Stream. Blade is originally from Southern California, and Alyssa is from North Texas.
How long have you been coming to Church of the Savior?
We started attending in February of this year.
In your time at Savior so far, what have you enjoyed most?
Everyone has been very welcoming. We felt included right away. There’s been no sense of having to “earn” our place in the congregation or volunteer for a dozen ministries in order to belong.
Are you by chance related to another family who attends Savior? If so, who?
Alyssa’s parents, Steve and Rhonda Keysor, started attending around the same time we did.
What are some fun and entertaining ways your children have participated in the church services?
When we were in person, Hazel mostly participated by hollering at babies she was excited to see. Now that we’re online, Hazel still participates by hollering at other people’s babies and pets, and by echoing “Jesus!” every time she hears someone say His name. Auden loves the coloring pages and any time one of the readings is a parable. He occasionally dresses up in a lot of blankets and scarves, carries a book around over his head, and says he’s the deacon.
What do you do when your family is not at church? (Job, hobbies, etc.)
Blade works as a software engineer at Braintree Payments. He plays Magic: The Gathering with his friends (using a webcam, during the pandemic). Alyssa is a Latin teacher at The Greenhouse Coschool. She also teaches and performs at Westside Improv in downtown Wheaton. The kids mostly run around outside, color, and request that we read whole piles of picture books.
What has been a surprising gift to your family during this time of COVID? And what don’t you want to return to “normal”?
Even in the winter, Auden had still not accepted Hazel’s presence in the family and would have liked us to return her to the hospital where she came from. Over quarantine, Auden and Hazel have become best buddies. Some of this is probably because Hazel learned to talk and play more in the past few months, but a lot of it is that they’ve spent so much time together while Auden has been home from school with no other kids around. We hope they keep this bond.