FOR THE REAWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND

Bishop Drew is chairing the ACNA Music Task Force. This month the task force convened in Charleston. The hope is to provide the province with a digital tool offering churches across the ACNA worship music resources through the lens of the Sunday lectionary week by week.

We hosted a one-day training in communication and listening skills that have greatly blessed us in our marriage and other relationships. We use them to do our pre-marriage counseling: we teach these skills to the couple and then facilitate their active listening on all the key topics.  We introduce these skills in our “Better than Wine: Building and Rebuilding Intimacy” Marriage conference.  Last weekend, we were hosted by our friends at Anglican Church of the Redeemer, Franklin, MA (thank you Rev. Dan and Lisa Sylvia!)  We dove in with a pilot group of couples.  It is our hope to bring this workshop and/or the entire marriage conference to you one day!   

Early in 2024, Redeemer Franklin embarked on a year-long project to prepare for Advent, which became known as The Isaiah Project. The initiative was designed as a study of the book of Isaiah and included the development of artistic responses created by many of the artists and creators at Redeemer. From the beginning, the vision for the project was a collaborative effort that would produce music, visual arts, prose, and drama—all culminating in a mid-Advent celebration of the coming of Christmas.

Over 30 individuals contributed to the project, which developed throughout the spring and summer before blossoming into the final presentation in December. Musically, the project was spearheaded by Isaiah Sylvia, Music Director at Redeemer, along with the Redeemer band members and some guest collaborators. Together, they created a six-song EP, all self-written and composed.

The joy of Christmas.

St. Paul's Anglican Church (formerly in Waltham, and now located at 9 Westminster Avenue, Arlington, MA) celebrated Christmas in a trinity form: three congregations came together to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on Sunday, December 22.

Operation Sleigh Ride was formed in late 2024 as an effort to encourage families of children impacted by Hurricane Helene. To facilitate providing toys for 800 children, drop sites were set up all over the Northeast.

Saint Nicholas House, which describes itself as a house of hospitality and prayer, joined the efforts by choosing to have a community gift drop box on the front porch of their Brookline, NH house.

From the Province: Rise Church in Portland, Maine is an Anglican church merged from three congregations: what was formerly the Church of the Holy Spirit, a Sudanese church, and the newer, Rise Church. The physical church building, over 100 years old, is seeing new life breathed into it as God grows the church in unexpected ways.

See the original article from the ACNA here.

“There is nothing new under the sun”. By the time the wise Teacher in Ecclesiastes wrote this truth 3,000 years ago, so many kingdoms and dynasties had risen and fallen. Wars had been fought, work efforts had flourished and petered out, famines and plenty had come and gone. Peoples and nations lived in anxious times and in peace, in oppression and in freedom. Most had toiled under the hot sun. And the conclusion of it all? The Teacher in Ecclesiastes says “Fear God and keep his commandments.”

In the anxious times which many of us are experiencing right now, we can ”fear God” and see what happens. We can bend the knees of our hearts in reverence and adoration before the majesty of our loving God.