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Kneeling

Why is he kneeling?? You may be asking yourself that question in the coming weeks. You see, at a young age I was curious about the “hows and whys” of worship. I remember asking a very frustrated pastor, “why do we bow our heads?” and “why do we put our hands together when we pray?”. I’m sure these seemed like ridiculous questions to him, but to me as a young child, they were important in my growing faith.  

How we use our bodies in prayer has always been a curiosity of mine. So, it’s no surprise that I ended up in the Episcopal Church. From my very first visit to an Episcopal parish, I’ve been drawn to the embodiment of prayer exercised in our practices. As a therapist, I believe in “muscle memory” and that our relational experiences are intrinsically tied to our bodies. So, just as the Book of Common Prayer gives us a common language, I do believe that how we use our bodies in worship gives us common movement — shaping us and transforming how we move through the world. I also believe that how we use our bodies models for the children among us what reverence, community, and vulnerability look like.  

Therefore, over the season of Lent, I’ll be kneeling at the altar rail during the prayer of confession. This is a practice that I have missed and look forward to reengaging in over the coming season. You may feel called to do the same. Or, you may feel called to stand where you are. The great thing about our church is that there is no “right way.” How you use your body in prayer is your decision. So, do what feels right to you, what evokes a connection to the Spirit, and what shapes your life of faith.  

As for me, I’ll be kneeling… and now you know why.

— Rev. Phillip Bass

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Outreach Social Justice Uncategorized

Nativity Peace Library: Privileging God’s Narrative

by Ryan and Keri Parker

—

We both grew up in homes with lots of books. Ryan’s parents were avid readers who, during college, sold encyclopedias for Southwestern Book Company to afford tuition. Keri’s parents were school teachers, and the family made regular trips to the public library. We both had favorite children’s series: Ryan’s was The Hardy Boys, and Keri’s was the Judy Blume stories.

As we progressed through school, our love of reading similarly matured and evolved. Ryan got into the writings of Southern authors (especially William Faulkner and Eudora Welty), as well as the novels and essays of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Keri enjoyed reading historical fiction, especially the works of Kristen Hannah, Nicholas Sparks, and Elin Hilderbrand. However, it wasn’t until our later twenties to early thirties that we started thinking more critically about who was — and who wasn’t — included in the books of our formative years, and the characters we’d later gravitated toward.

The heroes and heroines of our childhood stories were overwhelmingly White, Western, and representative of the dominant culture. This representation was similarly mirrored in the dolls and toys we’d had in our homes. As we became first-time parents to Hannah in 2014, and especially after Maddie was born in 2017, we started thinking more intentionally about the toys and books we brought into our home. If only White, Western, dominant culture characters and stories were around, what messages did this unconsciously teach our kiddos? What were we communicating about who and which stories mattered? 

African-American pastoral theologian Edward Wimberly reminds us that “social narratives circumscribe the possibilities from which we choose,” but as Christians “we believe that God is the author of the overarching narrative.”1. God offers us the freedom to examine “the negative conversations that we have internalized,”2 including privileging the dominant culture in our bookshelves and toy bins. Choosing to privilege God’s narrative, which encompasses all our particular narratives, is participating with God’s response-empowering grace!3  The point is not to feel guilty about our past myopia and lack of inclusivity, but to make small but significant steps toward including the grander narrative of ALL God’s people.

So, when we heard about the idea of building a Peace Library at Nativity, we were excited! We knew that this would be an opportunity for not only our kiddos, but all the younger members of Nativity to be exposed to images, stories, and themes likely absent in other areas of their daily formation at school and home. We’ve donated several books to the collection, and so far have probably checked out more books than any other family. (But you can still catch up!) 

We are excited about the prominence of the Peace Library situated in the entry to the sanctuary. By entering into the conversations of the people of God at Church of the Nativity, each of us has the opportunity to be more fully transformed into the image and likeness of the One who is all in all. The One who welcomes each of us home, together.

—

  1. Edward P. Wimberly, Claiming God, Reclaiming Dignity: African American Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 25.
  2. Wimberly, 26.
  3. Wimberly, 78.
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Outreach Social Justice Uncategorized

Episcopal Habitat Build Update

Joe, Drew, and Rene at the February 4 wall build

Joe, Drew, and Rene at the February 4 wall build

On February 4, members of the Habitat Episcopal Coalition came together to build walls for the next Habitat home at Old Poole Place in Garner. The ongoing project includes efforts of church members from nine congregations, students from St. Augustine’s University, and Habitat homebuyers themselves.

The Episcopal Build project will be ongoing into May. Actual construction has not begun yet due to a delay in the permitting process; however, when construction begins there will be many opportunities to help. Special attention should be given to March 25, which the date Nativity is responsible for providing lunch for the workers. We will need between 10 and 15 volunteers to help that day.

Habitat Wake’s Mission is to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities, and hope. Its vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

Habitat homes are not given away: Participants complete sweat equity hours, take financial education courses, and purchase their homes by paying an affordable monthly mortgage.

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Outreach Social Justice Uncategorized

Farm to Church CSA Update

Since Nativity’s earliest days, one of the cornerstones of our mission has been to explore how we grow, eat, and share food.

In 2021, Nativity partnered with nine other Raleigh congregations in a program to support our local Black farmers. The program — called Farm to Church Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA) — was launched by the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA (RAFI-USA). CSAs have become a popular way for consumers — CSA members — to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer and to build a caring relationship with that farmer. CSA members buy a share of a farmer’s production up-front, which helps the farm’s cash flow and allows the farmer to plan crop production in a way that limits food waste and farm expenses. The members benefit by receiving fresh and nutritious farm products weekly.

Share prices for the spring season will remain the same as in the past: $250 per share; $125 per half-share. The CSA will be selling spring shares online from February 27 to March 27. Deliveries will be on Saturday mornings with the first of 8 deliveries on April 22. NOTE: There will not be a delivery on May 27, as it is Memorial Day weekend. Individuals or families do not need to be Nativity members to join — they just need to be willing to pick up their produce at Nativity.

For more information: Email Carl Sigel.

Spring 2023 News

  • The CSA has a new farm, Fairport Farms, and a new church member, Hayes Barton UMC
  • LaKay Farms is expanding operations and will provide free range eggs as shares in scheduled deliveries to churches
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Glad Tidings Social Justice Uncategorized

Social Justice BHM 2023 Update

Nativity’s Social Justice Committee shares the following announcements, events and recommended resources to the Nativity community as we continue our pursuit of racial justice and reconciliation.

Lists of Events

Below are links to information about the many events honoring Black History Month that are happening in the Triangle.

Featured Events

Best of Enemies

BEST OF ENEMIES, A Justice Theater Project Production

Umstead Park UCC, 8208 Brownleigh Drive, Raleigh, NC 27617

Cost/Ticket Information: $23 Adults. $20 Senior 60+, $20 Military, $18 Groups 10+, $5 Students and Educators. Tickets can be purchased online. (Note: Ages14 and up for adult language and content.)

When: Various weekend dates in February. If interested, purchase tickets soon as tickets are selling fast and some dates are already sold out.

Description: THE BEST OF ENEMIES by Osha Gray Davidson is a true story of the unlikely relationship between two low-income community activists, Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader. The story takes place in Durham, North Carolina, during the turbulent 1960s and 70’s when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak. After having several public racially-charged confrontations and developing an intense disdain for each other, in the racially charged summer of 1971, Atwater and Ellis came together to co-chair a community summit on the desegregation of public schools in Durham, N.C. The ensuing debate and battle soon lead to surprising revelations forever changing both of their lives. In Durham and throughout the United States, Ellis and Atwater exemplify how blacks and whites can overcome centuries of racial barriers by focusing on their commonalities and humanity. Through this process, they gradually learn to see this in each other and develop an understanding of the class structure in the South that oppresses both of them as they move from THE BEST OF ENEMIES to friends.

We Build This

We Built This: Profiles of Black Architects and Builders in North Carolina

Where: Oak View County Park (Farm History Center), 4028 Carya Dr., Raleigh, NC 27610

Cost: Free, no registration required.

What: This traveling exhibit, presented by Preservation North Carolina, highlights the stories of those who constructed and designed many of North Carolina’s most treasured historic sites. Spanning more than three centuries, We Built This provides more than two dozen personal profiles and historic context on key topics including slavery and Reconstruction; the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Black churches; Jim Crow and segregation; and the rise of Black politicians and professionals.

When: Running now through March 27th, stop by the Farm History Center at Historic Oak View County Park any time during building hours (8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 1 to 5 p.m., Sunday).

Oberlin Village Guided Walking Tour

Oberlin Village Guided Walking Tour

Where: 1023 Oberlin Rd., Wilson Temple UMC, Raleigh, NC 27605

Cost/Registration: Free, but registration is required by completing this contact form.

What/When: Walking tours of Oberlin Village, an antebellum village of freedmen, are available the third Saturday of each month at 1:30 pm October through April. (Time changes to 10 am May through September.) This 1 to 1½-hour tour includes the Oberlin cemetery, historical structures and the Latta Park Historic Park.

Triangle Friends of African American Arts 

Please explore the Triangle Friends of African American Arts website for many African American theater productions in the Triangle: 

Recommended Resources

The Diocese of NC’s Racial Reconciliation and Social Justice website is updated regularly with social justice resources recommended by the Diocese of NC.

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Uncategorized

Youth Formation in Lent

We will be trying something new for youth formation during the season of Lent and Easter. Rather than meeting at 9:30 am on Sunday mornings, the youth will gather for formation and support on Thursday evenings.

Middle Schoolers* will meet at Chick-fil-A on Six Forks Rd at 6:30 pm. They are welcome to have dinner there, or get a milkshake or soda when they arrive. They will share highs and lows of the week, play a game or two, engage with the scripture reading from Sunday, and talk about how they see it in their lives. They will have time to share prayer requests, be silly, have fun, and share their lives with one another before pickup time at 7:30 pm.

The High Schoolers will meet at NoRa Café on Strickland Rd at 7 pm. They, too, will share highs and lows, engage with the Sunday gospel reading, and have time for some fun. They will finish up at 8 pm. 

The Lent series will run from March 2 until March 30; the Easter series will run from April 20 until May 25. 

Lent is a wonderful time to make a commitment to re engage with our faith and to start a practice. Rev. Stephanie, Rev. Phillip and the youth leaders are hopeful that meeting at a different time and place, honoring the need for teens to get more sleep on weekends, and limiting sessions to 5 or 6 weeks at a time will help create the space our youth need to engage with their faith and support one another in Christian community. 

— Rev. Stephanie

* Fifth graders are welcome to come to either the Thursday evening program or join the children’s storymakers program on Sunday mornings during church. 

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Children and Youth Uncategorized

Children’s Formation in Lent

We have some exciting changes to our Children’s Formation time during the seasons of Lent and Easter. Pre-K and all elementary-aged* children will have their formation time during the 10:30 am worship service. They will be with us in church until the Collect (the weekly prayer that sums up the focus of our liturgy for the week), and then Rev. Stephanie will invite the children to come to the center aisle for a short talk (our weekly children’s sermon). After that, the children will go with Rev. Stephanie and the teachers to Curry Hall to further engage with the stories of Jesus. (Don’t worry, Rev. Stephanie will come back to the Nave after she gets them started!)

Storymakers, a curriculum created for children and their imaginations, offers a special Lent program that invites our children to enter into God’s story. During the season of Lent, our children will be hearing the same stories of Jesus that we hear in church: Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus’ encounters with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus healing a blind man, and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. They will enter the story through art and storytelling; they will spend time identifying where they see emotion and prayer within the story; and they will retell the story in their own words using the materials of their choice: crayons, clay, pipe cleaners, finger paint, markers, etc.

The children will rejoin the congregation during the Offertory so that they are with us for the Eucharist. Hopefully this will allow space for our younger members to engage with the stories of Jesus that the older members of the congregation are hearing. 

Each week, the Glad Tidings will include the art that the children will use to begin their storymaking and some discussion points that grown-ups may use to engage their young ones in the story — either before or after church. 

— Rev. Stephanie

*Pre-K includes ages 3-5, and elementary is Kindergarten through 5th grade. 

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Glad Tidings Uncategorized

Senior Luncheon Update

The News

We are going back to our pre-Covid method of operations— dining out in a restaurant each month! Watch your email for more information. 

About Senior Luncheon

If you became a part of our Nativity family during the plague years, when Senior Luncheons could not be held, let us introduce you to a group that gets together for lunch after the 10:30 service on the third Sunday of each month, September through May. Our next luncheon is scheduled for February 19.

To get on the mailing list, Email Cheryl Waechter. You’ll get an email each month with the details of that month’s venue. If you’d like to join us that month, simply respond to that email deadline. If you can’t make it, there’s no need to respond. There is always next month!

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From the Clergy Uncategorized

Lent 2023 at Nativity

What Do You Need from Lent?

You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast…
BCP, 379, Preface for Lent
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We don’t usually think of Lent as a time of joyful preparation. A time of cleansing, sure. But joy? This Lent, rather than asking you what you are going to give up or take on, what soul-cleansing  or penitence are you offering, I invite you to consider the following question:

What do you need to prepare with joy?

Perhaps our penitence is the naming of what we need, but were afraid to ask for? Perhaps our sins come from our unmet and unspoken needs? What better way to turn away from our sins than to ask God to meet that need. But, before we ask God, we have to acknowledge what our needs might be.

It is not fun to be needy. It is much more powerful to be the one who gives, not the one who needs. Knowing your needs is humbling. It is being vulnerable. There is always the risk that our request might not be answered. 

And yet, we are God’s faithful people not because we are faithful to God, but because God is always and forever faithful to us. Below are some ways you may enter into this season of Lent and name what you need:

— The Rev. Stephanie Allen

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From the Clergy Uncategorized

Lenten Devotions for 2023

The season of Lent is a time to craft a few extra moments for prayer and reflection. Here are a few materials to help you with that.

Episcopal Relief & Development

Who is My Neighbor?

This Lenten Season, Episcopal Relief & Development invites you to join us as we meditate on the commandment to love our neighbor and consider the meaning of this fundamental instruction in our daily lives. You may subscribe to receive a daily meditation by email or visit the page to read a weekly meditation.

Living Compass

Living Well Through Lent: Practicing Compassion with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind. 

A daily devotion that you can download or receive each day via email.

Water and Spirit

Water and Spirit provides daily devotions for each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Devotions begin with an evocative image and a brief passage from the Gospel of John. The writers then bring their unique voices and pastoral wisdom to the texts with quotations to ponder, reflections, and prayers. This devotion is a printed booklet that will be available in the Narthex on Ash Wednesday in regular and large print.

Lent Is Not Rocket Science

Lent Is Not Rocket Science: An Exploration of God, Creation, and the Cosmos

The season of Lent prompts us to ask questions, big and small, about the nature of our being and about our role in the world. In these daily Lenten reflections, astronomer, physicist, and Episcopal Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely explores the intersection of faith and science, creation and the cosmos. This devotion will be available in the Narthex as a printed booklet.

— The Rev. Stephanie Allen