All Saints Church Starts New Year With Summit on Economic & Social Justice

On Sunday, January 1, 2012, All Saints Church welcomes the “New Year's Day People's Summit” – a faith-based forum on economic & social justice. The event will include a teach-in style conversation focused on the U.S. foreclosure crisis and the role of faith-based action in creating social and economic change.

“I am pleased to begin the New Year with this opportunity to offer hospitality to those coming to Pasadena to have a real conversation on economic justice and reclaiming the American Dream for all,” said All Saints rector Ed Bacon

“We are so very proud to be part of this great City of Pasadena which is modeling for the nation how to provide a platform for both beloved American traditions like the Rose Parade and core American values like the free exercise of First Amendment rights represented by the Occupy Movement,” said Bacon. “What All Saints Church brings to the ongoing national conversation about economic and social justice is our commitment to both God’s dream of a human race turned into a human family and to the American dream of liberty and justice for all.”

It is part of the DNA of All Saints Church to be a headlight rather than a tail light on issues of social justice and so speaking out and standing up for social and economic change is absolutely in alignment with our core values of God’s love, justice and compassion. And while All Saints Church has not officially endorsed the Occupy Movement, many of the same policy issues at the center of the movement – particularly economic inequity and a commitment to nonviolence – are of deep concern to the members of the All Saints community.

Participants in the People’s Summit will include organizers from the Occupy Movement, interfaith leaders and a broad cross section of members of the peace & justice community. All Saints clergy Ed Bacon and Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis will participate along with other interfaith leaders. Peter Laarman in his role as a leader of an interfaith group, “Occupy LA Sanctuary,” is coordinating the program which will be held on January 1st from 3-6 p.m at All Saints Church, 132 North Euclid Avenue, Pasadena CA 91101.

For more information contact: Keith Holeman, Communication Director
kholeman@allsaints-pas.org or 310.430.9412.

Christmas at All Saints Church

CHRISTMAS SERVICES

Saturday, December 24 -- Christmas Eve *[see logistics note below]

Family Service at 3p.m. -- Mastersingers and Troubadours, directed by Jenny Price, offer music of Gray and Bach. The rector and friends tell the Christmas story.

Festive Eucharist at 5:30 p.m. -- Trouveres with instrumental ensemble offer music of Caldwell and Ivory. Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis preaches.

Festive Eucharist at 8:00 p.m. -- Canterbury Choir and chamber orchestra offer Missa Sancti Nicolai by Haydn and music of Wilcocks and James Walker. The Rector preaches. [We will live-stream the 8:00 service on the All Saints website. Click here for more information.]

Festive Eucharist at 11:00 p.m. -- Coventry Choir and chamber orchestra offer Heiligmesse by Haydn and music of Holst. The Rector preaches.


Sunday, December 25 -- Christmas Day

10:30 a.m. Eucharist
Coventry Choir soloists offer carols arranged by David Willcocks.
Wilma Jakobsen preaches.

12:00 p.m. Spanish language Eucharist
Dan Cole and Ensemble offer music.
Abel Lopez preaches.


Saturday, December 31-- New Year's Eve Eucharist
7:30 p.m. in the Church
Canterbury Choir soloists offer music. Ed Bacon preaches.
This special service is a wonderful way to prepare for the new year. Child care provided.

Sunday, January 1-- New Year's Day
Healing Services at 9 & 11:15 a.m. and 1 p.m.

==========================

*Christmas Eve: Early arrival helps ensure seating

All Christmas Eve services are well attended. For the 3, 5:30 and 8pm services plan to arrive at least 30 minute early; for the 11pm service at least 45 minutes early. There is no saving of seats. A beautifully decorated Learning Center will serve as overflow seating as needed. The music and preaching in the church are experienced via closed circuit television and then the Eucharist is celebrated “live” in the Learning Center.

Parking: At 3pm parking will be available in the North Lot (corner of Euclid and Walnut) or underground at the Westin Hotel (enter from Union Street.) For the 5:30, 8 & 11 pm services , parking will be available at the Kaiser parking structure or underground at the Westin Hotel.

Child Care is provided for all services.

Live from Pasadena: It's CHRISTMAS EVE!

Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself, you can be part of Christmas Eve at All Saints Church!

Nothing replaces the warmth, beauty, joy and energy of being at All Saints Church on Christmas Eve. And yet, we know there are those in our wider All Saints family who are unable to be with us for our Christmas celebration due to challenges of health, distance, travel or mobility issues.

And so we are delighted to announce that we will be live-streaming the 8:00pm Christmas Eve service this year on the All Saints website.

For more information contact Communication Director Keith Holeman ... by email or at 626.583.2739 ... and to make a Christmas gift to help All Saints fund making God's love tangible 24/7 click here.

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Making God's Love Tangible 24/7

"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these you have done it unto me." -- Matthew 25:40

Each year, thousands of homeless men and women die on the streets due to illness, exposure or violence. These individuals die without the dignity and respect they deserve ... and so last night at All Saints Church was an opportunity to gather for a Memorial Service to honor and acknowledge their lives and membership in the human family.

View the Photos from the Pasadena Sun

A Christmas Message from Ed Bacon

This year we decided to "multiplatformize" the rector's annual Christmas letter to the parish by turning it into a video. Here's a little glimpse of what Christmas looks like at All Saints Church in Pasadena. ENJOY!




[And if you would like to make your Christmas gift to All Saints online, just click here to dontate now!]

Advent Wisdom from Richard Rohr: Third Sunday of Advent

This year during Advent we are inviting the All Saints community into shared reflection focused on meditations by our Lent Event speaker: noted author, teacher, mystic, contemplative and activist Richard Rohr.

A Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, a prolific author and a powerful force for God’s love, justice and compassion.

The spirit of God is upon me….
God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to heal broken hearts, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and liberation to those in prison

RELATED IN THE SPIRIT

The Spirit always connects, reconciles, forgives, heals and makes two into one. It moves beyond human-made boundaries to utterly realign and renew that which is separated and alienated. The “diabolical” (from two Greek words, dia balien, that mean “to throw apart”), by contrast, always divides and separates that which could be united and at peace. Just as the Spirit always makes one out of two, so the evil one invariably makes two out of one! The evil one tears the fabric of life apart, while the Spirit comes to mend, soften and heal.

In today’s reading from Isaiah, the prophet describes the coming Servant of Yahweh. It is precisely this quote that Jesus first uses to announce the exact nature of his own ministry (Luke 4:18-19). In each case Jesus describes his work as moving outside of polite and proper limits and boundaries to reunite things that have been marginalized or excluded by society: the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the downtrodden. His ministry is not to gather the so-called good into a private country club but to reach out to those on the edge and on the bottom, those who are “last” to tell them they are, in fact, first! That is almost the very job description of the Holy Spirit, and therefore of Jesus.

The more that we can put together, the more that we can “forgive” and allow, the more we can include and enjoy, the more we tend to be living in the Spirit. The more we need to reject, oppose, den, exclude and eliminate, the more open we are to negative and destructive voices and to our own worst instincts. As always, Jesus is our model of healing, outreach and reconciliation, the ultimate person of the Spirit.

REFLECT
What divisions exist in your life? How can you let the Spirit mend those divisions?

Cornel West & Serene Jones in the Rector's Forum December 18

Cornel West & Serene Jones address "The Role of Progressive Religion in the Occupy Movement" on Sunday, December 18 in the All Saints Rector's Forum beginning at 10:15 a.m.

Dr. Cornel West is a prolific essayist, public speaker, social activist, and major figure in African American academia. Commenting recently on his decision to return to the faculty of Union Seminary in NYC, Dr. West said that his liberal politics were formed in Progressive Baptist churches, and that Union was “the institutional expression of my core identity as a prophetic Christian.” His work exemplifies synthesis and innovation and we are honored to welcome him to the Rector's Forum.

Dr. Serene Jones, President of Union Seminary is a popular scholar in the fields of theology, religion and gender studies and a long-time friend of All Saints Church. Dr. Jones not only returns to the Rector's Forum to reflect with Dr. West on the theological context of the Occupy Movement, she will be in the pulpit at both the 9:00 & 11:15 services preaching "Visceral Reckonings."

For more information contact Maren Tompkins in the Rector's Office: 626.583.2711 or mtompkins@allsaints-pas.org. The Forum will also be live-streamed from the All Saints website:

Advent Wisdom from Richard Rohr: Second Sunday of Advent

This year during Advent we are inviting the All Saints community into shared reflection focused on meditations by our Lent Event speaker: noted author, teacher, mystic, contemplative and activist Richard Rohr.

A Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, a prolific author and a powerful force for God’s love, justice and compassion.

John, the Master of Descent

John the Baptist’s qualities are most rare and yet crucial for any reform or authentic transforma-tion of persons or groups. That is why we focus on John the Baptist every Advent and why Jesus trusts him and accepts his non-temple, offbeat nature ritual, while also going far beyond him. Water is only the container; fire and Spirit are the contents, John says. Yet if we are not like the great John, we will invariably substitute our own little container for the realcontents. We will substitute rituals for reality instead of letting the rituals point us beyond themselves.

John the Baptizer is the strangest combination of conviction and humility, morality and mysticism, radical prophecy and living in the present. This son of the priestly temple class does his own thing down by the riverside; he is a man born into privilege who dresses like a hippie; he is a superstar who is willing to let go of everything, creating his own water baptism and then saying that what really matters is the baptism of “Spirit and fire”! He is a living paradox, as even Jesus says of him: “There is no man greater than John….but he is also the least” in the new reality that I am bringing about (Mt 11:11). John both get it and does not get it at all, which is why he has to exit stage right early in the drama. He has played his single and
important part, and he knows it. His is brilliantly a spirituality of descent, not ascent. “He must grow bigger, I must grow smaller” (Jn 3:30).

The only way such freedom can happen is if John learned to be very empty of himself already as a young man, before he even built his tower of success. His ego was out of the way so much so that he could let go of his own ego, his own message and even his own life. This is surely the real meaning of his head on a platter! Some have cleverly said that ego is an acronym for “Edging God Out.” There’s got to be such emptiness, or we cannot point beyond ourselves to Jesus, as John did. Such emptiness doesn’t just fall into our laps; such humility does not just happen. It is surely the end product of a thousand letting-goes and a thousand acts of devotion, which for John the Baptist gradually edged God in.

REFLECT
How is your spirituality one of ascent or descent?

Diocesan Convention 2011

All Saints was well represented at this year's Diocesan Convention in Riverside (December 2 & 3).

All Saints in the News on World AIDS Day

Battle fatigue: Pasadena area AIDS activists struggle to keep the fight going 30 years later

Thirty years ago, when the nation clamored to disseminate news, facts and awareness of a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic, the city of Pasadena stood at the forefront of activism.

It was here that physician and UCLA professor of medicine Michael Gottlieb became one of the first in the medical community to identify and classify AIDS in a 1981 report to the Centers for Disease Control. The city formed an AIDS Taskforce to study the needs of those living with HIV/AIDS, and All Saints Church had started the Pasadena AIDS Service Center to support individuals and families affected by it. By 1991, the Pasadena Public Health Department had opened Andrew Escajeda Comprehensive Care Services to provide outpatient care to HIV-infected individuals.

This year marks a milestone in AIDS history — it was 30 years ago this June 5 that HIV/AIDS was officially classified as a rare lung infection by the CDC.

The Rev. George Regas, rector emeritus at Pasadena’s All Saints Church, recalled a time when large gatherings turned out for the church’s annual AIDS mass. “We put it together to bring in people’s consciousness the real tragedy we were experiencing with AIDS in larger Pasadena,” Regas said. “People became aware of what was happening all around.”

In 1990, Pasadena ranked fifth in California for HIV incidence per 100,000 people, with 146 people infected and 88 fatalities, according to an Oct, 11, 1990 Los Angeles Times article. Today, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health estimates there are 62,800 people in the county living with HIV/AIDS — 13,500 of whom don’t know they’re infected. In San Gabriel Valley, there are 2,981 people who’ve contracted the disease.

In 1987, under the aegis of All Saints Church, Regas helped start the AIDS Service Center as a telephone helpline where people could leave questions and concerns on an answering machine. A flood of calls came in, he recalls, and within one year, the church had raised enough money to open a brick and mortar center.

Today, the center, located at 909 S. Fair Oaks Ave. in Pasadena, supports more than 1,000 clients living with the disease and offers services to another 4,000 residents in the form of HIV/AIDS 101 education programs and testing, according to Director of Marketing and Development Anthony Guthmiller.

Read the rest in The Pasadena Weekly