Tree Lighting & Carol Sing @All Saints Church, Pasadena

The annual All Saints Tree Lighting and Carol Sing is a wonderful opportunity to “ring in” the Christmas season.

Invite your friends, neighbors and family and join us for an informal 5:00 p.m. service upstairs in the Learning Center followed by carols, cocoa and a beautiful new tree to decorate and light together.

David Zink and Michelle Bloom will lead our music.

For more information contact Isabel Leus at 626.583.2733 or ileus@allsaints-pas.org

Or RSVP to the Facebook event here.

“Lincoln, Leadership and the State of the Nation.”

Thursday, November 29 | 7:00 p.m.

All Saints Church in Pasadena will host a special evening of reflection on “Lincoln, Leadership and the State of the Nation.”

Inspired by the Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln,” Ed Bacon will lead a conversation about the film, about lessons on leadership and the workings of our democracy.

Ed will be joined by Jennifer Watts, Curator of Photographs at the Huntington Library and curator of the current exhibit “A Strange and Fearful Interest: Death, Mourning, and Memory in the American Civil War” [running through Jan. 14, 2013] Jennifer will speak about the exhibit and show photos from the collection.

Participants are encouraged to see the film and come prepared for an evening of information and inspiration.

The event will be live-streamed on the All Saints website
All Saints Church is located at 132 N. Euclid Avenue, Pasadena 91101
Parking and driving info here.

A Post-Election Day Message from Ed Bacon:

I am relieved that the arduous and polarizing 2012 presidential campaign has come to a decisive end with no challenge to the Electoral College victory and a notable margin in the popular-vote. Governor Romney delivered a dignified concession speech and President Obama offered a generous olive branch to his former opponent. I take hope from the president's words on Tuesday night, “We are not as divided as our politics suggest.” The electorate seems to be more unified in support of peace, public education, care and jobs for veterans, and health care in general, as well as equal rights for women, racial minorities, immigrants, and the LGBT community than many sensational media outlets would have us believe.

So this Sunday, November 11th,  I feel moved to preach about the relationship people of faith must have with the Oval Office, whoever sits there. I want to share some thoughts about our need to embody the transformed consciousness of universal compassion and justice to which Jesus calls us and how we might exercise our responsibility to do so.

I hope you will be present to join in a Eucharist of thanksgiving and challenge for this moment in our nation’s history. I will preach on People of Faith and Their President at the 7:30, 9:00 and 11:15 a.m. services.

For more information, visit the All Saints website.
To live-stream the 11:15 service, click here.

Episcopal Church Statement on Hurricane Sandy

Note particularly that this statement by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Gay Jennings contextualizes the disaster of Hurricane Sandy within our global family and incorporates the challenge of our call to be stewards of the planet. If you would like to donate to the good work of Episcopal Relief and Development you can do that online here or at the Action Table on the All Saints lawn on Sunday.

The storm called Sandy has wrought havoc northward hundreds of miles from its first Caribbean landfall, killing and injuring dozens of people in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, United States, and Canada. The destruction left in its path has deepened the misery of those still recovering from the 2010 earthquake in Haiti as well as hurricanes earlier this season. It is always the poorest who are most affected, although the news media have shown only a little of that reality. The impact in a principal metropolitan area of the United States has brought an unimagined level of destruction, and suffering that will long continue in the mid-Atlantic region. It has also brought home the reality of changing global weather and the kind of extreme climate events that are increasingly likely to confront us all. The effects of this storm are being felt far beyond the lands over which it has passed. May this remind of us of our shared community and tenancy on this fragile earth, our island home.

This is a time for reaching out to neighbors next door as well as farther abroad with solidarity and offers of basic human hospitality – food, water, electrical connections, showers and shelter – as well as money to assist the lengthy recovery that will be required everywhere this storm has moved. Episcopal Relief and Development began preparations with dioceses before the storm made landfall, and will continue to respond in the days and months ahead. Please be generous in prayer, and with funds and neighborly hospitality. Our Anglican neighbors gathered in New Zealand for the Anglican Consultative Council have been profligate with their prayers and expressions of concern. We know that God is with us in the midst of this suffering; you can help others to discover that reality through your own response. May the light of Christ shine through you, and may his light shatter the darkness.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate

The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings
President of the House of Deputies

All Saints Welcomes New Director of Peace & Justice

by Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Church

I am delighted to announce that Francisco Garcia is our new Director of Peace and Justice. After a national search to fill the position vacated by Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis, during which the search committee received more than 30 applications and conducted six interviews, Francisco was on the “short list” of those the search committee recommended to me. After further discernment, which included an interview with my staff colleagues and a homily preached at one of our noon-day eucharists, it became clear to me that Francisco was the perfect person to lead our varied peace and justice ministries at All Saints.

Francisco is no stranger to All Saints. He and his wife, Rebekah, found All Saints almost nine years ago through the internet. The Garcias immediately involved themselves in a variety of All Saints ministries reflecting their interests in Children, Youth & Families, Spiritual Growth, the 1 p.m. Sunday liturgy, as well as Peace & Justice. He and Rebekah have been married since 2001 and have two daughters.

In 2008, Francisco entered our discernment program for those interested in being ordained to the priesthood. His discernment committee enthusiastically recommended him to the Vestry and me. Francisco will be ordained to the diaconate this coming June and, God willing, to the priesthood in January, 2014.

Our search process explicitly focused on applicants who were bilingual, had a community organizing background and a pastoral presence, and who could communicate persuasively about peace and justice issues. The intention was that this individual would be a clergyperson, preferably an Episcopal priest. Francisco embodies all of our highest desires.

Born in the San Gabriel Valley to Mexican immigrant parents and raised in the working-class community of Baldwin Park, Francisco attended UCLA where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American Studies and Public Policy, and concurrent Masters degrees in Urban Planning and Latin American Studies. Since 2004 Francisco has worked with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as a labor organizer, negotiator and division director. He has over a dozen years experience in faith and community organizing, advocacy, and leadership development.

In his application letter, Francisco wrote:

“Early on at All Saints, I was struck by a quote by Frederick Buechner that I read in my Covenant I folder, and later heard throughout the church: ‘The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’ I have been able to make full sense of this statement at All Saints. While my organizing and activism had always been spiritually motivated, I was able to find theological grounding and explore this feeling with greater intention. I found an expansive vocabulary and an affirmation of this work at All Saints.

This led me to explore a call to ordained ministry to continue this pursuit of God’s call to liberating love, justice and compassion for all people and all faiths. All Saints has fed my spirit as I continue to engage in activism and organizing work. I am excited at the prospect of continuing this work at All Saints in a staff leadership capacity.”

Francisco’s first Sunday will be November 4, All Saints Sunday. For his first few months with us, until he completes his course requirements for the Master of Divinity degree, he will be on campus on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. Upon graduation in June he will work full-time.

I could not be happier about this amazing human being stepping into this important position at All Saints. I am eager for you to get to know him.

Grace in Action: Proclaiming the Good News

Every time we renew our baptismal promises we hear the words “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” and we answer together, “I will, with God’s help.”

There are as many ways to proclaim the Good News of Christ as there are people to proclaim it. Saint Francis of Assisi famously said, “Preach the gospel at all times: use words when necessary.” At All Saints Church we proclaim the Good News by putting our faith into action through outreach, advocacy and activism – by spirituality, community and peace & justice. And through the marvels of “multiplatform communication” we now have even more ways to proclaim that Good News out into the world.

On Facebook, members of the All Saints Facebook Group stay up to date on with each other and with upcoming events – posting pictures, comments and links to articles of interest. On twitter, followers of #ASCpas get links to our latest sermons, forums and publications. Our YouTube channel is updated every week and provides an archive of Sunday sermons and Rector’s Forums -- and have been live-streaming the Rector's Forum on our website since 2010.

And beginning this fall we are now live-streaming the 11:15 service via “U-stream” – opening up a whole new way for those outside the physical walls of All Saints Church to be part of the Sunday morning experience that is so much a part of the All Saints we love: the prophetic preaching, powerful music and beauty of the liturgy is proclaiming – by word and example – the radical Good News of God’s inclusive love available to all.

The Good News that provides both comfort and challenge to those who fill the pews at 132 North Euclid Avenue every Sunday morning is now also comforting and challenging those who are experiencing for the very first time the power of the message “whoever you are and wherever you find yourself there is a place for you here” on their computer monitor, laptop or iPad. And never doubt for a minute that the power of that message can and does reach out and change lives. From an email received from an online viewer:

You make me want to believe in God. I think you have interpreted with love, kindness, and thoughtfulness the true doctrine of Christ. As a non-Christian for what it's worth, you make me wish I believed, so I could belong to a church like yours.

Your support of the work and witness of All Saints Church helps make transformational moments like these happen. Grace in Action – one Facebook post, Twitter feed, YouTube clip and live-stream view at a time!

Hurricane Sandy

Looking at all the status updates from east coast friends while watching the storm reports reminds both how connected and how fragile our lives are. Be safe. Be loving. Be aware.

O God, in you we find safety. As we prepare for the arrival of the storm, may we be gathered in the safety of your loving embrace. As we face the possibility of danger through lost power and damaged, keep us and our dear ones safe. May your love for us unite us -- and support us; and enable us to support those for whom danger breaches their hope. Amen.

[Mark Beckwith, Bishop of Newark]