Into Advent : an invitation
a message to our community from Cathie Caimano
Click here to access the videos and links for our gatherings.
Advent is a special time for saint benedict’s table. On your website you describe your ministry as ‘a community of Advent spirituality’, on the hinge of ‘the old and the new, the known and the unknown.’ As a community you are also 16 years old now, so that means you are on the hinge of full maturity as a community.
This Advent, you are invited into asking the question ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
Weaving together the Advent themes of expectation, mystery, and vision, we will contemplate how God is calling you more fully into your vocation as a congregation.
Each week of Advent, you will receive a video meditation on one of four questions, to be explored in terms of your community:
Where are you in the space between ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’?
Where are you on the threshold between the first and second centuries of the 21st century?
Where are you in the place between in-person and digital ministry?
Where are you in the vision of your first mission and your next?
Video meditations will arrive on Sundays (the first on November 15, then we’ll skip a Sunday and the rest will arrive November 29, December 6, and December 13). You will also have the opportunity to meet via Zoom for prayer and discussion on Saturdays (November 28, December 5, 12, and 19) at 1:00pm.
It will be an Advent retreat that lasts all season! Videos and recordings of our time on Zoom will be kept on a dedicated website, which you will have access to all through our time together.
I hope you will join this journey of community self-discovery and discernment.
If you’ve not yet registered, you can still do that by emailing register@stbenedictstable.ca
p.s. If you are wondering who I am, my name is Cathie Caimano (I’m sometimes called ‘Father Cathie’), and I am and Episcopal priest of 20 years, living outside of Charlotte, NC, USA. I have served congregations in New York City; Durham, North Carolina; and Wichita, Kansas. Then I worked on the staff of Bp. Michael Curry, head of the Episcopal Church, when he was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.
In 2016 I started my own ministry - Free Range Priest, where I help congregations and clergy navigate the 21st century church and world. I teach, coach, consult, write and encourage Digital Ministry, Sustainable Part-time Ministry, Entrepreneurial Evangelism, and Creative Ministry of all kinds. You can find out more at freerangepriest.org