Easter Sunday

If you were looking for evidence that St. John's is growing, you need look no further than today's Easter services: there were three of them! Does anyone remember the last time this little congregation had to hold three Easter services to accommodate everyone?

What a spirit-lifter, after the Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday, to find the church decked out in lilies and banners this morning.

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I attended the 8 a.m. service, which had "only" 35 attendees. I say "only" because that's about twice what we normally get. At the 8 o'clock, congregants gather around the altar for the communion prayers. Can't do that with 35 people! We didn't know how to behave.

I came back to take some pictures of the 11 o'clock service.


The "banners" behind the readers above and below are actually strips of ribbon hanging down. From the back of the church they give the illusion of being whole-cloth banners. Kudos to the artistes, Leslye and Julianne!


Below is Kara reading the Gospel. This time I didn't get the back of her head (see Maundy Thursday), but maybe you recognize the back of Julianne's head?


Here's Kara giving a great sermon about, among other things, the dangers of certainty in religion. Usually, a few of the faces at Easter services are people dragged there by family members. They gave up on being part of a church community because they found dogma to be an obstacle to faith. [On this subject, I love a comment by Flannery O'Connor: "Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow."] I thought the Easter sermon was an excellent introduction for these folks to a different way of thinking about faith. Look for it on the official St. John's Web Site. (This puts a little pressure on Kara to actually write the sermon down. Do it in your spare time, Kara!)[Update: Well, that didn't take long. Kara has posted it.]

At the 11 o'clock service, Rich, Karen, Jackson, and Geneva all signed the parish register. Geneva was signing when the picture below was taken, and the podium hides her pretty well. That's Jackson behind the lilies.


Once Rich was finished, Vlada and Rebecca signed, too. Both these families have already contributed a lot to life at St. John's, and we're happy they've decided to stick around.


Okay, everybody, stretch your legs for a hymn!

Communion.


Once everyone had gone to the undercroft for coffee and goodies, or into the garden for the Easter egg hunt, I got closer to the altar to take more pictures of the flowers.


The reredos were open again, with Theon Betts's paintings of St. Francis, Mary, St. John, and Thomas Aquinas. Welcome back! We missed you. Yes, even you, Thomas.