Advent and Christmas Services at Gift of Grace
The season of Advent marks the beginning of the church year and is observed by the church as a season of preparation and joyful anticipation for the coming of Christ. Advent begins four weeks before Christmas and continues until December 24 when the season of Christmas is upon us and lasts for 12 days. Please join us for worship during the Advent season on Sunday’s at 10:30am followed by GraceFeast at noon. Gift of Grace will hold a candle light service on Christmas Eve at 7:30pm. Christmas Day services will be held at 10:30am, followed by GraceFeast.
Pre-Christmas Concert – Saturday, December 3, 2011
Concert December 3, 2011
Holy Week 2011 at Gift of Grace
The Cross veiled in White at Gift of Grace Lutheran Church symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning
The Gift of Grace community marks the stations of the cross this week, leading to the most significant celebration in the history of the church — Easter Sunday, on April 24. Join us, beginning at 6:30 pm, Thursday, April 21 (Maundy Thursday) for the commemoration of the arrest and betrayal of Jesus Christ. The service begins with a Mediterranean feast downstairs, followed by a service of hand and feet washing. The service ends with the traditional stripping of the altar as we approach Good Friday.
Good Friday services marking the crucifixion of Jesus Christ will be celebrated Friday evening, April 22, at 7 pm.
Easter Services on Sunday, April 24, will begin with our traditional Easter breakfast at 9 AM, followed by the Service of Christ’s Resurrection at 10:30 pm. Our celebration continues after the services with a very special Grace Feast.
A Letter to the Wallingford Community
Dear Wallingford Neighbors,
There has been some anxiety generated in Wallingford by the decision of Gift of Grace Lutheran Church to host a SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort) coed shelter for 15 or fewer homeless persons, which opened September 15th . The reason Gift of Grace made this decision is because, to us, it is an act of love, which our faith in Christ demands of us, and because we consider it trustworthy stewardship of the property God has entrusted to us. God has called this congregation to serve the Wallingford neighborhood since the ministry moved here in the late 1940’s. We have not always been good at it, or faithful. But God is faithful to us, and by grace we have been allowed to continue.
There are many ways to serve the neighborhood. We offer several ways to which any and all are invited and welcomed: public worship and opportunities for learning and celebration. And for those who have no interest in our religious life we created GraceFeast: a weekly, non-religious, free meal at noon on Sunday intended to encourage neighbors to engage with each other over fresh, homemade food. This congregation is constantly discerning ways we might serve the neighborhood. Given the number of homeless persons in our neighborhood and the opportunity SHARE provided us to host a covenanted community of homeless persons, we decided it was within our means to provide a safe, clean, warm place to sleep.
This is not a radical move. Our five nearest Lutheran neighbors host or have hosted SHARE shelters. It is consistent with the stated identity and mission of the 5,000,000, member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA’s social statement on our economic life has articulated it like this: “we commit ourselves as a church and urge members to:
- provide counsel, food, clothing, shelter, and money for people in need, in ways that respect their dignity;
- develop mutual, face-to-face, empowering relationships between people who have enough and people living in poverty, especially through congregational and synodical partnerships;
- advocate for public and private policies that effectively address the causes of poverty;
- generously support organizations and community-based efforts that enable low-income people to obtain more sufficient, sustainable livelihoods;
- continue working to eradicate racism and sexism.” (A Social Statement on Economic Life: Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All p. 15 Adopted by a more than two-thirds majority vote (872-124) as a social statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by its sixth Churchwide Assembly on August 20, 1999, in Denver, Colorado.)
Community, SHARE, GOG set meeting
Located in the lower level of the Discovery House building, the entrance to Mosaic is on the corner of 2nd Ave and NE 44th St.
The meeting follows the opening of the shelter this week amidst community concerns regarding the preschool that also operates within the church. The SHARE shelter is scheduled to operate only in the evening hours when the preschool is not operating. Some parents expressed deep concerns not only about the safety of their children, but also about the lack of community notification for the SHARE shelter. Most of the neighbors around the church were notified days before a September 12 meeting, and less than a week before the shelter’s September 15 opening at Gift of Grace. Gift of Grace leaders say the school knew of the shelter plan earlier but did not inform parents regarding plans for the shelter.
Saturday’s meeting will be the first of two scheduled meetings at Mosaic and will be moderated by Woody Pidcock, a member of the Gift of Grace congregation. The second meeting on Saturday, October 23 is designed to be a community feedback session after the shelter’s first month of operation.
For more on the shelter controversy, read the following:
WallyBlog, the official blog of the Wallingford Community
http://www.wallyhood.org/2010/09/share-homeless-shelter-coming-wallingford-gift-grace-church/comment-page-3/#comment-24431
Seattlepi.com City Brights, a blog by Gift of Grace member, Barbara Sehr
http://blog.seattlepi.com/barbarasehr/archives/221436.asp
Initiating Communications — a letter from Pastor Fecher
The Rev. Jami Fecher, pastor of Gift of Grace Lutheran Church in Wallingford
Dear Friends and neighbors,
As promised I am (barely) meeting my deadline to communicate with you. This initial communication is purely an effort to set up further communication. The thing we are communicating about is presence of the SHARE shelter at Gift of Grace. At the informational meeting with SHARE last Sunday, hosted at Gift of Grace, among the many thoughts expressed, I am lifting out two things that can help us move forward: 1) an open and broad public forum 2) a team of people who more or less monitor any impact the SHARE shelter is having on the Wallingford neighborhood.
Since there have been many concerns raised there is a lot to sort through. One articulate neighbor suggested that we proceed with public conversations in a two-pronged way, 1) an immediate public forum to hear and understand concerns 2) a forum planned further out that considers how those concerns are addressed after a reasonable period of time, like 6 weeks or so.
read more » »
WE ARE BACK!
The ecstasy begins anew. The agony of Web crashes, spam attacks and interruptions in our Web presence are over for the moment. We have put together a brand new site at a new host, and hope you’ll keep coming back to www.giftofgrace.org.
You’ll find a few old favorites missing, a different content management system in place, and no need to register your presence — unless you want to participate by leaving comments on this site. This remains the home of Gift of Grace Lutheran Church, doing God’s work at 40th and Meridian in Seattle. This remains a reflection of our small, but vibrant community that reaches out each Sunday to share worship and GraceFeast with our Wallingford neighbors. Feel free to leave us suggestions on how this site can serve you better. We are here to fulfill our mission:
“To invest our whole selves in lifting up Christ for our neighbors, inviting them more deeply into the Life of God. “