CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH ASTROP EXAS Come & … · word, episcopos, meaning overseer or elder, has...
-
Upload
truongkhanh -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH ASTROP EXAS Come & … · word, episcopos, meaning overseer or elder, has...
“The purpose of
the church
calendar, in a
rather grand
nutshell, is to
remind us that
‘the human
family dwells
continually at
the intersection
of time and
eternity.’”
If there is a theme for this newslet-
ter (and that’s not a rhetorical
question), it’s the variety of experi-
ences and interests of Calvary
Episcopal Church and its people.
Tressa Vainwright, writes passion-
ately of the need to confront the
issue of child abuse in this commu-
nity, Amy Carroll updates us on
Calvary Episcopal School, which continues to thrive and develop
into an excellent educational op-
portunity for the children of
June 2013
Inside this issue:
Changes at Calvary 2
Putting the Bishop’s
Visit in Context
3
Imagine Blue 4
Calvary Episcopal
School—Growing
with Its Students
5
The Church in the
Lands of Its Birth
6
Calvary Episcopal
Church, a History
Continued
7
What’s Happening
@ Calvary
VBC 2013
Back
Cover
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, BASTROP, TEXAS
From the Rector/Editor
Come & See
Bastrop. Carol Brown puts in
perspective the June 9 visit of Bish-
op Dena Harrison. John Cum-
mings shares his insights into the
churches of the Middle East, and
Ken Kesselus continues his history
of Calvary to help us know better
who we are.
We have devoted a page to tracking
the changes in the faces of leader-
ship at Calvary, and we have includ-
ed a few photographs from the
past three months. As always, for
more photographs, calendar infor-
mation, and announcements, visit us
at www.cecbastrop.org,. Photo
Galleries can be found under the
Communications tab. To stay in
touch, “like” us on Facebook.
The “summer scatter” is upon us. If
you are traveling this summer, send
us a postcard to collect on a bulletin
board in the Parish Hall. And please
keep us in your prayers; we will hold
you in ours until your return.
Lisa +
Calvary Episcopal Church, Bastrop
All photographs in
this issue are by
Doris Kershaw,
except for those
on p. 3, which are
by Tonya Kibby.
Clockwise from top
left, youth and children on Easter, and scenes
from the Parish Picnic.
Bill Owens Bows Out
Calvary has been very fortunate to
have enjoyed the dedication and
talent of Bill Owens for four years
as volunteer pianist at the 9:00 am
service and accompanist for The
Lord’s Choir. Bill has tirelessly
encouraged and corralled young
singers and musicians to become
part of worship at Calvary. Bill isn’t
leaving us, but he has decided to
resign at summer’s end from music
leadership at the 9:00 service. We
will celebrate Bill’s enormous con-
tributions to Calvary on his last
Sunday, August 25. In Bill’s words:
Dear Calvary Family,
They say the only thing that’s con-
stant about life is that things change.
This letter, I hope, will explain the
changes that are happening in my
life that have led me to the decision
to make August 25 the last Sunday
I’ll be the accompanist for the 9:00
service.
My mom is 96 and is experiencing
the usual changes that go along
with that, so my brother (who lives
in Houston) and I will need to build
some increased flexibility into our
schedules. I have eight grandsons,
two great-grandsons, and a baby
Page 2
Bryan Duncan to Head Up 9:00 Music
Committee
Bill Owen’s resignation creates an
opportunity to reimagine the
music program for the Contempo-
rary Eucharist. Bryan Duncan, who
plays bongos at the service and
whose children, Isabella and James,
sing in the Lord’s Choir, has agreed
to chair a committee appointed by
the Rector to consider the possibil-ities for glorifying God through
music at the 9:00 service after Bill
steps down at the end of August.
Changes at Calvary Jason Hannusch
to Join Staff as Chancel
Choir Director No stranger to Calvary, Jason was
Chancel Choir Director for five
years beginning in 2000 and is
greatly respected by the choir
members who served under him.
Jason has a beautiful tenor voice,
with which he will lead congrega-
tional music this summer at the
11:00 service while the choir takes
a holiday. Working with our won-
derful organist, Joe Doms, and
with the Rector, Jason will contin-
ue Calvary’s strong music tradition
at the 11:00 service.
Toni Kesselus was honored on May 26 during and
following her last service as Chancel Choir Director.
At right, with her grandchildren, Nathan and Madison.
A Thank You
from Toni
I want to thank everyone for
making my last day as Chancel
Choir Director so very meaning-
ful. The choir and Joe did a mag-
nificent job with a fabulous an-them. I was overwhelmed by the
generosity shown by Lisa and the
parish who gave me such won-
derful gifts. My offering for these
past years has been a labor of
love, and on Sunday I felt the love
of God and you returned in an
incomparable measure.
Toni
great-granddaughter. I’d like to be
freer to see all those people.
I have decided that I also need
more time and energy for the
Honor Choir, Amy Pyle’s FAITH
group, accompanying the BMS choirs, teaching sixteen private
students, the Bastrop Education
Foundation, Bastrop County Char-
acter Education, and teaching at
Calvary Episcopal School. So I have
decided to pass on to someone
else the responsibility to plan the
music at the 9:00 service and de-
cide how it will be accompanied.
I’m not disappearing from Calvary and
remain willing to help occasionally.
Blessings to all,
Bill
Seminarian Janet Tunnell prepares
to begin her ministry in St. Peters-burg, FL, after graduating from Seminary of the Southwest.
Page 3
Putting the Bishop’s Visit in Context Carol Brown, Catechist
On Sunday June 9, Bishop Suffragan
Dena Harrison will join us at Calva-
ry at a combined 10am service as
our Celebrant and Preacher, to
confirm and receive new Calvary
parishioners into the Episcopal faith,
and to consecrate the chrism of oil
used in baptisms throughout the
year. During her visit, Bishop Harri-
son will also meet with our vestry
to learn the vision and mission being
carried out at Calvary this year and
hear any particular concerns or
good news.
Bishop Harrison serves under Bish-
op Andrew Doyle, Bishop of Texas,
as one of two Bishops Suffragan of
the Diocese of Texas. (The other
Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese is
Jeff W. Fisher. Bishop Fischer offic-
es in Tyler and serves the eastern
region of the Diocese of Texas.)
Harrison was elected in 2006 by
the clergy and lay delegates to Di-
ocesan Council. She has oversight
of churches in the western region
of the Diocese, including the Austin,
Northwest, Central, and Southwest
convocations, and of the Commis-
sion on Ministry and the committee
on World Mission in the Diocese.
Harrison is also a trustee of Episcopal
Relief and Development and serves
as Chair of St. Luke’s Episcopal
Health System, the Seminary of the
Southwest, St. Stephen’s Episcopal
School, and El Buen Samaritano of
Austin. Despite her heavy adminis-
trative responsibilities, Bishop Harri-
son maintains a pastoral presence in
the congregations in the western
convocations, as Calvary learned
following the 2011 fires, when she
lent both her presence and pastoral
support to our community.
The Episcopal Church gets its name
from the importance of bishops in
our church structure. The Greek
word, episcopos, meaning overseer
or elder, has been used since the
early church to identify those elect-
ed to lead our faith communities.
Several types of bishops are recog-
nized by the Episcopal Church of
the United States (ECUSA). Most
episcopal authority rests in Bish-
ops Diocesan, who are in charge
of a particular diocese. Large dio-
ceses, like ours, may also have
Bishops Suffragan elected to
assist the Bishop Diocesan, or
Assisting Bishops appointed by the
Bishop Diocesan to help carry out
episcopal duties, especially visits to
congregations for confirmation and
reception. A Bishop Coadjutor is
a bishop elected to succeed a sitting
Bishop Diocesan when he or she
retires. ECUSA also elects a Pre-
siding Bishop, currently The Most
Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori,
chief pastor to the Episcopal Church's
2.4 million members. The Presiding
Bishop is the spokesperson for
ECUSA, especially within the wider
Anglican Communion, and presides
over the General Convention, which
meets once every three years.
Our bishops serve an important
role, not only as our chief pastors,
but in representing the unity of the
diocese, unity with other dioceses in
the ECUSA, and our unity with the
history of the apostles through
apostolic succession.
A visit from a Bishop is always im-
portant in the life of a congregation,
one that affirms its relationship with
a much larger community of faith.
Come meet your Bishop Suffragan
on June 9 and join her for a lunch-
eon reception following the 10:00
service.
Baptism of Allen Kaden and Lara May McInnes
Page 4 Page 4
May all things move and be moved
in me
and know and be known in me.
May all creation
dance for you within me.
Page 4
Imagine Blue Tressa Vainwright, with Contributions from Jenifer Compton Hammock
Each year, the Children’s Advocacy
Center sponsors the “Sing for the
Children” event on the Bastrop
courthouse lawn in April, Child
Abuse Awareness Month. Jenifer
Compton Hammock, a friend, and
mother of a student at CES shared
with me her thoughts on the event
(the banner she mentions was
lovingly created by the school’s
aftercare children for Child Abuse
Awareness Month and hangs in the
window of the Bastrop YMCA
office).
Jenifer reflects, “While a few
groups gathered on the front lawn
last Tuesday at the Bastrop County
Courthouse listening to speakers
and coordinators, and as Mr. Ow-
ens' Honor Choir sang out for
these children and this cause - our
children were singing, running free -
they laughed & giggled,
played Frisbee in the grass, picked
flowers, they shouted to their
mommies, "I love you!" - they were
carefree, smiling and happy. Then
later, as the event was over, after
Emily sang with her choir, and
played tag barefoot in the lawn -
just like I did as a child - the dread-
ed question was finally asked by my
own eight-year-old, ‘Why are the
ribbons blue?’ In a split second, I
said a prayer to God and to my
own mom, Georgia Compton,
hopefully looking down over us, to
give me strength and the words . . .
How was I to answer this? I an-
swered it with the simple
truth, ‘Because it's the color of a
bruise.’
In our children's eyes, blue is the
color of the sky and heaven they
painted on their banner; and if you
look closely at the banner, it's the
color of bluebonnets, near a paint-
ed kitty-cat and a monkey hanging
from a tree branch, or the birds
flying through the clouds . . . in our
children's eyes, it is NOT bruising.
It is Beauty, it is Faith, it is Hope, it
is CHILDHOOD.”
I ask you to imagine with me a
world where all children are loved,
respected, and cared for. Abuse
and neglect of any kind do not
exist. Close your eyes and really
see it. Feel it!
Unfortunately, there is no need to
imagine abuse. Too many children
have experienced it first hand, and
the rest of us only need to have the
thought barely enter our con-
sciousness to have intense feelings
arise. Anger, fear, sadness, disgust,
are feelings that I have felt and
witnessed in others. These are
honest and justifiable reactions and
feel so unbearable that we close
our eyes and turn away from the
pain.
Child Abuse Awareness Month
began in 1989 when a Grandmoth-
er in Virginia survived the death of
her Grandchild to abuse. She tied a
blue ribbon to her car’s antenna to
make people “wonder.” For that
reason, the blue ribbon symbolizes
awareness and efforts in child abuse
prevention. This social “issue” is
not a comfortable subject to dis-
cuss or confront or one with an
easy “fix.” It stems from a multi-
tude of deeper personal, as well as
societal challenges and influences.
At last year’s “We Sing for the
Children”, I asked my daughter,
then 14, what she felt was the most
critical prevention effort. Without
hesitation, she answered: “If you
look at all
efforts for
this cause,
they all have
one thing in
c o m m o n .
They all have
hope. Hope
is like the
super glue
that holds the
effort together. Without hope, it is
as if we are building a house on
loose sand.”
In an article, Mindy Graber, a foren-
sic interviewer with the Children’s
Advocacy Center, shares the fol-lowing excerpt from an interview
she performed. “Is there a part of
your body that is hurting you?” In
response to this question, the 10
year old girl I am sitting with, points
to her chest area. I then ask her
“What part of your body are you
pointing to?” “My heart” is her
response.
Reflecting on this experience, Gra-ber writes, “I believe one of the
most heinous behaviors, is to take a
child’s trust, and use the innocence
of their innate nature as children, to
commit acts of abuse . . . For a child
to trust the grown-ups in her/his
life, should be a given. As adults,
that is our job.”
Can we also allow ourselves to feel
child abuse in our hearts”? Maybe
this is the path we must take to end
this painful affliction. Our hearts
must be open and vulnerable, like a
child’s heart, for our children to
trust us fully.
This year, a “Flash Mob” dance
took place during Yesterfest on the
last Saturday of April. It was a
“mob with a cause,” celebrating the
light inside of all children, and a
tribute to efforts in child abuse
awareness and prevention. The
crowds on Main Street stopped,
listened, and watched, showing
their support.
Tressa is a parishioner, CES parent, and member of the Calvary Cares outreach committee. Jenifer is a CES parent.
Somehow the emotions of despair,
anger, and hopelessness that natu-
rally arise from experiences and
thoughts of child abuse need to be
transformed to hope and action.
How do we do this? By dancing
together, lifted up with God’s
grace. This will allow heal-
ing, action, and change. Let
blue remind us of the bruise
so we can feel the hurt, and
then let us feel the soothing,
calm and peaceful qualities of
blue, like a child sees the
colors of the world, with an
open and loving heart.
Again, close your eyes and
imagine a world where all
children are loved, respect-
ed, and cared for. Abuse
and neglect do not exist.
See it. Feel it! Allow it to
permeate your heart. Next time
you feel the pain in your heart at
the thought or memory of abuse,
open your eyes wide, and when
you can, face the pain head on.
Believe that together, through our
intention and efforts, we can create
peace for our children.
To find out more on how you can
help, contact The Children’s Advo-
cacy Center, at 512-321-6161, or
v is i t the ir webs i te at
www.childrensadvocacycenter.org .
Child Abuse Hotline: 800-252-5400
FAITH at Calvary’s Parish Picnic
Under the direction of Glennie
Burgess, Head of School, Calvary
Episcopal School continues to
grow and develop in all areas. As
our students blossom, we contin-
ue to improve the quality of edu-
cation and our ability to meet the
demands of the future. We will
add fourth grade next year with a
stellar teacher, Janet Staton, and at the Spring Fling, our Annual Fund
event, Mthr. Lisa announced that
the CES Board of Trustee’s has
committed to develop a plan to
grow through 8th grade.
Earlier this year, through the lead-
ership of Tracy Bratton, with the
help of a generous donation and
the City of Bastrop, and with the
approval of the Vestry and the
City of Bastrop, we had a raised
crosswalk constructed in Alley A to enhance the safety of students,
staff, and parishioners. During
construction, our third graders
brought donuts and juice to the
city workers one morning, who
were all smiles to meet the chil-
dren they would be protecting.
Also, due to the generosity of Bill
Owens and the good work of
Shawn Kana and Chase McDon-
ald, we now have a beautiful awn-
ing over our front door that is big
enough to shield an entire class
from rain or sun as the code is
entered to open the main door to
the school.
The school’s Future Growth and
Expansion Committee has worked
hard this year to recommend a
path to the future. The CES
Board, with Vestry and City
Council approval, purchased a
modular building to be placed
temporarily behind Gethsemane
to house our fourth grade class
(with room for an additional class).
The school recognizes that we
have reached the limit for growth
on the church campus, so we are
excited to be in conversation with
a representative of Coast Range
Investments, which is developing
XS Ranch, a master planned com-
munity of more than 7,000 homes.
The community is north of 71,
between Bastrop and Austin. The XS Ranch developers have given us
a letter of intent to donate 15
acres to the Diocese of Texas
(which owns all of Calvary’s prop-
erty), to be designated as a CES
school site. We hope to move the
grades to XS Ranch in the fall of
2015, while leaving the early child-
hood program and Kindergarten
on the church campus. As a parish
school, we are committed to stay
seamlessly linked to our home
base in downtown Bastrop.
We have also spent the past year
working on defining our school
identity. We have adopted a new
logo in our school colors of navy,
silver and white, a school motto,
Terras Irradient (Let Them Give
Light to the World), and a guiding
scripture (Matthew 5:14-16, “You
are the light of the world. A city
on a hill cannot be hidden. Nei-
ther do people light a lamp and put
it under a bowl. Instead, they put
it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the
same way, let your light shine
before others, that they may see
your good deeds and praise your
Father in Heaven”). We have also
upgraded our existing dress code
so that next fall Calvary students
will dress daily in khaki and navy, to
strengthen school identity in our
students and to make CES more
visible in the greater community.
And of course, we are continuing
to develop our Episcopal identity,
as reflected in a new Mission State-
ment that uses language from the
baptismal service in the Book of
Common Prayer.
As an Episcopal
school, our children
thrive on daily chap-
el, and we see the
many ways in which
Christ is present in
our students. Our
2nd & 3rd graders
invited the children of Calvary to collect
money for the
children of West
ISD, creating post-
ers and putting out
a container for
money. Children
brought in their
allowances and
savings and con-
vinced their parents
and grand-grandparents
to contribute. In
Calvary Episcopal School—Growing with its Students Amy Beal Carroll
Page 5
Amy is a parishioner of Calvary, a parent of CEC students, and a member of the CES Board of Trustees.
Calvary Episcopal School is a ministry of Calvary Episcopal Church that serves children in the community, including
seventeen children who are members of the parish (almost 25% of current enrollment). The Vestry selects trustees
to serve on the Board of CES, and under its bylaws, at least 60% of trustees must be confirmed communicants of
Calvary. Mthr. Lisa, as Rector, is Chair of the CES Board and regularly attends Board and subcommittee meetings.
The current President of the Board is Lisa Chavez. CES’s finances are separate from the church, and while they bene-
fit from the use of church facilities, they contribute to the overhead costs. When a third grade classroom was created
in the Community Life Center this past school year, CES also began contributing to the CLC mortgage.
Calvary Episcopal School
512-321-1610,
P.O Box 626, Bastrop, 78602
http://calvaryschool.net
Glennie Burgess, Head of School
two weeks, they collected
$372.73, which they sent to
West ISD. Many of our children
were on the receiving end of
help during the Bastrop fires, so
it was heartwarming to see the
children raise money for others.
This year, the school also partici-
pated in community service
projects of Pink Santa, Chil-
dren’s Advocacy Center, and
other local efforts.
We ask for prayers as we grow
into our bright future. Please
follow us on our Facebook page,
Calvary Episcopal School,
Bastrop TX. If you would like
to donate to our Annual Fund,
we will put your generosity to
work to educate our students
and encourage Christ to grow in
their hearts. Thank you for
supporting Calvary Episcopal
School.
Page 6
A Palestinian Anglican priest once
told me of a conversation he’d had
with an American woman at an
international religious conference.
“When did your family convert?”
she asked him, obviously expecting
to hear a heart-warming story of
western missionary success. To
her complete confusion, he re-
plied, “Around 45 AD.”
Brought up in a mixed Italian-Irish
section of Boston, I knew little
more than this woman about
Christians in the Middle East when
I first arrived in Baghdad after
college to begin a two-year stint as
a volunteer teaching algebra at an
American Jesuit-run school. But
during that time and in other plac-
es in the region where I’ve lived
since then, I’ve often been amazed
by stories from the long history of
Christianity in these countries.
For example, Palestinian and Jorda-
nian Christians trace their roots to
James, the brother of Jesus, the
first leader and bishop of the
church in Jerusalem. Syrian and
Lebanese Christians belong to
churches sprung directly from the
work of Peter and Paul in Antioch,
and the Copts of Egypt can trace an unbroken line of bishops back
to Mark, who preached in Alexan-
dria in the mid-first century. The
church in Cyprus reveres as its
founders Barnabas and Lazarus,
while Iraqi Christians claim the
Apostles Thomas and Thaddeus as
their spiritual ancestors.
Despite these historical New
Testament beginnings, the region’s
churches gradually receded from
the memories and awareness of
the much later-established church
communities of Europe. There
were early theological disputes, the
significance of which is by now
often hard to explain, and subse-
quently, there were political and
historical divisions, so that by the
sixth century, most of the Middle
East churches were separated
from the self-declared orthodox
churches of Constantinople and
Rome.
With the rise and political domi-
nance of Islam throughout the region from the seventh century
onward, much of the population
was gradually attracted to the new
religion for many reasons.
(Despite popular belief to the
contrary in the West, forced con-
version to Islam was extremely
rare.) Still, a remnant always re-
mained with the old Christian faith.
At the start of the 21st century,
Christians exist as a majority or
close to it in Cyprus and Lebanon
and as sizable minorities in Egypt,
Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
Since the late 19th century, the
desire for economic betterment
promoted Christian emigration
from the poorer parts of the Mid-
dle East, mostly to Europe and the
Americas. But individual Christians
were prominent among the lead-
ers of the new nations that
emerged after World War I, and
for that reason, historic Christian
communities found themselves in
reasonably secure situations for the first several decades of inde-
pendence. More recently, howev-
er, circumstances have become
particularly hard for several of
these communities, despite nearly
two millennia of historical connec-
tion to the lands of the New Tes-
tament.
Some groups, like the Catholic
Maronites in Lebanon and the
oriental orthodox Assyrians of
Iraq, had become closely associat-
ed with the region’s would-be
colonial powers, France and Brit-
ain, which put them at a distinct
disadvantage with their country-
men as nationalism intensified in
the last half of the 20th century.
Others found themselves living in
deteriorating living conditions
The Church in the Land of Its Birth John Cummings
John Cummings’ wife, Joanne, is a Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of State currently posted to the US Embassy in Sana'a, Yemen,
after previously serving in Egypt, Jerusalem, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. John came to Bastrop in May 2011 after being evacuated from Syria when the US Embassy there sent home all the dependents following the outbreak of the civil war. He was in Yemen as Joanne's 'trailing spouse'
following his own career with U.S. agencies and the World Bank in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan. While John hopes to resume the role of 'trailing spouse' in Yemen at some point, he says that Calvary has been a welcoming home for him, both spiritually and
intellectually, and that Bastrop has been a good place to be a 'refugee'.
imposed from outside. For exam-
ple, Palestinian Christians in Jerusa-
lem and the West Bank came
under the harsh regulations of
Israeli occupation after 1967, and
at least half of that community has
by now joined relatives who had
earlier migrated to the West.
In the new century, despotic but
secular regimes in Iraq, Egypt, and
Syria have been overthrown—in
Iraq with the American invasion
and in Egypt and Syria by the
upwelling of domestic discontent
that has become known as the
Arab Spring. In all three countries,
for Christians (and other minori-
ties), basic social stability had gen-
erally outweighed the obvious
political imperfections of the for-
mer regimes. With that stability
now demolished, the minorities
find themselves at risk of loss of
homes and livelihoods and even of
active persecution.
Iraqi Christians have particularly
suffered as their country’s social
structure has crumbled in the
aftermath of a war that had been
predicted to be both mercifully
brief and surgically precise in re-
placing despotism with democracy. After ten years of episodic chaos,
as many as three quarters of these
Christians have been displaced
from their ancient homeland.
Unfortunately, since 2011, the Iraqi
scenario seems to have now be-
come the fate of Syria’s minorities.
In Egypt, however, despite some
increased emigration, the much
larger (as many as 10 million peo-
ple) and better-organized Coptic
Christian community is generally
standing its ground. Copts were in
the forefront of the Egyptian revolt
in 2011 and during its aftermath,
and they’ve been adamant in insist-
ing that the constitutional founda-
tions of the new Egyptian republic
guarantee religious freedom and
political integration.
There is some hope as well in the
renewed concern of Christians in
Europe and the Americas—Roman
Catholics, Anglicans, Evangelicals,
and Orthodox—for the dire situa-
tions faced today by many Middle
East Christians.
As we try to help, however, we
should keep two considerations
firmly in mind. First, our fellow
Christians in the Mideast have long,
rich, and proud traditions strongly
rooted in the earliest days of the
Church and preserved over the
centuries, and these traditions
should be respected. Second, the
history of Western countries’ deal-
ings with the peoples of the Middle
East, from the Crusades to Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom, have much too
often been characterized by disas-
trous, if unintended, consequences
for these ancient church communi-
ties.
That being said, there is much that
American Episcopalians, both as
individuals and as congregations, can
do to support Christians in the
Middle East. For example, the
Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and
the Middle East (ECJME) is both
one of the geographically largest and, in membership terms, smallest
provinces in the worldwide Angli-
can Communion. It has a long and
well-established history of working
directly (and non-competitively)
with regional churches, while
providing vital basic services in
education, healthcare, refugee assis-
tance, and religious ministry to
people in more than a dozen coun-
tries. In carrying out its mission,
ECJME relies for its resources on
expatriates among its members and,
to a much greater degree, on the
links it has with other Anglican/
Episcopal churches. More infor-
mation is available at http://
www.jmeca.org.uk/welcome-jmeca/
four-dioceses and at http://
www.dioceseofegypt.org/english/
province.
Calvary Episcopal Church, a History Continued
his pastorate at the local Methodist
church to become an Episcopalian.
This caused a rift between the two
congregations, leading the Method-
ists to withdraw the offer to use
their building.
Phillips moved to Austin to study for
holy orders, and in 1871 returned to
Bastrop as the first Rector. Col.
Higgins added to this milestone by
providing Calvary with its own place
of worship. In 1868, he had pur-
chased from the German Methodists
a building that stood on the south
side of Farm Street, about eighty feet
west of the corner of Farm and
Church. The Germans had moved
to another location and granted
permission for use of the structure
by local African Americans, who,
after being freed from slavery, orga-
nized a congregation. Higgins contin-
ued the practice of allowing them to
hold worship services there. Now,
ready to give it rent-free for his own
parish’s use, the Colonel asked the
African Americans to find other
accommodations.
The women of the congregation and
their servants cleaned and white-
washed the structure, while the men
built a small altar and curtained off
one corner as a vesting room for
Philips. In 1874, when announcing
The fledging Calvary Parish, founded
in 1869, moved into the 1870s with
few resources save the enthusiasm
of a small group and the undying
commitment of Mrs. Caroline Hig-
gins. At first, the congregation cele-
brated Episcopal worship, generally
the reading of Morning Prayer, one
Sunday a month at the Methodist
Church building. Mrs. Higgins began teaching the others to chant Psalms
and the Te Deum and to sing hymns,
and her husband, J.C., aided her with
his “fine tenor voice.” The couple
complemented the liturgy by carry-
ing their home organ to the church
for each service. This caused quite a
stir in town because only a tuning
fork had been used previously for
such a purpose, and “old timers”
considered it sinful to employ such a
“machine” in public worship.
In addition, Mrs. Higgins and her
sister taught Sunday School, and the
women organized a guild, the first
parish organization. Among the initial
group confirmed by Bishop Gregg
was the Rev. John Phillips, who left
that Bishop Gregg was scheduled the
next day to hold services, the Adver-
tiser referred to this building as “the
Little Church around the Corner,” a
term of endearment that apparently
became common among Bastropi-
ans. Philips left in 1876 and was
replaced by the Rev. W.G.W. Smith,
who remained three years and was
followed by Edwin Wickens. Under
the leadership of these clergy and
worshiping in the small facility, the
parish held regular worship and grew
to more than forty communicants.
To Be Continued.
This is the third part of a history that Ken began in the December 2012 and March 2013 issues of Come & See. Ken is a former rector
of Calvary (1981 to 2000), a writer and an historian of Bastrop County.
Early worship at Calvary Episcopal Church
Christmas 1870
Page 7
The Rev. Ken Kesselus, Rector Emeritus
Betty Hetzel and stepdaughter
Kellye Newton in front of Skeeter Hetzel’s niche in the columbarium.
Scenes from the
Maundy Thursday
service.
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH P.O. Box 721
Bastrop, TX 78602
What’s Happening @ Calvary
June 2 9:00 am Youth Service, Outside (8:00 and 11:00
services held as usual)
June 9 10:00 am Confirmation & Graduate Sunday,
Combined Service, followed by luncheon
with Bishop
June 26-29 Calvary Youth attend Convergence, a youth
leadership event in the Diocese of Texas
June 30 Don Calvert Memorial Blood Drive
July 16-18 5:30 pm Vacation Bible Camp, “Shepherd King;
A Heart for God.”
July 21-26 MissionPalooza, PULSE Mission Trip with
other youth of the Diocese of Texas
July 28 Newcomers Social
August 25 10:00 am Reception honoring Bill Owens
September 8 Rally Day and Return of Sunday School
Offices: 1028 Main St., Bastrop Church: 603 Spring St., Bastrop
Phone: 512-303-7515 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.cecbastrop.org
Rector: The Rev. Lisa S. Hines Email: [email protected]
Newsletter Editor: Lisa Hines
For the complete church calendar, go to
www.cecbastrop.org and select Calendar
from the Communications dropdown menu.
Shepherd King: A Heart for God Vacation Bible Camp 2013
July 16-18, 5:30—8:00 pm
Puppets tell the story and campers have the fun with supper, games, crafts, music and more! Collect special treasures each of the three days to help you remember David.
We need you! Campers, Junior Counselors & Adults . . . Email [email protected] for Registration forms. See Volunteer sign-up sheets in the Parish Hall.