Pastoral
thoughts
Safe Sanctuaries: Security Update
As many of you know, we have taken a number of steps over the past months to provide greater security for people at worship, those visiting our building and our staff. This has been in response to a few incidents here and to the general rise in anxiety over safety in public spaces. We have tried to do this in a way that maintains a spirit of hospitality to visitors and minimizes inconvenience to our church community. We have learned some things along the way. So here is an update.
We will continue to keep all outside doors to the building locked with these exceptions:
— On Sunday mornings, the front doors will be open and there will be a greeter there to welcome people. The door into the Gathering Space from the lake side of the building will be locked but an usher will be there to let people in.
- During the week during regular office hours – 9am to 4pm Monday through Thursday – the outside front door will be unlocked but we are asking people to use the intercom in the vestibule between the doors to ask that the inside door be unlocked for them.
- When groups meet in the building outside of regular office hours, they will need to have one person with a key FOB to unlock the door and then have someone at the door to let in others.
On Sunday mornings, our building manager will be in the Gathering Hall during the services to watch for people arriving either through the front door or wanting to come in through the door on the lake side. Our nursery and kids’ ministry staff have been briefed on how to handle any concerns that may arise in areas where children are.
If anyone sees anything that concerns them, please let one of our staff members know about it. And if you have questions about how we are handling this, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks so much for helping us keep our building a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
Pastor Phil
Safe Sanctuary: How you can support CPC’s efforts beginning this Sunday
Sign up to serve — and — Please enter through the front door on Gorham Street
God calls us to be a sanctuary for all who seek to worship and grow in God’s love. Our vision process helped us put words to this enduring value of Christ Pres.
Our world makes realizing this vision a complex task. As people, we come with a wide range of abilities, identities, and histories. Life’s fullness means that we don’t know everyone with whom we worship, though we hope to. More gravely, across our country today, houses of worship are targeted by groups who don’t share God’s vision of an expansive welcome for all people.
In recent months, CPC church leaders have sought to learn more from each other and civic leaders about how to enhance our abilities to provide safe sanctuary. Church leaders have been carefully selecting measures that align with our values and adopting new policies that integrate our growing awareness.
For example, we’ve adopted a mantra that “an open door is a hosted door.” By following it, we hope to ensure that each person who enters our building is met by someone who can offer a warm welcome to each individual, while also seeking to ensure that our sanctuary remains a safe space for others.
This week, church and civic leaders find it’s time to ask your help in more fully living into our call.
- Beginning this Sunday, as we gather for worship and fellowship, you’ll notice that open doors will be hosted doors. - Given our current staff and volunteer capacity, this means that we will start with one open and hosted door — the front one that opens to Gorham Street.
This weekend, in order to ensure that we can leave the front door of our building open, we’ll contract with someone who can host this door while our members and guests move into worship. In the coming days, we’ll seek to expand our greeter and usher teams, and we’d love your help.
If you’re willing to serve in this capacity one Sunday a month for 90 minutes, please register to join the Contemporary or Classical Worship Greeting Teams — or — email Sharol Hayner to get connected.
Please join us in praying for our church community and all of God’s creation, that one day, every corner of this earth will be that safe sanctuary God has always intended it to be for all people.
Support for our Siblings in Palestine and Israel: Special Giving Opportunities
For 30 years, Christ Pres has enjoyed a generative and fruitful relationship with the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Christmas Lutheran Church, Bright Stars of Bethlehem, and Dar al Kalima University of Arts and Culture.
Through the years, our Christian fellowship with our siblings in the Holy Land has nurtured our faith in Christ’s capacity to be and bring hope into even the most dire of circumstances. Mitri Raheb, his congregation, colleagues, and students have modeled what it means to be channels of God’s love for all people — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, secular, Palestinian, Israeli, American, and those whom no nation will claim.
In these days, Rev. Raheb, his colleagues, students, and the people they serve, once again, live in an active war zone. Bethlehem has been closed on all sides, meaning students can’t reach the University; classes are virtual at this time. They’re not sure if the Gaza Satellite Campus is still standing. University students and staff are continually being traumatized. Others have already lost their homes and even their lives. Late last week, Mohammed, a beloved Gaza Satellite Center volunteer, who worked with children in an art therapy program, was killed while calming traumatized children at the Gaza hospital that was bombed.
In the midst of it all Rev. Raheb shares, “We are concerned about the high number of civilian casualties, irrespective of if they are Palestinians or Israelis. We call for the Geneva Convention and International Humanitarian Law to be guaranteed by the international community. We call for an immediate ceasefire, opening the borders for humanitarian aid and food to enter Gaza, and courage to address the root cause of the problem: the ongoing Israeli occupation.”
Rev. Raheb and Bright Stars have created a humanitarian fund that will be offering psychosocial support to students, as well as training our MA students in the Art Therapy program to be equipped to work with the traumatized children/youth both now during the war and once the war ends. And, of course, the University continues to tend to the immediate needs of any and all staff, students, and neighbors whom they can reach.
In response to the horrific suffering of so many — and — our long-time partners’ ongoing work to be agents of healing and peace in this region, the CPC Session invites you to join with long-time members of the congregation in sending support to Rev. Raheb and Bright Stars of Bethelehm.
If you would like to do so, you can give on our website or send a check made payable to Christ Presbyterian Church with a note in the memo line, “For Bright Stars.”
The Session also recognizes that many members of our congregation have other connections to people living in Israel, Palestine, and Gaza. If you would like to help us learn more about the partnerships and friendships you have with those offering relief and care in the midst of war, please write us at session@cpcmadison.org. We are committed to joining Jesus in seeking to amplify nonviolent voices and expressions in support of justice, peace, rebuilding, reconciliation, and constructive relationships among and between Israelis and Palestinians.
‑Pastor Jessica