Our first Episcopal Community was St. John’s Church in Roanoke, VA. Every Sunday the whole family, including our parents, two brothers, and us, the two sisters, would pile into the old blue station wagon and head into town. Our morning began with worship in the nave, followed by school in the parish hall, and the occasional game of hide and seek as our parents visited with friends over coffee hour. We were comfortable in that community. We always felt at home in that space, even as the words in worship changed with new experimental prayers. We celebrated with each baptism and wept with each funeral and laughed through many youth group retreats. Through its expansive hospitality, our first Episcopal community taught us what love and belonging looked like. Perhaps as toddlers and teenagers, that presence was hardly noticeable, like the air we were breathing. But something stuck, a seed took root and grew. As adults, we have found our professional home in the Episcopal Church, and we both work to help the next generation find their home of love and belonging.
Sally
In my preschool setting, Chapel is the perfect opportunity to nurture children’s innate goodness and strengthen their sense of belonging, both individually and communally. Recently in a chapel lesson, I read the book, Late Bloomer, by Robert Kraus. The story prompted a wonderful discussion among my pre-k children about how God made us all different yet we are all the same inside. Beginning this feeling of self love and God’s love at such a young age promotes belonging and respecting other’s differences provides a safe and loving community. Following the story, we cut open apples to see the inside of a green apple and a red apple. One girl gleefully announced, “they are the same but they’re different. They both have seeds, just like we all have a heart inside of all of us!”
St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School was founded in 1949 as a ministry of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Over the years, some distance grew between the church and the school. By the time I arrived, the school was completely separate, with little guidance from the vestry or Rector. And in the disconnect, the school had lost track of its Episcopal Identity. The population includes a very diverse group of families, and many of the parents are either single or dual working sets. The lack of connection could be seen in the parents’ demeanor as they walk quickly through the halls with heads down. In my short time there, I have taken many steps toward helping the school embrace its Episcopal Identity and create a sense of belonging among the families, children, and staff.
We began with big-picture conversations with the vestry about the gifts and responsibility of having a ministry that includes a school. And there were conversations with the school leaders and our parents about what it means to be an Episcopal school and the gifts and responsibilities of that identity. Then we had fun exploring that identity with our children. The children and teachers attend a chapel service, which I lead, focused on moral lessons of love, kindness, service, and gratitude. Worship is sensitive to diversity, faithful to Christian foundations and in keeping with Episcopal traditions. Most importantly, all are welcome.
Episcopal identity rests on outreach – the commission of Christ to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” The children recently participated in making handcrafted valentine cards to attach to meals for the people without homes, they will soon be making notes for Blessing Bags and frequently hold clothing drives for organizations in the area. School families are included in the many events that happen in the church, from bi-weekly dinners to participating in the Christmas Eve pageant. This intentional inclusion spreads the Episcopal values into the homes of our children.
At St. Mark’s the teachers model social graces, courtesies, and kindness. They validate children’s feelings, providing them with the basis for self-knowledge and an understanding of others. The teachers reinforce this identity throughout the day in hopes of having this behavior become intrinsic to the children. The teacher’s modeling helps to establish a foundation of trust, honor, and integrity. At St. Mark’s Day School, the students are nurtured with a sense of spirituality, self-confidence, compassion, and love of learning in a vibrant community grounded in its Episcopal identity. They are living in a community where they know love and belonging.
Kate
For the teenagers at Kent School, love and belonging are manifested in a variety of ways, but wherever they find it, the common thread is relationship. My field hockey players feel a connection to fellow players and coaches on the turf as we work and play hard together. In the classroom, students feel safe venturing out on new and untested academic limbs because they know the adults in their midst will support them both in their success and in their failure. And for the alumni who return to campus every year, it is the chapel they miss and community worship they value in hindsight. That regular pause in the midst of busy days brought the whole school together and created a sense of community that left a lasting mark on Kent graduates.
Kent School is a coeducational boarding school in northwest Connecticut. We were founded by an Episcopal monk so the idea of being a community on a spiritual journey is woven into our DNA; it is the air that we breathe. As an Episcopal school, we are committed to a relationship with God, and we nurture that relationship in our students as they each take their own path with and toward God.
The most obvious marker of our Episcopal identity is St. Joseph’s Chapel, which sits in the middle of our campus. Our chapel program is steeped in Episcopal liturgy. We have Morning Prayer, Holy Communion, and Christmas Lessons and Carols. But we are a multi-faith, diverse school, so we intentionally welcome other faith traditions into the chapel program. Interreligious storytelling helps all students find belonging in chapel and know love in the community. The chapel program at Kent School has this beautiful both/and identity. Our foundation is in the Book of Common Prayer, and we evolve as needed to meet the needs of our ever-changing student population.
Incarnational love grows in our commitment to one another in community. Through our Community Life (Com-Life) program, we nurture relationships that are built on love and compassion. Our younger students (9th and 10th grade) participate in forums and discussions that guide them in the nuances of living together. They learn about communication and roommate care, service, respect, diversity, servant leadership, wellness, spirituality, and whole-body health. The older students (11th grade) lead those discussions, teaching through their own stories and building their leadership skills. And in the final year of our Com-Life program, seniors plan and implement community service projects. Through this four-year program, the Kent student develops the transformational skills of active empathy and servant leadership, qualities that are very much tied to our Episcopal identity.
And because we are a boarding school, these intentional classroom conversations always move beyond the classroom, just as chapel talks spread beyond St. Joseph’s Chapel. The ideals we strive to live by and the love we share spread throughout the community as we live together every day.
Together at NAES
We love seeing each other at the NAES Biennial Conferences (we’ve met up at three of them). And aside from the fun of just seeing your sister, we always learn from each other. At this last conference, we each attended different workshops based on our specific learning goals and age groups. Each morning we went our separate ways and found our “peeps.” The NAES conference offers this incredible opportunity to hang out with like-minded people and learn from each other’s stories. But in the evening, when we sat in our hotel room and talked about our day, we heard common themes. Yes, the age gap between our students is great, but the Episcopal identity is the common thread that ties us together. Episcopal preschools plant the seeds of love and belonging, and then Episcopal middle and high schools water the seeds already planted. We each do our part; each step along the way. Perhaps the Romero Prayer written by Bishop Ken Untener says it best.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Bishop Ken Untener
The Reverend Kate Kelderman is Chaplain at Kent School in Kent, CT.
Sally Farrell is Director of St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School in Venice, FL.