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08/27/2007
What One Congregation Can Do
by Sue Vogelman
Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, CT wraps their sanctuary in a white band as part of their "MDG Sunday"
Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, CT wraps their sanctuary in a white band as part of their "MDG Sunday" Click here for more photos.
Story by Trinity's Minister of Children's Education Sue Vogelman. Excerpts below. Click here for the full story
"During the worship services, we used prayers and music from around the world. We had a combination of three presentations for the sermon -- a film from the UN Millennium Campaign provided by EGR and 2 powerpoints...
"At our Children's Liturgy (age 3 through 2nd grade)... we read Matthew 25:35-40 and talked about why we should care about the poor in the world. We also read the Sandy Eisenberg Sasso book, In God's Name, which has a fabulous line near the end that goes something like, "And they called God One!" Then we sang the Raffi song,"One Light, One Sun," which has the word one at the start of every verse. The kids loved it and wanted to sing it again using American Sign Language so of course we did!...
"For the dismissal hymn of the 2 main services, the clergy and choir wrapped everyone in the pews in a large piece of inexpensive white fabric (called gossamer and available from www.StumpsProm.com). Everyone sang Ubi Caritas (Taize) while the wrapping was going on as parish musicians played up in the choir loft. Soloists sang verses with various Millennium Development Goals over the top of the parish singing. It gave the impression we were all enclosed in a giant white circle or band of cloth. It was a beautiful ending to a very moving service. People each took home a white ONE bracelet and a small square of the white fabric which were in baskets at the doors, as well as the ONE Episcopalian brochures, EGR booklets and ERD Gifts for Life Catalogs.
