News

Update on mask policy

From the earliest days of this pandemic, we committed to make decisions about COVID safety precautions at Seventh Avenue under the guidance of public health experts and local government regulations. Our highest priority since March 2020 has been the health and safety of our community.

Now, we have reached a different stage of this public health crisis. COVID-19 has not gone away, but those same scientists and government leaders have concluded that conditions have changed sufficiently that we can now enter a new phase regarding health and safety precautions.

Mask mandates, social distancing requirements and capacity limits have all been rescinded in San Francisco. Face masks are now optional in schools, and proof-of-vaccination mandates to enter certain public establishments have ended. As spring begins to blossom, we can see glimpses of a new way of living, and for many, an answer to prayer.

As a result, effective April 8, face masks and social distancing are optional, and will no longer be required for activities or worship services at Seventh Avenue.

While many people have waited anxiously for this day to arrive, for others it may come with a deep sense of apprehension. We are fully supportive of anyone who still chooses to wear a face mask or keep their distance. And of course, we have learned that guidelines tend to change. As they do, we will plan to adjust accordingly.

For now, whether a person chooses to wear a mask, or not, is entirely up to them. A person who chooses to continue masking may have an underlying health condition, or be caring for a vulnerable relative. Whatever decision each person makes, and whenever they choose to make it, is entirely their own and should be respected.

This community has been a model of resilience and compassion these past two years. Thank you for that. We ask that you continue to care for each other with that same measure of compassion and devotion. As we make our way together toward the joy of Easter morning, we give thanks for the opportunity to walk alongside one another as we trust in God’s continued presence with us.

Faithfully,

Seventh Avenue Leadership Council

Returning to In-Person Worship

We anticipate our first in-person Sunday worship service being August 29th. Over the coming months, our IT Team will be working to equip the sanctuary for hybrid (in-person and virtual) service options. This will allow us to continue to include those unable or not yet comfortable with attending in person.

To help us ease our way back to in-person worship, throughout the summer we will be having more in-person small group gatherings — both indoors and outdoors. Children and families are starting to gather in the park again, we have started experimenting with small fellowship and prayer gatherings, the 2030 Group is setting up hangouts, and a new walking group has been formed. Keep your eyes out for more opportunities to come. And if you have ideas for gatherings you’d like to create, let us know!

SAPC Response to Racial Injustice

“Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy” Proverbs 31:9

Our hearts are all aching from the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Amhaud Arbery that the nation has witnessed in the past few weeks. We acknowledge that these humans are just a few of thousands of the Black and other people of color killed by police violence every year, including many in our own backyard (Sean Monterossa, Alex Nieto, Steven Taylor, Mario Woods, Angel Ramos). We see that the COVID19 pandemic and subsequent economic crisis has disproportionately affected communities of color and has led to racist attacks against Asians. We recognize that these events cannot simply be written off as the sins of a few white racists, but rather reflect systemic racism and a legacy of white supremacy that is embedded American history and institutions.

First and foremost, we understand that these events are traumatic and we are here to provide community and a safe space for our members to grieve these events and the enduring legacy of racial injustice in our country. In addition, as a church community that believes in the radically inclusive nature of God, we believe that we are called not only to be true to our own vision within our own church, but also to speak up for change within our community, as expressed in the Proverbs passage above. The General Assembly of the PCUSA has already identified dismantling structural racism as a key component of its Mission inspired by Matthew 25:31-46, which calls us all to be actively engaged in our community. The SAPC community recognizes that these recent events, while not isolated, have provided us with a moment to discern whether our actions reflect our commitment to this cause.

The Leadership Council of SAPC believes that this is an appropriate time to reaffirm our commitment to act and speak up against racial injustice in this country and is writing to ask our community to commit to three areas of action.

Education on Racial Justice: We recognize that no matter how deeply we feel that racial oppression is wrong, we can always learn more about how to be allies and advocates for change and how to better create a space that is radically inclusive. As a council we are committing to providing workshops, discussions, and worship opportunities to address the topic of racial injustice. We will also commit to finding online and offline ways of sharing resources we discover on this journey.
Financially Invest in Racial Justice: While we support systemic change, we also recognize that we can do more to directly support young people of color who are struggling against the lack of opportunities due to entrenched racial injustice. In the next 4 weeks, we will be conducting a special offering to raise money for local groups that support people of color and invite you to give as generously as you can. In the long term we hope to develop a relationship with a local organization focusing on racial injustice and making that part of our annual mission budget.
Advocate for Racial Justice: Following God’s call to speak up against injustice, we are going to be looking for ways for SAPC to be more involved in local efforts to reform our justice, education, and policing institutions, such as supporting changes advocated by Campaign Zero. The Mission committee will work on coordinating letter writing campaigns to support worthy legislation and coordinating appearances at local rallies.

We write this letter with great faith in the spirit of our church to model radical inclusivity, but also with humility in knowing that the task is daunting and we may not always know the best way forward. We invite everyone in our community to join in on this conversation to find a way that we can support meaningful change. If you are interested in getting involved please contact Nick Endres ([email protected]).

Sincerely,

SAPC Leadership Council

A Pastoral Word — SeventhAVENews — May 2020

A colleague asked me last week “is this how you envisioned your retirement”? And, I thought — No! I may have anticipated or hoped for certain gatherings and conversations, and tears and laughter, along with sharing memories of our almost 30 years together, but a pandemic: never!

So, how does one retire during such a time? One option was, of course, to just postpone the date, and this was my initial thought. The more I considered this, however, and in conversations with Pastor Meyers, our staff, the personnel committee, my partner, and my spiritual director, I came to the decision that it made more sense for our beloved Seventh Avenue Community to stay with the posted date. But why, you might be wondering?

When I announced my retirement in the Fall, our Leadership Council appointed a Transition Team (which have been meeting, almost weekly) to plan for a smooth transition leading up to and through the end of May. Pastor Jenna Meyers also, earlier this year, negotiated with her other employer, The Center for Domestic Peace, to take a month leave from her duties there so she could focus full-time on you and the ministry here of Seventh Avenue. In weighing all these considerations, it felt more supportive for the congregation that we keep to the May 31^st date.

To say that I’m disappointed that we haven’t been able to be together through Lent, Holy Week, and the Season of Easter would be an understatement. I am disappointed and sad, but I do look forward to when we can all be together again, hopefully July 26, when we can worship in our wonderful SAPC sanctuary and have a celebration that afternoon as we recall these past 30 years.

Serving as your Pastor, hands down, has been the greatest joy of my life! I shall miss our weekly liturgies and prayer, our Taizé services and retreats, our Perspectives and HomeComing, our laughter and dreaming and working together — in the name of Christ — more than you will ever know.

Over our decades together, you confided in me, sharing your longings, faith and questions. You have allowed me to baptize, marry and anoint you; to Celebrate Communion with you, to stand alongside you in your grief and your joys, and to hold your inner secrets. You have also accepted me when I made errors, supported me when I had successes, loved me through loss and celebrated with me new opportunities …. bottom-line: you have been family to me. This is what Christian Community is all about! For our shared lives together these past 3 decades, I give God, and you, heartfelt thanks.

You are in good hands as you move forward with Pastor Meyers, Luba Kravchenko, Michael Turner, Carolyn Foster, Jim Paul and our amazing Leadership Council. I know God will continue to do the work of Christ, and amazing things through all of you, and for this, my heart rejoices.

With a grateful heart,

The Rev. Jeffrey S. Gaines

We’re pleased to present the May issue of our
7 AveNews church newsletter.
It is packed full of important information and fun photos,
so be sure to check it out!

CLICK HERE to download a PDF copy!

A Pastoral Word and Seventh AveNews, March 2020

The following is a summary of a sermon from February 9 entitled: “where is your light? ….” based on Psalm 112 and St. Matthew 5.13-20.

Do you love what you think you love? James K.A. Smith in his book You Are What You Love, The Spiritual Power of Habit, contends that we are what we love, what we desire, and we may not actually love what we think we love.

He writes that “discipleship, is a way we curate our heart, to be intentional about what we love.” He goes on to argue that “to be human, we could say, is to desire the kingdom – some kingdom (or realm or sovereignty.)
To call it a ‘kingdom’ is to signal that we’re not only talking about some personal, private Eden _ some individual nirvana – but that we all live and long for a social vision of what we think society should look like.” Smith believes we seek this realm consciously or not, and it would behoove the disciples of Jesus Christ, to become aware of what social vision we are indeed working toward — to do a liturgical audit of our lives, as he puts it, to see what we love, and is what we love, actually what we think we love.

Hum?

I’ve been ponding this in light of our gospel reading. Which kingdom or realm do I /we seek or desire, honestly? The one where all people are housed, fed and free, or one where a very few consume and control most of the world’s resources? The realm where light exposes evil deeds, or the one where people despise and deride anyone or anything that reveals their corruption or goes against their self-interests?

Do we love what we think we love? Who we profess to love? Who Jesus tells us we ought to love?

This has been a hard week as we’ve witnessed more cracks in our democracy. It doesn’t matter where you like or dislike the person in the White House. It doesn’t matter whether you believe he is innocent or guilty … what matters is that what is bedrock to our rules of law … allowing people to tell their truth, their side of the story … this was simply denied: a basic right of our republic was refused … regardless of the outcome.
What kind of realm are we building on earth as we pray each Sunday as it is in heaven?

The gospel this morning comes right on the heels of the beatitudes …” the blessed bes …”
Blessed be the poor in spirit,
Blessed be those who mourn,
Blessed be the meek,
Blessed be those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
Blessed be the merciful,
Blessed be the pure in heart,
Blessed be the peacemakers,
Blessed be those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
Blessed be you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Do we believe these words? If we say we are Christians … we have struggle with them; we have to contend with them: we can’t ignore them. What Jesus is doing is giving us a lesson plan on how to be with one another … basically, to really look at what we say we love and is what we say we love … really what we love.
Saint Matthew continues: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after
its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Abba in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to ful-fill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the society of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the realm of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the sovereignty of heaven (Matthew 5.13-20.)

In so few words — Jesus was able to say so much and we struggle, at times, to say anything at all with way too many words. You are the Salt of the Earth; You are the light of the world. Direct. Clear. Unambiguous!
We are light. We are salt. These are considered ‘germ par-ables’ (because there are so small) and yet so powerful; they can bring about transformation and change. Jesus is telling his disciples, his followers, that’s us, that we are the Light of the World; we are the salt of the earth. Not some-body else, but you and me.
Jesus doesn’t call us to be salt and light, he doesn’t chal-lenge us to become light and salt, he doesn’t invite us to ponder the virtues or the qualities of salt and light. NO, he simply says: you are salt; you are light. Now get on with it … he couldn’t have been more clear.

Have you ever thought much about salt? We take it so for granted. Salt has more than 14K uses. There was a time, however, when it was so scarce and so valuable, it was used as money. In fact, Caesar’s men, his soldiers, received part of their pay in common salt. “Salarius,” comes from the root word for salt and it where we get our word – salary.
~ “Not worth your salt,” meant you hadn’t earned your wages.
~ Salt in an open sore or soaking in salt water — quickens the healing process.

The Christian life is about expanding the circle, making it wider and wider so that everyone can feel at home at ta-ble. Granted, we mess up. Granted, we have our fears. Granted, we have our biases, but to say that we follow Jesus means that we have to go beyond our fears, and our biases, and our preferences, and offer a different way to be with one another. This is something our society is hav-ing a really difficult time with… so, my friends, it is up to us … and, I believe we have to start with the question: do we really love what we think we love or do we just love our own opinion or love those who agree with us or look like us? Salt and Light … asks us, no demands of us, that we curate our heart differently.

On a small island, off the east coast of the North American there is the Canadian town of Gander, population 9K. On September 11, at 9.26 am, Eastern Time, the FAA (the US Federal Aviation Administration), made an unprece-dented a decision to shut down the airspace of the con-tinental united states forcing over 4k planes to land at the nearest airport they could find. Thirty-eight planes landed at Gander swelling the population by almost 7K in just a few hours. For 5 days, with very little sleep, the peoples of Gander were salt and light offering food, lodging, sup-port, counseling, medical assistance and spiritual care, but most important of all … they offered welcome.

Being salt and light — that’s what the folks in Gander were for those 5 days. They didn’t know the “plane peo-ple,” as they came to be called, not everyone spoke their language, nor looked like them, nor worshipped like them, nor believed what they believed. All this didn’t matter. What mattered, is that they were human beings in need and the people of Gander opened their homes and hearts and lives … and, it forever changed them. (If you ever have a chance to see the play: “Come From Away …” do so it is based on the events in Gander on 9/11).
I mention this, because during those 5 days, the people of Gander, Newfoundland were light and salt…. they worked to bring about a new kingdom on earth as in heav-en. And, this is our call as well. Being salt and light … this is our call as human beings, but more importantly, this is our call as Christians.

Which returns me to my original question: do we love what we think we love? This is a really important question for us to consider, for our answer has to do with our in-tegrity and what we believe about ourselves and God.

As heard from Psalm 112: Blessed are those who revere the Holy One. For they dwell in Love and their children will learn of peace and justice. Abundance and wholeness will be there heritage, and truth will be their banner. Light penetrates the darkness for those who face their fears; Love stands by them with mercy and forgiveness. It goes well for those who are loving and kind, who live their days with justice and integrity. They become co-creators with the Divine; they bless the world with their presence. In times of trouble, they know not fear; their hearts are firm, trusting in God’s Loving and Compassion-ate Presence. (Psalms for Praying, Nan Merrill)

May this be true for each us as we strive to live Jesus’s words of being light and salt.
Amen

______________

We’re pleased to present the Spring issue of our Seventh AveNews church newsletter.
It is packed full of important information and fun photos, so be sure to check it out!

CLICK HERE to download a PDF copy!

Suspension of Worship in Response to COVID-19

In-person worship suspended beginning this Sunday, March 15.

After listening to public health experts, and prayerfully discerning how we are called to care for one another in the midst of COVID-19, we have decided to suspend in-person worship beginning March 15th and will continue to do so until we are given permission by both city and state authorities when we can return to the building. We will continue to reassess as the situation unfolds.

In times like this, we know how important it is to be together in community, and we are also aware of the public health risks. This decision was not taken lightly. As we find our way in this wilderness season, we look forward to what new and creative opportunities we discover to foster connectedness and support for one another. We invite you to help imagine these possibilities with us.

During these ‘shelter-in-place’ days our plan is to email you a recording of a simplified liturgy with the sounds of the gong, prayer, sung chants, scripture, a sermon/reflection, and a blessing. During Holy Week we will make videos for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. Though we will not be physically gathered in the sanctuary together, our hope is that the familiar sounds and voices might bring you there.

We are aware that members of our community might be among those impacted financially by the response to the coronavirus. If you are able to donate to our Deacons Fund, which goes toward offering temporary support to community members in need, please consider doing so. And though we will not be physically gathering in worship, we will continue to financially support our staff. If you would like to contribute electronically to the Deacons or General Fund, visit our donation page.

with gratitude & hope,

Jeff & Jenna

A Reflection and Seventh AveNews, September 2019

On Sunday, August 18, we had the delight of experiencing Lay Sunday and hearing from three of our beloved community. We thought it would be wonderful to highlight one of these reflections in this issue of the SeventhAveNews … you can, of course, hear all of them on our website.

“Spirituality through Perspective”

Good morning. The topic of today’s reflection is how our faith or spiritual life impacts our daily lives. As I pondered this question over the past few weeks, I was somewhat alarmed at how difficult I was finding it to identify anything that I thought of as spiritual in my daily life. This was shaping up to be a short reflection!

Like many of you, my daily life is dominated by the mundane — by definition, “of this world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.” Up around 5am most days, to the gym for a quick workout if I can muster the energy; shower, hop on MUNI then BART; to the office in Oakland for a day of meetings, writing, thinking, problem solving; reverse the commute to SF; dinner, playtime and bedtime with the family; then to bed to recharge and prepare to do it all again. I don’t mean to make this sound like drudgery. There are countless moments of beauty, fulfilment, and joy hidden in the routine, although I’m not always good about recognizing them in the moment. But spirituality in daily life…it almost seems like a contradiction.

For me, spirituality has always been about tapping into, getting a glimpse of, something bigger than myself that helps me understand my place in the world, my place in creation. It’s about getting past the mundane. It’s about seeking perspective.

Marta would be entitled to roll her eyes right about now. You see, in our family and among close friends I have come to be known as “perspective guy.” It’s generally not a compliment.

Perspective guy really likes to place things into the appropriate context. Perspective guy typically listens patiently to people’s concerns and then responds by informing them that their issues are really quite insignificant compared to the civil war raging in X country or the challenges the human race faced in some previous era. Perspective guy is a little too eager to weaponize history and current events. Perspective guy means well, but…let’s be honest, he can lack empathy at times.

So yes, perspective can be abused. But, put to more constructive ends, I also believe that it can be a window to spirituality. And after more reflection, I realized that there’s far more of it in my life than I may have been aware.

Paradoxically, it’s there in the micro…the brief, beautiful moments that form the building blocks of each day. The small things that connect us with something bigger. For me, it’s there when I arrive home from work and overhear Helena, unaware of my presence, quietly talking to her stuffed animals while she arranges them. It was there the day I took a slow motion video of Elise running across Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park and later watched it over and over again, transfixed by the look of pure joy on her face…frame by perfect frame. I’m generally ambivalent about technology, but I was grateful for the unique and beautiful perspective it enabled in this case.

I also find perspective and spirituality in the macro…the places, experiences, and ideas that give me a chance to zoom out and feel small. To be sure, these don’t happen every day, but our family tries to prioritize building in these experiences whenever we can. Camping beside the ocean, under trees, and in the mountains that have existed for millennia before I arrived on this earth and will, I hope, continue to do so long after I am gone. Sitting by the campfire, looking up at the stars and pondering the vastness of the cosmos…the fact that we live on one planet in one galaxy among perhaps hundreds of billions more. Volunteering as a family at Point Reyes during the winter months and helping visitors spot a gray whale during its 10,000 mile round trip migration between Alaska and Mexico. Going to sleep at night in the volunteer housing at the Point Reyes Headlands and listening to the trumpeting of male elephant seals…all the while thinking about the fact that we are on a different tectonic plate — a different piece of the earth’s crust — than the one we woke up on when we started our day in San Francisco. It’s humbling.

I find perspective and spirituality in the new…even little things. Taking a different route to work. Listening to a podcast that exposes me to a new idea. Meeting someone with a different background than my own. Traveling…either literally…or more commonly these days, through the pages of a book.

So…this is how I seek out spirituality, but how it does it influence how I try to live? Well, it encourages me to pay attention, to appreciate the magic of ordinary days. It keeps me humble. It makes me intensely grateful for all of the blessings in my life. And it leads me to try and emulate, however imperfectly, Jesus’s message of love that is reinforced every day by the Seventh Avenue community. Amen.

– Drew Lindsey

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We’re pleased to present the September issue of Seventh AveNews. Click here to download a copy!

A Pastoral Word and May 2019 Seventh AveNews

I read the following by John Pavlovitz and it so resonated with me, I wanted to share it with you, our Beloved Seventh Avenue Community.

The Kind of Christian I Refuse to Be

“I am a Christian.

Actually, it’s more accurate lately to say that I am still a Christian.

I now say this with much trepidation. I say it with great fatigue. I say it somewhat begrudgingly. I say it with more than a good deal of embarrassment—not of Jesus, but of so many of his people and so much of the Church professing to speak for him.

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Looking around at too much of what represents my faith tradition, it’s become a daily battle to make this once effortless declaration, knowing that it now automatically aligns me with those who share so little in common with the Jesus I met when I first claimed the name Christian.

I know the kind of people making this declaration now aligns me with in people’s minds. It now aligns me with bathroom bullies, politicized pulpits, white privilege, and overt racism; with bigotry toward so many groups of people who represent the “world” I grew up believing that God so loved.

There are things that used to be a given as a follower of Jesus, that no longer are.

For far too many people, being a Christian no longer means you need to be humble or forgiving. It no longer means you need a heart to serve or bring healing. It no longer requires compassion or mercy or benevolence. It no longer requires you to turn the other cheek or to love your enemies or to take the lowest place or to love your neighbor as yourself. It no longer requires Jesus.

And so the choices are to abandon the idea of claiming Christ altogether to avoid being deemed hateful by association in the eyes of so much of the watching world — or to reclaim the name Christian so that it once again replicates the love of Jesus in the world. I am trying to do the latter.

Yes, I am a Christian, but there is a Christian I refuse to be:

•I refuse to be a Christian who lives in fear of people who look or speak or worship differently than I do.
•I refuse to be a Christian who believes that God blesses America more than God so loves the world.
•I refuse to be a Christian who can’t find the beauty and truth in religious traditions other than my own.
•I refuse to be a Christian who uses the Bible to perpetuate individual or systemic bigotry, racism, or sexism.
•I refuse to be a Christian who treasures allegiance to a flag or a country or a political party, above emulating Jesus.
•I refuse to be a Christian who is reluctant to call-out the words of hateful preachers, venomous politicians, and mean-spirited pew sitters, in the name of keeping ceremonial Christian unity.
•I refuse to be a Christian who tolerates a global Church where all people are not openly welcomed, fully celebrated, and equally cared for.
•I refuse to be a Christian who is generous with damnation and stingy with Grace.
•I refuse to be a Christian who can’t see the image of God in people of every color, every religious tradition, every sexual orientation.
•I refuse to be a Christian who demands that others believe what I believe or live as I live or profess what I profess.
•I refuse to be a Christian who sees the world in a hopeless spiral downward and can only condemn it or withdraw from it.
•I refuse to be a Christian devoid of the character of Jesus; his humility, his compassion, his smallness, his gentleness with people’s wounds, his attention to the poor and the forgotten and the marginalized, his intolerance for religious hypocrisy, his clear expression of the love of God.
•I refuse to be a Christian unless it means I live as a person of hospitality, of healing, of redemption, of justice, of expectation-defying Grace, of counterintuitive love. These are non-negotiables.

Yes, it is much more difficult to say it these days than it has ever been, but I still do say it. I am still a Christian — but I refuse to be one without Jesus.”

How about you?

In ministry together,

jeff

____________________________

We’re pleased to present the May 2019 issue of our Seventh AveNews church newsletter. It is packed full of important information and fun photos, so be sure to check it out!

CLICK HERE to download a PDF copy!

A Pastoral Word and March-April 2019 Seventh AveNews

Be curious.
Be welcoming.
Belong.

Do you remember the first time you felt you belonged at SAPC? Whether you were a newcomer or have been at Seventh Avenue for decades — this is our ‘home’. We are wired, as human beings, to belong; to find a place we can call home: where we know, and are known by others.

There are qualities to belonging — the first is: be curious.

Being curious is cultivating a child-like sense of wonder, where the unknown of each person becomes an opportunity for discovery; a source of exhilaration and adventure.
Each Sunday we might ask ourselves: Who are we really? Who are we as a community of faith? Who are my neighbors — in the pew — or strangers at the door? Who are we in all our splendor and wackiness, and beauty and spirituality, and depth and wisdom?

The second quality is: to be welcoming. To welcome each person we encounter as if we are welcoming the Christ. Because, you know, we really are. When we welcome each person as the Christ, we discover the Christ in each person.

The final quality is: to belong … and, to belong means we must be mutually dependent on, and vulnerable with, each other. When we have a sense of belonging this spills over to others saying they belong as well. And, this my friends, is community.

My prayer is that we, as members of this beloved community known as SAPC, will continually be engaged in the practice of welcome. Saying to others, and to the world, there is a place for you here.

These three qualities of Christian community: being curious, being welcoming, and belonging are hallmarks of our life with God. So, may each of us be live these words of a benediction I’ve recently been saying at the end of our liturgies:

Life is short.
We do not have too much time to gladden the hearts
of those who travel the way with us.
So be swift to love.
Make haste to be kind.
And may the blessing of God, the Creator,
Jesus the Christ, and Holy Spirit,
be upon you and remain with you now and forever. Amen.

Being curious with you,

Jeffrey Steven Gaines

*this reflection inspired by article in newsmagazine of Trinity Church, Boston

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We’re pleased to present the March-April 2019 issue of our Seventh AveNews church newsletter. It is packed full of important information and fun photos, so be sure to check it out!

CLICK HERE to download a PDF copy!

2019 Lenten Devotional

We’re pleased to present the 2019 edition of our annual Lenten Devotional.

Click here to download a PDF copy!

Essay Recommendations – How to Begin Your PaperIf you are a newcomer to writing, you may not be conscious of the way to begin your own essay. Often it’s a part of this writing process that’s forgotten and is just provided consideration after the writing has been completed. The very first step in writing an article is to decide on a topic and list the reasons for why you want to write this specific paper. Since you will need to know why you would like to write this at the first place, take some time to think of what’s important to you and you need to create it.List current circumstances and events which you could relate to on your paper.

If you aren’t sure, try taking a journey down the road to see whether there is such a thing relevant in the past which may enable you to talk about doing it. If there isn’t some thing that will help, a vacation to your mother’s house or your uncle’s house can give you some ideas on the best way to start your own paper.Another tip when writing your newspaper will be to list all of the different aspects of your personality. This really is a superb way to discover a subject that will make you appear intelligent and interesting. By describing your self in a way that you believe is interesting, you’re opening many opportunities for you to express your self.

Even in the event you don’t feel that you have alot to saythink about a topic that you feel really interested in writing tools.Writing your newspaper might be simpler if you find an interest which you’re considering. If you are likely to devote a whole lot of time figuring out your paper, now are a good time to do so. All you have to do is take note of a set of what exactly you are considering and what you believe makes you unique and special. If you find you have a lot of what to write about, then this could be a good time to try and write one about this subject.Once you have decided on the subject, you’resure to enjoy writing it. Many people enjoy the writing process as well as the amount of the paper. This is a fun thing to do for a few people and they could become so involved in the process that they just forget about the importance of actually completing the mission.

Writing your newspaper can be an enjoyable thing to do especially when you have a good idea on the topic. You can talk about this with your family and friends and see what they think. When it doesn’t work out, then there isn’t any harm in trying .After you have your own paper composed, then put your very best foot forward and let everyone know you have ever written one. It certainly is great to find out that other individuals actually enjoyed that your newspaper. These are simply a couple things to keep in your mind when writing a composition.