WWW is designed specifically so that families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can come to church for worship, fellowship and Christian education without having to worry about the safety of their children.  Covenant is committed to providing a caring, inclusive worship environment for these families.

Details

Schedule

Signup

Pictures (new!)

Complete information packet:

www-packet.doc (Microsoft Word)

www-packet.pdf (requires Adobe Acrobat reader)

Questions?  Call the church at 205-758-1193 or email us at WorshipWithoutWorry@gmail.com.

]]> http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/08/13/covenant-welcomes-families-with-autism/feed/ 1 http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/08/10/kate-harrelsons-birthday/ http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/08/10/kate-harrelsons-birthday/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:43:00 +0000 Rick http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/?p=738 ]]> http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/08/10/kate-harrelsons-birthday/feed/ 0 http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/07/27/youth-mission-trip-09/ http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/2009/07/27/youth-mission-trip-09/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:26:02 +0000 Rick http://www.covenanttuscaloosa.com/?p=720 On Sunday, 9 youth from Covenant traveled to Atlanta to serve as missionaries to the city.  They are working through an organization called DOOR: Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection.  DOOR is a faith-based network of urban service-learning programs that expose, educate, challenge, and motivate participants to respond to the issues and concerns facing an increasingly urban world. Some of their opportunities will include serving food in soup kitchens, organizing and distributing for local food banks, and even a little work in a community garden. They will also get to spend time making new friends in local nursing homes and even day care centers for homeless children. Please pray for them as they participate in this challenging week.  Here are some photos as they were leaving; check back here for updates throughout the week!

The Worship Committee, the Church Staff, and the Seekers have all struggled with ways to make our worship service more welcoming. Although we consider ourselves a friendly congregation, on most Sundays we are slow to gather in the sanctuary. Anyone arriving early could find an imposing and nearly empty space where nothing is happening. We feel that soft music would provide a warmer ambience and encourage worshipers to gather sooner. As we make this effort during July, please prayerfully consider whether you think it accomplishes our intent.

The Worship Committee

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology these days, and what has put me in this frame of mind has been my acquisition of an iPhone.  If you don’t know Apples tag line of “there’s an app for that,” sit down to American Idol and you’ll soon be up to speed.  iPhone commercials out-strip even drug commercials on shows where the demographic skews young and hip, a group in which I am an outlier.

Anyway.  iPhones are the latest in a line of “smart phones” that combine good old AT&T-style telecommunications with a slew of applications like email, scheduling and note-taking capabilities.  In fact, they are very handy gadgets to have: I can stay in touch with email on the go, get audibly reminded before an appointment, and can jot down notes to myself and others.  Smart phones are like having an office around wherever you go.

But they also do other things: you can play a mean game of Mahjong sitting in the doctor’s waiting room or surf the web waiting to pick up your daughter at school, and in addition to all of the office stuff, iPhones incorporate iPods as well.  And the care and feeding of my iPhone/Pod has consumed much of my spare time in the past few days.  With an iPod, you can spend an inordinate amount of time just putting music and album art into the thing, and getting it in sync with your computer.  It can become an obsession just as much as surfing the web, collecting stamps or reading every outing in a mystery series.  On the up side, I find myself not only “loading up” the iPhone/Pod for road trips, but listening to music more often in coffee shops or while cooking dinner.  My son Mike came in when I was washing dishes the other day and, after trying to get my attention, said I was like some blitzed-out teenager with earphones stuck in his head.  And this from a guy to whom I’d said the exact same thing not more than a gazillion times.

I wonder: are these technological advancements morally neutral?  That is, can they be inherently bad, or is it just the way we (mis)use them?  In my former life as a scientist, I would have once answered definitely the latter.  But now I wonder: iPods and the internet and even television can be very isolating.  You plug in those earphones or flip through that dial and you can be in your own little world, cut-off from family and friends.  In addition, they’ve made access to certain things much more handy—the incidence of sexual addiction has skyrocketed, for instance, since the advent of the World Wide Web.  Is it the fault of the technology, is there such a thing as or “evil” technology, or is it up to the people who use them to regulate their use?

Some religious folks put it this way: they are tools of the Devil to tempt us to sin, and old Scratch has a lot more to work with these days.  In these peoples’ minds, it’s best just to stay away altogether, lest they get hold of you.  Sometimes, I think they’re right (not about the Devil but about avoidance): rather than loading up the iPod I could be reading a book or—gasp!—interacting with my family.  But then, how could I listen to all those lost Warren Zevon tunes?  Decisions, decisions . . .

Meals on Wheels  delivered 178 meals on October 18th, 2009!!

Cooks: Jimmy Powell, Tom Mullen, Barbara and Charlie Rickard, Sam Gambrell, Fred Barnett, Rush Watson, Mary Gregg

Clean Up: Steve Causey

Drivers: Russ Peters and Barrett Abernethy, Jordan Berry and Matthew Bush, Sammy Watson, Debbie Watson and Trey Sanders, Dayton Hale, Meagan Allred and Tiffany Banks, Charlotte and Mike Gattozzi, John Hasson, Carol Schlichter and Ross Palmer, Linda Baggett and Linda Jones, Braegan Phillips and Janie Bostick, Tom and Gail Fanning, Becky and Jessica Hancock, John Sikes, Joan King, John and Ruth Dixon, Rush Watson, Aubry Reeves, Brad Fisher, Cliff and Doris Flora, David Womack, Krysta Orrick

Routes: Aubry Reeves, Mary Carol Thompson, Martha Bace, Karen Eastman.

Next delivery date will be November 15th, 2009.If you would like to volunteer for Meals on Wheels, please contact the church office at 758-1193.

From Our Choir Director

Psalm 34 contains the text ” O taste and see that the Lord is good”. The imagery of actually tasting the goodness of God is a lasting one, which has been set to music many times. One of our choir’s favorite versions was written by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams was born in 1872, the son of a vicar. He published his first composition at the age of 30, and two years later he edited the English Hymnal of 1904. He had a fascination with English folk songs and often incorporated their melodies into his music. His experiences as a medic in World War I led him to question his faith, but he continued  to set sacred texts to music until his death in 1958. O Taste and See is a motet which begins with a solo. Each voice part in the choir then enters one at a time restating the text in polyphonic texture. Nelle Douglas will be our soprano soloist.

Glinda

From our Organist

The opening voluntary for the Lord’s Day Service this week is “If Thou but Trust in God to Guide Thee,” PH 282.  The original German text was written in 1640 or 1641 by Georg Neumark when he was unexpectedly offered employment after being robbed of all his money and virtually everything he owned.  In his gratitude he wrote this hymn based on Psalm 55:22 and titled it “A Song of Comfort: God will care for and help everyone in His own time.”  The text and the tune which he also wrote were first published in 1657.  The setting you will hear is a contemporary one by American composer Edwin T. Childs (b. 1945).

The offertory is “Christ the Comforter of the World.”  The composer is French organist Marcel Dupre (1886-1971).

The service closes with a Gordon Young toccata on Martin Luther’s EIN FESTE BURG.  This is the Sunday the Presbyterian Church designates “Reformation Sunday.” -Gail

I suspect everybody knows this, but the flavor of theology Presbyterians adhere to is called “Reformed.”  Not just because we came out of the Reformation—there are other kinds of theology, such as Lutheran and Anabaptist that did as well—but because of our philosophy, our overall way of being a people of God.  Our motto is: Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda which people who understand Latin assure me means “The Church Reformed, Always to be Reformed.”  Note the passive voice in the second “reformed:” we do not reform on our own, some one or some thing reforms us.  And we believe we know who that Someone is: it is God who does the reforming, through the good offices of the Holy Spirit.  We are not to be reformed by the whim of any one person, or Session, or ecclesiastical body, but by the Spirit of God, blowing through our minds and hearts.

This principle is supposed to work at all levels of the church: at the national level, there is a laborious four-year process for this; it is assumed that the Holy Spirit is at work in it, and in my experience, it usually is.  We are also supposed to apply the Reformed principle at the local level, but this is where it often runs into trouble.  On one hand, there is not a well-oiled procedure in place within congregations to assure that it happens.  On the other hand, there is often resistance to change within a tight-knit group of people who love each other and the way they’ve worshiped God for (generally) a large number of years.  Therefore, even though congregations are supposed to be responsive to change under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it often doesn’t happen that way.

Enter the Seekers process, designed to open ourselves up to the guidance of the Holy Spirit so we can respond responsibly—decently and in good order!—and continue to do God’s will here in 2009.  I am aware that many of you are waiting to see what will come of this endeavor, just as I’ve heard that some of you are tired of waiting, and are watching to see what is going to happen.  I cannot say as I blame you; it seems we have been talking about renewal for a long time.

Well, now that time is upon us: the waiting is over.  As I noted several weeks ago, your Session voted a resolution to explore the means by which Covenant might become a “destination church” for families with children with autism.  This is a direct outcome of the Seekers process: the idea came out of a Seekers-conducted open meeting last year at Summer Experience.  In the mean-time, it has percolated and gestated and a commission has been formed to study what that might mean, and it has been very busy, doing your work and, I believe, the work of the Holy Spirit.  As plans start to take shape, and your Session considers them, we will also be soliciting your input and opinion at small-group gatherings and keeping you constantly informed of what we have in mind.  Just as it takes a community to raise a child, so it takes the whole congregation to renew itself.  I am confident that we will step up to the plate and, by the grace of God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, be renewed.