Friends,

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

—Ephesians 2:10

On the second Sunday of October, we want to formally recognize and honor your volunteer work.  Many of us quietly serve our neighbors in formal and informal capacities both inside and outside of church.  

In order to recognize all the wonderful things our CCOV family does, Paulan Ricketts has devised a short survey, which you can pick up in church over the next few Sundays as well as on the Sundays this summer that we meet in Hayden Hall (see the summer schedule).  Please fill out the survey and put it in the offering plate or get it to Paulan, Ida, or me.  Pastor Dick and I want to recognize you because volunteer work is Christian practice in action!

It will a great October Sunday when we highlight our folks who “walk in them” (good works) per Ephesians 2:10.  Let us continue imaging God in service as a natural part of our daily life—always a fitting response to God’s amazing grace.

See you Sunday!

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday after Easter, and at CCOV, you all know what that means!  It’s Holy Humor Sunday!  Early in the service we will pass the microphone around, and you will have an opportunity to share good (clean) jokes with your church family.

Holy Humor Sunday is also known as Bright Sunday, which was a tradition begun by the Greeks in the early centuries of Christianity to continue the joyful celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.  Early church theologians called the resurrection “Risus paschalis” or the Easter laugh, because God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.  For centuries the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant countries, the week following Easter Sunday, participated with joy and laughter through parties and picnics to celebrate the resurrection.  Church people played practical jokes, drenched each other with water, jested, sang, and danced.  Then, in 1988 a group called The Fellowship of Merry Christians resurrected this ancient celebration, renamed it “Holy Humor Sunday,” and encouraged its now widespread observance around the globe.  

Let us be reminded that because of Easter, we can continue to celebrate the greatest miracle in human history all year long.  Get ready to laugh together this Sunday!

Many Blessings,

Co-Pastor Sandi  

Friends,

We’ve had two great weekends at CCOV recently with our successful March 7 “Marti Gras on the Bayou” fundraiser for Foster Your Future and our March 14 joint potluck with Landmark Pentecostal Church.  It warms my heart to see all the life that has recently been breathed into our church campus!  Not only did we raise thousands of dollars to support our upcoming Foster Your Future cooking classes, but we also made new friends with the good people who share our campus with us.  I was pleased to see so many of you come out for both events.  The food, music, and decorations both evenings were all delightful!

Continuing with the spiritually-enriching offerings of our busy season, please mark Good Friday, April 3 at 4 PM on your calendars for our joint service of worship with members of the Church of the Beatitudes.  After a meaningful and reflective service at CCOV, we will head over to George and Sons Asian Cuisine at Frank Lloyd Wright and Via Linda for a fellowship dinner.  If you haven’t already, please let Ida know if you will be joining us for the meal so that I can give George and Sons an accurate count. 

Also, be on the lookout for our summer schedule, which Ida will publish soon.  For those of you who stay in town, we will have plenty of opportunities for worship and being together during the hot months ahead.

Many Blessings!

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

The second hymn in the Ash Wednesday section of our New Century Hymnal is “Again We Keep This Solemn Fast.”  Its first verse goes like this:

Again we keep this solemn fast, a gift of faith from ages past,

This Lent which binds us lovingly to faith and hope and charity,

We entered the 40-day church liturgical season of Lent yesterday, and it takes all the way through Holy Week and ends on Easter.  Yesterday, many received ashes in the shape of a cross to mark the Lenten journey, mirroring Christ’s wilderness time.  The ashes typically come from last year’s Palm Sunday palm branches, which are a reminder of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem when people are said to have waved palm branches to celebrate his arrival.  Ashes symbolize both death and repentance and recall the words, “Remember the you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  We also know that new life rises from ashes, so we also look forward to renewal and resurrection.  Lent is a fairly somber season that ends with the great feast of Easter and involves the themes of faith, hope, and charity.  

It used to be that folks would give something up for Lent or fast from something like chocolate or meat or watching TV, perhaps to join in some small way in Christ’s suffering.  In recent years it has become more customary for people to add something—like performing some sort of special service to benefit the needy or giving something away.  This brings back a fond memory of how our church relieved thousands of dollars of medical debt during one Lenten season of the COVID era.  Around the same time, my personal Lenten practice was to spring clean on steroids, and I gave away tons of good clothes and household items to charity, much as the good people of our church just cleaned out a space to give me an office.  A hearty thank you to all for that!   However you choose to mark this Lenten season, may it draw you closer to God and neighbor.

Blessings,

Co-Pastor Sandi 

Friends,

A few weeks ago I received what looked like a legitimate email from the music director at the Church of the Beatitudes asking me for a PDF of the church’s directory.  I emailed Ida (who also works at the CoB with us) to see if she had one to send, and she alerted me that it could be a scam, because she gets similar emails at CCOV, purportedly from Larry.  Upon closer examination, the email address was not the CoB music’s director’s although his name appeared in the “from” line.  I reported the phishing email to the FTC.  The bottom line is that scams abound, and churches like individuals are targets, so we have to be wary!  

This recent episode reminded me of a few years ago when my text app blew up with inquiries from many of you because “I” had reportedly asked you all for money.  You know I would never do that!  I was appalled that a scammer hacked into our church member information!  Then I learned recently that a woman at the CoB actually fell for such a scam a few years ago.  Thinking the email was from the former pastor, she went to Walgreens and bought $200 worth of gift cards and mailed them to the place she thought her pastor was directing her to.  Similarly, we just got back from a trip to Cancun and were scammed by (what we thought was) a Mexican police officer who pulled us over for no reason at all and demanded money from us.  He had a gun and looked official.  Maybe he was, maybe not.  Corruption abounds.  We don’t speak Spanish and had no idea what to do.  Additionally, we had some unauthorized charges on our credit card while there and immediately disputed them.  The reality is, we live in a broken world, and incidents like these sharply remind us of that.

Jesus in Matthew 10:15 told his followers to “be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”  He knew that his followers would always have to be alert to the world’s brokenness, but he called them to remain gentle and pure even as they navigated dangerous situations.  The Christian life is admittedly a hard balancing act.  In other words, it’s okay to trust—but always verify first. 

With Care,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

Merry Christmas!  This time of year mind mind always turns toward my childhood and the awe of Christmases gone by.  Each Christmas morning my siblings and I went downstairs to see how “Santa” had transformed the family room: Presents crowded out the tree, candy canes hung from its branches, the stockings on the fireplace brimmed with gifts, glass-like candy toys (a Pennsylvania thing) filled a bowl on the coffee table, a fire was blazing, and all the tree lights were on.  Each year as we descended the stairs, we experienced such a momentary sense of wonder and awe—at least until we tore into all the goodies and got on with the festivities of the day.

May we also find a few moments in these twelve days of Christmas to renew our sense of awe as we contemplate the mysteries of the Christmas Story—how God descended from on high and became the Son to give us salvation.  Last week Richard Rohr wrote in his Friday meditation, “Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves.  The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe…Awe is a sense for the mystery beyond all things…What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.  Faith is not belief, an assent to a proposition; faith is attachment to transcendence, to the meaning beyond the mystery.”

As I have aged I have become more intentional about experiencing the sense of wonder and awe I previously only felt in moments.  If I don’t, I lose myself in all the things I have to accomplish and in the normal tasks of living.  I invite you all to pause this season as well and contemplate the great Mystery of the Incarnation and all the blessings it bestows. 

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi 

Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving!  Professor Emeritus at my seminary, theologian Dr. Christine D. Pohl, is featured in Richard Rohr’s Wednesday meditation on the Thanksgiving topic of gratitude.  Writing about how gratitude impacts our relationships with others, she comments, “When our lives are shaped by gratitude, we’re more likely to notice the goodness and beauty in everyday things.  We are content; we feel blessed and are eager to confer blessing…Expressions of gratitude help make the community alive to the Word, the Spirit, and God’s work.”

I think particularly about the expressions of gratitude we heard from the Foster Your Future young people at both our recent cooking class and Evening in Barcelona fundraising event.  We all felt blessed by them—their journeys, their accomplishments, and their deep sharing with us.  Gratitude, indeed, begets blessing upon blessing—it works in all directions.  Thus far was have raised around three-thousand dollars to continue blessing wonderful young adults who are successfully transitioning from foster care into independent living.  Our donations will continue to support them as we offer cooking supplies and classes so that they may build essential skills for life.  Through it all, may we enjoy the goodness and beauty of new friendships and deeper community!  

With Gratitude,

Co-Pastor Sandi 

Friends,

One of the largest groups at the Church of the Beatitudes is the Arts Council.  Those of you who worshipped there over the past two summers may recall that their narthex serves as an art gallery with rotating exhibits featuring various artists from both from the church and community.  Thirty percent of the sale price of each piece helps fund projects at the Church of the Beatitudes.  Over the past month, their narthex has featured the work of long-time member Melinda Wing, a printmaker whose mediums include tea bag paper and hand dyed Shibori fabric.  Her current collection consists of framed works of fig leaves and crosses.   Last week I received an email from the Arts Council offering Dick and me a piece of our choice from Melinda’s collection as a gift from their church to ours.  Since I was leading Sunday service there this past week, I got to choose the piece, which you can see here.  It is of a beautiful cross entitled Reliquary.  A reliquary is a special container for holding sacred relics, which are physical objects associated with a saint or a religious figure.  

Reliquary is a gift of value given to us by some wonderfully spirited people who have appreciated CCOV sharing Dick and me with them during their long and on-going search for a settled pastor.  They also have enjoyed getting to know our members who worship with them in the summers.  Even more meaningful is that the gift comes from our parent congregation.  Long-time Beatitudes members recall being involved in the planting and building of our beloved church.  We hope to hang Reliquary soon in either our narthex or sanctuary.  Whenever we look at it, may we see a reliquary of loving kinship between our two congregations.

Grace and Peace,

Sandi  

Friends,

So, maybe we see pumpkin spice lattes everywhere in the Valley and mounds of pumpkins at the grocery stores, but as the meme goes, “It’s finally fall in Phoenix.  You know what that means?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  It’s still 100 degrees outside!”  And yet, in the wake of all the rain last weekend, it was cool enough last night to enjoy dinner on our patio.  I thank God for the blessing of the rain!  I also thank God for the blessing of our return to regular worship, and I am excited about the busy season and the exciting mission projects ahead for our congregation.  Before we know it, the holidays will be upon us—and the assurance of a real cooling trend.

In the meantime, James 5:7-8 offers a good exhortation for fall: “Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for autumn and spring rains.  You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”  For the Christian, the Lord’s coming is always near; our God is always breaking into the mundane—in winter, spring, summer or fall.  May God bless you richly this season.

Grace and Peace,

Sandi

Friends,

This Sunday is communion Sunday in our own sanctuary!  While it will be good to be together again worshipping regularly in our own space, I will have fond memories of the summer and our informal worship and fellowship in Hayden Hall as well as the alternate Sundays we spent with the good folks at the Church of the Beatitudes.  

Also, I send out a special thank you to all who have shown up to beautify and organize CCOV during the hot summer months.  You have truly readied it for fall and made it beautiful as well as functional!  I’m excited about all that we are planning including a church bazaar on the morning of December 6, where we can sell unused stuff the church as accumulated.  We welcome donations from your fall clean-out at home too.  More information will be forthcoming.

Council has indeed been busy over the summer months—also planning our new outreach mission project, partnering with Foster Your Future, a local organization dedicated to helping young people transition from foster care into adulthood.  We will raise funds through the same mechanism that worked so successfully for our well project in Kenya—our wine-paring dinners.  Be thinking about folks from the community whom you might invite.  It’s a fine opportunity to meet the good people of CCOV, enjoy delicious food, wine, and music, and the evenings provide a way for the greater community to partner with us.  The first dinner, “An Evening in Barcelona,” is Sunday, November 23 at 5 PM, after we finish decorating the sanctuary for Advent.  We will feature Spanish and some Portuguese wines as well as tapas.  Kudos to Paulan for completing the necessary grant money application (possibly $3000!) the Southwest Conference has offered to get us on the way to our $15,000 goal for this worthy endeavor.  Stay tuned for more information about Foster Your Future.  

I am so glad to be a part of such a wonderful church, which is truly on the move, bringing the Kingdom ever closer!

Blessings,

Co-pastor Sandi