Two New Photo Galleries are up on the ASC Website!

Two new photo galleries are up on the website. Click here to check them out! 

Our Stories: Sarah tells her story

One of the visions for our blog is to build community and to share our stories. Here is the story of a relatively new member of ASC:

Father Steve planted a rather convicting thought in my head the other week when he talked about unknown desires and longings God has yet to reveal to us. I am so programmed to know how I see God working that the thought that there are other wants and calls He might have for me, throws me for a loop.  You see, I very much experience God in people, places, and service.  To me, those are where I see Him working in my life: I see God and His ingenuity through people, I remember His love through worship and the glory and beauty of place, and I feel that I become part of the Gospel narrative by service. People minister to me, places minister to me, the worship service ministers to me, and be able to serve does wonders for my soul. But to think there may be other areas completely intrigues me! I like how I experience God, why would I want more? Oh wait, let me tell you my story.

Hi, my name is Sarah.  I once was a teacher that loved my job. Then I got married, moved, and became a teacher that hated her job. I always enjoyed working with my students, but teaching is often a lot more than teaching . So when I taught in a place where I lacked a support system, lacked a strong community, lacked a lot of things that make me thrive, I saw myself, my abilities, my strength, my good side unravel. In other words, I watched my life fall apart and there was nothing I could to do to stop it, or so I felt.  In certain ways my life did fall apart, I became physically unwell, then pregnant and unable to do my job, so I resigned, struggled to feel apart of the city I lived in, and failed to overcome the negativity that surrounded me on all sides. Being a product of culture that prides itself on productivity, I felt at a loss- my job was my identity in a lot of ways, so to not work! Well, you can imagine feelings of failure and meaninglessness, I had many of those. Add in a church plant that didn’t have very many places to plug in, or at least feeling like doors closed on places that I wanted to plug in, a city where people aren’t the friendliest or with whom I couldn’t connect meaningfully, and then being privy to and seeing really hard things around me with an overwhelming sense of injustice and oppression everywhere, and you get a Sarah without people, place, and service with which to experience God and to remain at peace and in contentment with the world around her. It was rough.  Don’t know how my husband put up with me and my rather painful angst and misery. I think the hardest part of all was losing a lot of my joy: joy of the Lord, joy of teaching, even the joy of understanding what it means to be a child of God.

Thankfully, by God’s mercy and love, my family and I did not stay too long in this place that must not be named, and God opened doors for us to move to Durham, North Carolina.  He even nudged us to All Saints Church where He is opening more doors and showing us new ways to experience Him.  Most of the ways I experience Him are still through people, through worship, through a sense of place, and through service, and All Saints has those in spades. But I also see the need for and sense that there are more ways to experience the Lord. All Saints is where I have begun to see bits and pieces of what that might look like. The fellowship, worship, and service at All Saints is so rich and so filled with the Spirit that I feel I can heal, find joy again, and discern in a safe place what He might have for me. And right now, what God has for me is to be a mom.  And by being a mom, I have the ability to explore Durham and enjoy all that it has to offer (milkshakes at Ox & Rabbit anyone??), to be apart of cool mom groups, and also have time to rest and grow more in the love and knowledge of Christ. I know that one day He may take me back into the thick of things, or more painful refinement processes, but I am content in the here and now to know that God is Good.  He is Faithful. He will lead and guide me where He wants me- be it calm waters or shadows of the valley of death.

Pray for the ASC youth this weekend – Fall Youth Retreat!

Brad Acton is taking about a dozen youth to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord,NC this weekend for the third annual Anglican Mission Fall Youth Retreat. Over a hundred Anglican youth from all over the region will gather to worship, play and grow together for the weekend. please pray for protection and deep encounters with God.

Last year the youth had a blast!

Flashback to last year: Associate Rector Thomas Kortus wrestled a metal folding chair on Skit Night at Fall Youth Retreat:

Thomas Kortus' entrance to the ring

It was a struggle

He got the chair pinned!Thomas wins! It was touch and go though and he did come out hurt.

In an exclusive interview after the match Thomas said, “That was embarrassing. I am more tired than I think I should be. The last time I did that I was in high school on a youth retreat. I promise that I will never- ever do that again. I think.”

An invitation to Get Connected with All Saints Women’s Ministry

All Saints Church Women’s Retreat – Feb 3-5

Published author and popular retreat speaker (and the wife of our Rector), Sally Breedlove, will be leading the retreat at St. Francis Springs Prayer Center located in Stoneville, NC. The theme of the weekend will be: “Find your Story, Find your Way.”  Please contact MaryLois Partridge (mlpartridge@nc.rr.com) for more information and Lynn Hand (fourhands@mindspring.com) to register.

Women’s Evening Bible Study

Women’s Evening Bible Study meets every other Monday at the church from 7-8:30 p.m. Final meeting of the season is December 12. Contact Sarah Council at secouncil@gmail.com for more information.

Women’s Morning Bible Study

Women’s Morning Bible Study meets every Tuesday morning from 9:30-11 a.m. Childcare is provided. Final meeting of the season is December 13. Contact jeline.hinkson@yahoo.com for more information.

Meet one of All Saints Church’s Interns!

All Saints Church is blessed to have two interns this academic school year. Eric Meckley and Zac Koons will be doing ministry and learning from our staff, clergy and you between now and the end of May. We are grateful for these men and their eagerness to serve the church and learn and grow as disciples of Jesus. Please pray for them and introduce yourselves to them! We are blessed as a church to have so many Duke Divinity students who attend and serve in our church. The current count is over twenty men and women who call All Saints home and are studying at Duke Divinity.

Today I want to let  Zac introduce himself to you and in the next few days Eric will be doing the same.

So meet Zac Koons:

I’m from Arkansas, which I generally think is a pretty good place to be from, although I haven’t always felt that way. I like it because I’ve found that being from Arkansas doesn’t come with a lot of cultural assumptions. And, it turns out, not a whole lot of other people are from there. I am the oldest child in a big, complicated, ever-expanding family, which is made up of exclusively awesome people.

I mostly think about 4 things: the church, my wife, Arsenal Football Club, and Ryan Adams. I will tell you a little about each. The Church: I was born into the Plymouth Brethren tradition, migrated to the non-denominational Bible-church world, and have now, since college, found a happy home in Anglicanism. I have wanted to be a pastor since I was 18 (now 24), and that call has brought me through 4 years of theological study in undergrad, to where I am now, Duke Divinity School, where I am in my third (and last!) year. Over those 6 years, I have become increasingly convinced that the church is the reason God has put me on this earth, and I am now joyfully discerning this call to priestly ordination in the Anglican Mission.

As of May 14^th 2011, I am a very happily married man. Anna and I met during our senior year at Wheaton College, and have pretty much been best friends ever since. We really enjoy cooking together, and although Anna is definitely the Master Chef of the two of us, I like to think that I’m coachable. We love reading, and have a strict rule about only being addicted to one TV series at a time (Currently, Mad Men). Anna works as a research assistant at the Duke Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research, and she enjoys it very much.

Arsenal Football Club is my favorite soccer team. They are based in north London and have an international reputation not simply for winning, but for playing beautifully. They remind me that life is not worth winning at unless you can smile and laugh as you live it. And Ryan Adams is my favorite singer/songwriter, and he is at his best with an acoustic guitar and harmonica, singing about North Carolina. He is a poet of the first class. Ryan reminds me that all of life is poetic, if only you slow down enough to notice it.

Local Missions Partner Profile: YOUNG LIFE

Pictured left to right: Darin (Hillsborough), Annie (Durham/CH), Melaney

(volunteer administrator), Rob “Crock” Crocker (area Director)

Hi, I’m Rob “Crock” Crocker. I’m in my 28th year on Young Life staff, and my 3rd year in Durham/Chapel Hill. Young Life is currently in 10 local high schools and 3 middle schools. Young Life is a Christian outreach to both high school and middle school students, best defined as “organized chaos”, a fun way to communicate the Gospel to adolescents.

Young Life in Durham, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Pittsboro has 2 full-time and 3 part-time staff and more than 60 volunteer leaders who spend time with students and serve the school communities in our area. We are also supported by a committee of nearly 30 adults who are committed to giving students the opportunity to hear the Good News. The adults on our committee raise funds, pray, provide meals and places to meet for our volunteer leaders and the students they spend time with.

This fall, please pray as staff and leaders meet and spend time with high school and middle school students at football games, in cafeterias, at Starbucks and many other places wherever students go. Pray for weekly Young Life club meetings as leaders make students laugh and share the Good News of the Gospel. Pray for weekly “Campaigners” meetings where leaders will study the Bible with students who want to know more about Jesus and the full life He offers.

Please pray for our monthly  Wyldlife (ministry to middle school students) outreach meetings and for our outreach weekend with high schoolers to Rockbridge, a YL Camp in Virginia.

Pray for our Young Life staff and committee members as they lead volunteers, raise money to support the ministry going on, and are ambassadors for Christ to the community. Please also pray for our finances as we work to raise our annual budget.

We are grateful for your prayers and partnership!

Anchored in hope,

Crock

Contact info: www.younglife.org, younglife.dch@gmail.com, (919) 969-9993

Small Groups at All Saints – Sign-up Today!

The mission of All Saints Church is to become and make disciples of Jesus- people who worship God in spirit and truth, who grow together in mutual love and ministry, and who bring the Gospel to our community in word and deed.

Small groups at All Saints, called 242 Groups, are essential in realizing this mission. 242 Groups are modeled on the description in Acts 2:42-47 of the rich community the early Christians shared. 242 Groups are small and interactive, promoting transparency and offering accountability. In 242 Groups we read and study the bible, and we learn together what God has done, is doing and will continue to do through Jesus Christ and the work of his Spirit. We pray together sharing the concerns and praises that arise as we journey with Christ in our every day lives. We serve each other and the wider community discovering and sharing the grace and love given to us by God in Jesus. In summary, 242 Groups are the vehicle for intentional discipleship at All Saints Church.

Groups meet on various days of the week at various times and meet from two to four times a month. Please take some time to give us your basic information as well as your expectations for a group. Please be as specific as you can regarding what you are looking for from a group. You will be assigned to a group that best fits your schedule and needs and the first few gatherings will consist of a discernment period. You are not bound to this group, but are encouraged to attend and discern if the group is a good fit for you (and your family). Most groups commit to meeting for 9-12 months and then reevaluate after this amount of time.

All Saints Church is in the midst of forming multiple new 242 Groups. Now is the time to sign up and get involved! To learn more visit the 242 Group page on our website.

Peace-

 

thomas

Labor Day Weekend Church Picnic Photos

We had a great time at New Hope Camp this past Sunday. The weather was great, the pool was cool, we were well fed and we were surrounded by great people. I always look forward to our church picnics and this past weekend was no exception. Here are some photos taken by ASC’s own Sonya Harris.(Thank you Sonya!) For the past few years we have had church picnic’s on Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend to usher in the summer and to reunite after summer schedules and travel. Our picnics are perfect times to relax together and sit around a talk in a relaxed atmosphere. The kids love swimming and playing together and it is great to meet new friends and see old ones. Hope you enjoyed our time together and hope you will come out to our next picnic!

Peace,

Thomas