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Grace and peace to you!

Thanks for coming in through our cyber-door! We've designed these pages to help you catch a glimpse of this wonderful parish church, and to provide you with links to resources which will challenge, inspire, and inform you.

We're an eclectic bunch at Christ Church, coming from all over the world, living in households of many types, and with at least as many opinions as we have parishioners! But we share a common commitment to nurturing the seeds of faith in one another and serving the Christ in our neighbors.

If you live nearby and are looking for a church to call home, I'd love to talk with you. If you live farther away, I hope you'll come visit when you're in our area. Come to one of our services, or stop by for a chat. And if this web site is the only contact you have with us, I pray your time spent here will refresh your spirit.

God's peace be with you,

William Clay Parnell
Rector

GOD’S TIME  (from the Nov 30th 2008 Epistle)

Around Christ Church this Advent it is a season of watching and waiting
and expectation. Renovations are underway in our historic church, and
each day brings a new step along that process. It is work that cannot be
rushed. Peeling paint and decayed plaster must be painstakingly removed,
and new coats of plaster must be applied, allowed to cure and dry, and be
sanded. Day by day things change, and I find myself watching and waiting
and envisioning what it will look like when it’s all done.

In the midst of it all there is a great deal of other watching and waiting and
hoping that goes on here. We’ve hosted two community Thanksgiving dinners
in the Parish Hall over the last week, each feeding over 250 people.
Signs point to the economy continuing to sour, and I wonder how many
will lose their jobs, have their homes foreclosed upon, or join the lines
waiting to get into Peter’s Place each night. Day by day the staff of Christ
Church CDC counsels, marshals resources, and helps lives get turned
around… with a lot of watching and waiting.

The culture around us demands the instantaneous; it does not suffer
watching and waiting well at all. First in line for the bargain. Get it now.
Why wait when you can charge it now and pay later? This past Friday,
“Black Friday” in the retail industry, a young man was trampled to death as
out-of-control crowds broke open the doors to a Walmart on Long Island
at 5 am in a rush to get new flat-screen TVs. Watching? Waiting? I guess
not.

Perhaps we are learning in spite of ourselves, however. The plaster will dry
in it’s own sweet time. Our Next Step program’s motto is that if we don’t
succeed at change the first time, we step back and ponder a new approach.
Stores are reviving the concept of “lay-away” as the credit crunch puts a
damper on impulse buying. Perhaps this year Advent—our little season of
hope—will take on new meaning as we all learn new ways to watch and
wait and expect that a new day will dawn.

God’s schedule doesn’t always coincide with our own. Mary must have
learned that long ago when she had to travel to Bethlehem by order of the
occupying government… and in the final days of her pregnancy. The birth
will admit no delay, but neither will it be rushed. The circumstances may
challenge, but God comes into our midst anyway. So we watch and wait for
the Day of Promise, and expect God to bring new life.

Meanwhile, we keep busy in a patient sort of way. The next coat of plaster
goes on. The “next step” is planned. The gift is stored away for a day to
come. The manger is filled with straw and we wait… and watch… and
hope.