the Hill plant

     Christ Pres has a vision for a small large church.  That confusing sentence is trying to express the vision of having one large church with all of its shared resources and all of the individuality and efficiency of a small church.  That would be accomplished by having one city session ruling several different congregations.  It is very presbyterian, though not in the way presbyterianism is usually practiced.  Each congregation would have its own diaconate and session, but would also have members that sit on the city session.  Each congregation would be responsible for handling its own style of worship, its own programming, its own staffing, etc., but would also be responsible to the city session, such that all resources among the city would be shared.  All of the congregations would have the same core values and hold to the same confession, but individual congregations would need to make decisions about what that looks like for them.  By sharing resources there is a lot that together we can accomplish.  We can care for the widows and orphans in New Haven in a way that a congregation by itself cannot do.  We can think strategically about the gospel going forth, not simply for one neighborhood but for them all.

     This is the vision that has driven CPC to plant a second congregation - CPC Hill.   Rev. Wills has begun a Bible study and various other community activities to prepare for the planting of this congregation.  It is growing rapidly and many thanks go out to those who are holding it up in prayer.  He has been able to spend time hanging out in the neighborhood really getting to know the people and the pace of the place.  The Hill is one of the lowest income neighborhoods in New Haven.  It is also one of the oldest; being near the water it used to be home to sailors and captains and immigrants fresh off the boat.  Now it has residents a few generations back from people who did construction on Yale buildings during the Great Depression.  It is largely African-American with a quickly growing Hispanic population.  

To reach this neighborhood CPC began holding a VBS soccer camp two years ago with the help of Independent Presbyterian Church of Memphis, TN.  It was such a blessing to have members of my home church come here and share their talents.  We repeated the camp this year on our own and hope to expand into several camps in 2009.  The kids from the camp have been so excited about the church plant and many of their families are part of the core group.  

    We've been searching for property lately, a place for offices, for a cooperative store, and the Bible study.  We will probably need a separate worship space soon.  The cooperative store will sell secondhand items inexpensively.  The merchandise will largely come from the CPC Whitney congregation, as we've begun calling ourselves, and other generous folks in New Haven.  The store will be manned by residents of the Hill community to create jobs and keep dollars within the neighborhood.  It is an exciting mission and we look forward to seeing God's hand at work in it.  We appreciate your prayers for Rev. Wills, this congregation, and this neighborhood.  

Winter Is Here! sort of

So it snowed twice already but we've also been able to play golf this week. It is no surprise I, and everyone else I'm friends with, have gotten sick in the last 10 days.

Still it is beautiful when it snows and Kristy, one of my roommates, has a new camera! She's been learning about lens and aperture, etc. and here are a few photos of our apartment. Don't miss the Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

Hot Off the Press

Here are some photos of Hot Off the Press, one is from our November coffeehouse which featured Nick Lauer, one of the glorious beans themselves, one of the Poppery, the popcorn popper turned coffee bean roaster, and a couple from the reception after the Christmas service. You get to see all the equipment, from the stately Poppery, to the sleek grinder (I'm emptying it), to the elegant press pots. You even get the lined brown paper bags that keep the coffee fresh for the coming week.

The Chancel Art

When CPC's sanctuary was first laid out, the pews were going to be facing 90 degrees from the way they are today. The pulpit and altar were going to be under the window that our logo is fashioned after. But when they realized how many more people they could fit in this way and how much more convenient it is to come in the back of the room than the side, they changed their minds. So for 7 years the altar sat beneath a very large blank wall. The wall is taller than the original plan was for it since part way through building (right after 9/11) the fire marshall recoded the building to require stronger fire safety measures and an elevator. They had to redo the angle of the roof and ceiling to accommodate the elevator and in the process left an enormous wall.

After much discussion and a lot of saving, CPC commissioned Mako Fujimura to create a piece for our empty space. Mako is an incredibly talented artist and an elder in the PCA. He was able to take the theological vision we have and show it in paint. Paint probably isn't the best word since the piece is made from Japanese gold and semi-precious stones like azurite. It is done in a Japanese style called "nihonga". This photo shows Mako and Arnie, CPC's building manager, hanging the top third of it. It took all afternoon for them to get it hung and it felt like Christmas to the staff. We kept peaking in from the balcony every hour or so.

We had a sanctuary dedication service a few weeks later. I'll tell you more about that soon! 

A Recent Article About the State of Religiousity in CT

Poll Finds Many In State Unsure About God
By Elizabeth Hamilton
Hartford Courant Staff Writer
June 24, 2008


In the thorny business of measuring belief in God, Connecticut comes up a bit on the lukewarm side.

A poll released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that Connecticut (along with Rhode Island), though still home to many believers, ranks near the bottom of most indicators of religious fervor, compared with the rest of the United States.

When asked how many of us are "absolutely certain" we believe in God or a universal spirit, only 57 percent responded yes. Only the folks in New Hampshire and Vermont scored lower, at 54 percent.

Even the residents of Alaska, who pray less than we do and go to church less frequently, according to Pew, are more sure of God than we are, it seems. The national average for absolute belief was quite a bit higher, at 71 percent, although an additional 22 percent of those polled in Connecticut said they were "fairly certain" when it comes to God.

"It's Connecticut, man. I think low intensity is what one expects," said Mark Silk, founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College.

"It reminds me of the great line from Peter De Vries' book, 'Slouching Towards Kalamazoo,' which, if I have it right, went like this: 'About the only thing that's ever been converted in Connecticut is a barn.'"

So is there any consequence for all this ambivalence? Consider the next poll result:

In Mississippi, where 91 percent of those polled said they are certain there is a God, 46 percent also said they have their prayers answered at least once a month.

In Connecticut and Rhode Island, on the other hand, only 23 percent of us believe in monthly responses to prayer. (If it makes anyone feel any better, only 21 percent of the believers in Alaska report having their prayers answered every month).

Coincidence?

There's no connection, says the Rev. Ned Edwards, senior pastor of First Church of Christ in Farmington, who is more inclined to see the prayer request result as an indication of Yankee stoicism than as some consequence of not being devout enough.

"I would say our culture has a lot to do with it," Edwards said.

In other words, New Englanders might be more likely to believe in the power of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps than the power of prayer.

The Rev. Mark Pendleton, dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, agreed and said there are some ingrained cultural assumptions that influence poll results.

"You can't believe in miracles if you don't expect them to happen," Pendleton said. "The same is true for prayer."

The state-by-state comparison is included in a larger report, titled U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which Pew released Monday. The findings from the wider survey show that a majority of Americans say religion is very important to them, and that there is widespread tolerance for other faiths.

The study was based on telephone interviews with more than 35,000 people from May 8 to Aug. 13, 2007.

The polls showing that Connecticut and other Northeastern states rank lower on measurements for belief, frequency of church attendance and prayer were not a huge surprise to people like Silk and Barry Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism and Culture at Trinity College.

Kosmin believes the results are, in part, a reflection of higher educational levels in the Northeast.

"You know the old saying, 'The more you know, the more you realize you don't know,'" Kosmin said.

Silk said the results reflect, in part at least, the decline in traditional urban Catholicism, "particularly the kind where people would have their ... medallions of St. Jude and are praying to their saints, looking for a response."

Pendleton, who has previously worked as an Episcopal priest in Florida and Maryland, said there is a noticeable difference between Southern and Northern states where religion is concerned.

"It was a church-friendlier atmosphere there," Pendleton said. "My wife and I talk about that, how it was easier to do church down there. But I have to admit that my progressive side feels a bit more at home here amid secular New England than in the religious South."

But the poll results mean little to Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach, who heads the orthodox Chabad Lubavitch of Northwest Connecticut.

For one thing, Eisenbach said, Jewish people are born into their religion — "they have a Jewish soul" — and don't have to practice their faith to identify with it, he said.

So measuring religiosity by worship attendance rather than, say, the good deeds one does for others, Eisenbach said, is a bit misleading.

"Godliness is found in every part of society," he said. "I find people in my little corner of the world are very spiritual."

Contact Elizabeth Hamilton at ehamilton@courant.com.

For a summary of the Pew Forum's findings and a link to the full report, visit www.courant.com/religion.