All Saints Presbyterian Church

Spring Picnic Photo Album

The rain never materialized. Thanks to the Bueschers (specifically Eric and Eleanor) for taking some pictures. See the GALLERY.

Fall Picnic - November 14 - Cancelled

*The All Saints picnic scheduled for this Sunday has been cancelled due to expected weather conditions.

The All Saints picnic returns next Sunday, November 14. The P. Terry's burger truck will be back to serve fresh burgers and fries. Please make plans to join us. You'll need to register, make your menu selection, and pay ($5/individual or $15/family), all of which you can do online:

REGISTER HERE

Please don't let cost be the reason you miss the picnic. If your personal budget doesn't allow for you to spend this right now, just register and select "Free lunch, please." You'll also find an option to cover a burger (or two) for someone else ... just find the "Sponsor a burger" box.

Spring picnic photo album

The Spring picnic, in pictures: Picnic, May 2010.

Aprons and Asparagus

When my grandmother died she left me a large collection or aprons, some cookbooks and table linens.  She clearly knew something about me that I had yet to discover, because, at the time, I couldn’t make a grilled cheese without setting off the smoke alarm in my apartment.  In the years since her death, I have grown to love cooking as a pretty great hobby. Along the way, I’ve become a decent cook (I am still no Julia Child).

I would feel like I was lying if I didn’t mention the fact that the initial appeal of cooking for me was born out of my selfish desires to impress others with my knowledge and skill.  But somehow, when I fell down the culinary rabbit-hole, it all became a lot less selfish.  New relationships were formed and old ones were strengthened all because I started to love to cook.  Isn’t it great how God sometimes uses our own ambitions for his glory?

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

Having folks over for dinner usually involves a meal plan of sorts.  But I learned the essence of  hospitality from an old woman who on the spur of the moment invited 4 young GI's to her home for lunch one Sunday after church.  She had just moved and enlisted the young men to start unpacking  boxes until they found her black cast iron skillet, while she busied herself cutting up a chicken and battering the pieces.  They sat down to a marvelous meal of fried chicken with the fixings and those boys decided that was the church for them! 

Her spontaneous act of charity embodies for me the heart of true hospitality...it is all about them; not you.  Not the state of your house, not the menu, not your culinary skills.  This Sunday we will have many small children coming to our table, and I always try to have some foods that specially please them, like pigs 'n blankets. Turns out some adults really like such fare as well!  In any event my meals are all on the simple side. Too many ingredients with too many steps and I glaze over.  Here is an easy crowd pleasing recipe:

All Saints Meal Ministry

Joel and I had our first child, beautiful Ruth Elizabeth, last November, and soon after we brought her home, I thought, “Hmmm…It’s going to be a while before I can do the things I used to, and it may never be as easy to do them!” Homemade dinners from wife/mother would come again one day, but it was going to take me some time to have the time, energy, or inclination to cook. Thankfully, All Saints has a wonderful ministry of providing meals to families with new babies, as well as to families undergoing the trial of serious illness, surgery, or death. Over the next few weeks, we were abundantly fed, both by delicious dinners our brothers and sisters in Christ brought, and also by fellowship and encouragement we felt we were otherwise missing, cooped up at home with a newborn at the beginning of winter. Our little family was richly blessed by the hospitality and love extended to us during such a momentous time.

2 books & a letter

We will have two book reviews from members of the All Saints community in the coming weeks.  In case you want to read up beforehand, here are the books.

Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writers Life by Kathleen Norris.  Books & Culture has a good review:

"Ever since Norris first encountered the word acedia in early monastic writings twenty years ago, she has been mulling it over, wiping the dust off this forgotten concept. In the book that grew out of that preoccupation, she examines her life—and her marriage in particular—in order to illustrate acedia's characteristics, dangers, and cures, contemplating the many facets of this vice with the help of monks, psychologists, philosophers, poets, novelists, and pharmacologists…

The Greek word acedia simply means 'a lack of care.' But as Norris excavates the concept we find that it is deeper and richer. She rightly traces the Christian discussion to the 4th-century ascetic Evagrius Ponticus and his list of eight 'thoughts' that characterize the human condition. One of the eight—acedia—was the 'noonday demon' (Ps. 91:6) that attacked the monk who kept checking the angle of the sun to see if it was time for the afternoon meal as he languished in the tedium of what seemed like a 50-hour day."

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

“Everybody is reading it.”  Hyperbole or not, this claim about a book gives us cause to consider:  should we read it?  If a book has woven itself into the fabric of our culture, become a topic of discussion, resulted in testimonies of changed lives, should we know what it says?  In the women’s book group (which meets the 2nd Wednesday of each month), we try to read books, both fiction and non-fiction, that are shaping our culture.  We also read classics, theology, biography….a wide range of literature.  We talk about what we liked, what we didn’t, how the book does or does not match our worldview.  Last month’s book was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver.  Making the cheese, learning to can tomatoes and sauces, experimenting with small gardens….many from within our community have been intrigued and challenged by the book’s premise of seasonal, local foods, even while disagreeing with some of the author’s philosophy and theology.  Below, Amy Fast gives an overview of the book and some questions raised; Rachel Breeding follows with the results of her local foods experiment.   This month’s book is The Shack, which has been both praised (Eugene Peterson) and criticized (the PCA’s ByFaith magazine).  We’ll keep you posted….or join us to get in on the conversation.

Review: by Amy Fast
Author Barbara Kingsolver, her husband and two daughters move to a one hundred year-old farm house in the southern Appalachians to devote a year to growing their own food and eating only what is produced locally.  She documents the joys and struggles of farming for sustenance, feasting on what is in season and otherwise doing without.

Saving the best for last

"Human beings drink because we want to be known, and because we are afraid of being known. We drink because we want to know, and because we are afraid to know."

We’ve shared thoughts on both wine and Andy Crouch before.  Now we combine the two by offering an article on alcohol written by Andy Crouch, The Pleasures and Perils of Fermentation.

Originally delivered as a speech during a Christian college Alcohol Awareness Week, Crouch considers Genesis 9 (Noah gets drunk), John 2 (Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding party), and University of Michigan football.  Crouch uses these stories to show how our supposedly individual choices regarding drinks actually have far-reaching communal effects. When should one drink?  When should one not drink?  How much is appropriate?  How often?  What is healthy? What is good?  Crouch offers this:

"The crucial question for all our moral choices can be put this way:  Which story are we joining?  Which story are we joining with our choices?  Are we joining the story of shame, or the story of grace?  Are we joining the story of anonymity and loneliness, or the story of restoration and community?"

Feed My People

If you’ve been in Austin long, you’ve probably interacted in some way with our city’s sizable homeless population. The Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department estimates there are about 3,625 homeless individuals here on any given day. We have in our own backyard a tremendous opportunity to heed God’s call to bring hope to the hopeless and to love the unloved. In seeking to love this group of people, it’s hard to think of a better starting point than providing them with a hot meal.

Tuesday morning, a group from All Saints, organized by Joe Christian, took part in the Foundation for the Homeless “Feed My People” program at the First United Methodist Church Family Life Center downtown. Feed My People brings in hundreds of homeless individuals every Tuesday and Thursday morning and, in their words, “let[s] [their] guests experience abundance – in food and love.”

Food for Thought

There are certain themes that we continually revisit, like “food.” As has been noted before:

• the Bible begins with food:“…You shall have them for food.” Genesis 1:29
• the fall centers around food,“…for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:17, “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Gen. 3:17,
• and true worship is never far from the table:“…Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.  And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering….” Gen. 4:4

Therefore, we are not surprised to see food front-and-center in the general cultural scene.  Life and food are closely linked.  Culture and food are intimately associated.  In fact, as goes food, so goes culture.

Wine & the PMF rule of healthful drinking

Friends,
The Bible mentions wine a lot. Consider:

• Prov. 20:1; Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
• John 2:9-10; When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”
• Rom. 14:21; It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
• Eph. 5:18; And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit

• 1 Tim. 3:8; Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tongued, not addicted to much wine...
• 1 Tim. 5:23; No longer drink only water but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.

Wine is present in our worship service each week.  Wine is more and more prevalent in our culture.  And yet, many who imbibe grew up without any real positive teaching or examples of how to receive and enjoy drink (and food) with thanksgiving and wisdom.  And it can be difficult to find an appropriate “balance.”  When should or should not one drink?  How much is appropriate?  How often?  What is healthy? 

Recently I ran across an article in Bon Appetit that struck me as particularly interesting and helpful in terms of questions like these. Read the article here & let me know what you think.

Bill