The Parenting Course

Wednesdays, Sept. 18- Nov. 20, 2019, 5:30-7:30 p.m. | Fellowship Hall (dinner) and Community room (discussion)

REGISTER HERE

This fall, Blacknall will be offering Alpha’s Parenting Course during the TableTalk time slot. Single parents, guardians, and grandparents raising their grandchildren are welcome. Participants do not need to be Blacknall members, we encourage Blacknall families to invite a friend to take the course with them!

Over ten sessions, the course will help you to:

  • Build strong foundations

  • Meet your children's needs

  • Set clear boundaries

  • Teach healthy relationships

  • Consider your long term aim

Format:

Families will eat together in the Fellowship Hall from 5:30-6. Childcare opens at 6 p.m., parents should drop off their kids and be in the Community Room by 6:15, when the session begins. The course is video-based, with time for small group discussion after each segment. Parents will be grouped in tables based on their kids’ ages, a table host will facilitate the discussion using the workbook as a guide.

Please note: The Parenting Course is being offered as one of Blacknall’s TableTalk offerings, but will start one week before and end one week after the other TableTalk classes to accommodate the ten sessions. We ask participants to commit to attending at least 8 out of 10 sessions. Registration is limited, please register by Sept. 9.

Meal Cost: $50-$150 for 10 weeks, depending on family size. No charge for childcare or class materials.

Please contact Ali Shoenfelt with any questions.

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Interested?

Learn more about the course.

Watch the promo video.

Women’s Morning Colossians Study

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Register here

Thursdays starting Sept. 12, 9:30-11:20 a.m.
Join in a semester-long study of the book of Colossians using the study He is Enough: Living in the Fullness of Jesus. Components of the day are singing, teaching, fellowship and small group time. Childcare is provided for children through age 4. New this year — on two of the Thursdays this semester, guided solitude time is offered. Fee for the semester is $20. Contact: Tana O’Keeffe.

Pastor's Letter

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By Goodie Bell

I bet you have heard someone say, "I'm not good at saying 'goodbye.'" Perhaps you have even said this yourself. In the last week, I have said a lot of goodbyes: "goodbye" to Young Adults moving for work; "goodbye" to a retired person moving back home; "goodbye" to a child moving with her family. It's not just me. As a congregation, we often have to say, "goodbye."

 We live in an age of mobility; people move to new cities easily and often, and the Triangle is a particularly transient area.  Many people worship at Blacknall while they study for a degree, complete the next career step, or get a treatment. Then they move on. 

I was warned about this when I joined the staff. I could see that folks who had been around longer had a different perspective on all the comings and goings. After six years, I understand why. It stinks to say goodbye to people who have become a familiar, even beloved, presence in life and worship. It stinks to do it again and again. The problem is not just that I'm not good at saying goodbye; I don't like to do it.

Last year the Young Adult Leadership Team reflected on Ephesians chapter 4. At one meeting we asked the question, "What does it mean for us, as Young Adults at Blacknall, to 'grow up in Christ?'" (Eph 4:13). Someone suggested that for our particular group, Christian maturity might mean learning to say goodbye. I think they were on to something--not just for the Young Adults but for our congregation.

As August comes, and we enter this year's "goodbye" season at Blacknall, I have been thinking: How does common faith in Christ inform how we say "goodbye" to one another? What do you think? I come back to three things: Prayer, Mission, and Hope.

Prayer: Christians may keep up via Instagram or email, but we are most connected by the alternative technology of prayer. Prayer not only connects us to God, prayer connects us to one another. We maintain relationship by praying for one another.

Mission: After we say "goodbye," we may find ourselves living and worshipping in very different communities than our old friends. But our connection with brothers and sisters in Christ transcends our present circumstances and personal preferences: we remain part of the same mission to glorify God and bear witness to Jesus Christ.

Hope: We say goodbye to one another in hope that we may, one day, enjoy the presence of God together.

What do you think? How does common faith in Christ inform how we say "goodbye" to one another?

I think  that as we learn to say "goodbye," we will become better at saying "hello." Our ability to welcome new people into our part of the body of the Christ is connected to our ability to send off our friends--even when we don't want to.

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Blacknall elder Steve Hinkle said, "Being at Blacknall is like ministering to a parade." Do you know what he means? There's a lot of coming and going. The "going" does ask something of us. But on the whole, like a parade, it's a lot of fun!

 In it with you, for the sake of Christ,

Goodie 

A Family Wherever You Go

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By Ginny Masterson

My mom’s father was a pastor with a talent for shepherding struggling congregations through times of transition. The ministry took him and his family all over the country, and they never lived in one place for more than a few years. I once asked my mom if that constant uprooting was difficult. “No,” she said, “I never really worried about starting over, because if you’re a Christian you have a family everywhere you go.”

I’m not like my mom. I find starting over to be rather difficult.

I moved to Durham two summers ago because my then-fiancé, now husband, would be starting a Master’s degree at Duke Divinity School that fall. We were to be married in August, but I moved here in June, alone, to start my new job and set up our apartment. I had traded my longtime church home, friends, family, and professional network for an unfamiliar city where I didn’t know a soul. On top of all that, I was planning a wedding remotely. (Public Service Announcement: I don’t recommend taking on all these major life transitions at once!) It was an emotionally raw summer, to say the least.

On my third Sunday in Durham I visited Blacknall, feeling awkward and adrift. Jubilant chords rolled from Dave Stuntz’s fingertips and glorious four-part harmonies rose up from all around the sanctuary. I thought, “Wow...these people are really paying attention. This is a singing congregation!”

During the passing of the peace, the young women sitting nearby struck up a conversation with me -- not to meet some “talk to newcomers” quota or to pressure me to come back, but just because they were genuinely interested. I saw warmth and empathy in their faces as I explained my current life situation. (“Wow...I think I could actually find some friends here if I came back!”)

During the time of congregational prayer, I noticed that Margaret could immediately name the people raising their hands with prayer requests. (“Wow...the staff actually know people here!”)

By the end of the service, as we sang “He Who Watches Over You,” I was moved to tears because it seemed that this place was an oasis in that deeply lonely summer. Each of those small moments throughout the service had added up to something rather rare in my life: a vivid experience of being seen and held by the Holy Spirit.

 Drew and I quickly made Blacknall our church home, and my mom’s words finally rang true for me. That September Allan suffered a heart attack, and we witnessed you, Blacknall, being family to the Pooles and to each other over the ensuing months.

I know now that the spirit of unity and service so pervasive then were not unique to that season (though perhaps called into sharper relief by the circumstances). Over these two years we’ve learned a lot about everyday grace through the ways we’ve seen you serve, receive, agree, disagree, conduct church business, and have fun together. We’ve been invited over for so many meals in people’s homes -- such a rarity in the DC area! We’ve been befriended, encouraged, and prayed for by a wonderfully cross-generational array of friends. Perhaps most transformative for me, you’ve taught us to love our new city through service rather than consumption.

New jobs and changing family dynamics are now calling us back to DC, and leaving is bittersweet. There is bitterness in knowing that we’re contributing to the Triangle’s transient dynamic. It’s sweet, however, to leave here equipped with the singular example of Gospel welcome that you, Blacknall family, have given us. We’re resolved to love DC well by emulating all the big and small ways you let people know that they are seen, welcomed, and served.

It Matters How You Tell the Story

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By Matt & Alden Bridges

On Tuesday of Boys Discovery Week all 12 boys contributed to the building of a bulletin board for a community of Seniors under construction by Habitat for Humanity of Orange Co. But before we get to the construction part, the verse for the week was from Acts 1: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” What does it mean to be a witness for the resurrected Jesus? Being a witness means telling that story; one of the things we talked about was that it matters how you tell the story; how do you make the story of Jesus real in this world of Judeas, Samarias, and the other ends of the earth? On Tuesday we talked and put into action this story by doing real things in service to other people. Our bulletin board turned out very real, and very good; the boys worked hard on assembly, nailing, and digging to get the whole thing constructed and installed in the one day. We installed it, at the community’s request, right next to the mailboxes so that announcements and other notices could benefit all 26 residents of Crescent Magnolia.

 Since I work for Habitat and my son was in the BDW troop, this project was a sort of a bring-your-work-to-your-son-at-church kind of experience. Alden helped work a bit behind the scenes in the planning and preparation. So I thought I would interview him to see what he thought about the whole project.

What was your favorite part about planning and building the board?
I think all the stations with all the different work. One station for painting and another for building the roof, then once we were all done; we went to the site where they were building the houses and the whole thing looked really really good.

How did it feel working so hard (especially digging those deep post holes) for someone else?
It felt like I was doing something good and that I was trying to help a community that needed it.

Do you think we were good witnesses to the people who will live in that community?
Yes. Being a witness means spreading the word of God even in places you don’t know. From the verse, it felt like I was working in “Samaria,” working somewhere that is not my home. 

What was your favorite part of the whole BDW?
Being able to help others and getting to know new friends. Also flying in an airplane (the boys got to fly with the Blacknall supported Missionary Air Group in Burlington). 

I think the picture of the group after installing the board speaks volumes to what this group accomplished and what good is possible when you as 12 boys to do some good in the name of our resurrected Lord.