Central News
September 2026 / Vol. 35, No. 1
Gathering Sunday is September 13
Join Us for Sunday Worship at 10:30 am!
Download the PDF version of the September Newsletter
A Good Word from Patrick
Hey folks! A few days ago, I went to a coffee shop around the corner from the church to get some writing done. I bought a cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee and found a small table beside the windows facing Wayland Avenue. The cinnamon bun disappeared before I’d finished unpacking my computer and notebook.
Then I looked up and watched a Jeep Cherokee quietly rear-end a white delivery van.
The van driver rolled down his window and waved to the Jeep driver to follow him off the main road into a couple of open parking spaces. But rather than follow him, the driver of the Jeep turned on his hazards, got out of the car, and warned the delivery driver not to leave the scene. So they sat in the middle of Wayland Avenue, between a busy traffic light and a stop sign.
While they waited for a police officer to arrive, I watched drivers get frustrated by the traffic, get out of their cars, direct others through the intersection, and then jump back in their cars to catch up. Passersby stopped to check on both drivers and offered to clear space for them to pull off to the side of the road. The whole coffee shop had turned its attention toward this minor inconvenience – and the dance of cars, onlookers, and passersby each trying to do what they could to help.
What surprised me most was how few people seemed angry about the inconvenience. Drivers shuffling through the sudden lane closure seemed more amused than frustrated. Those who felt trapped by it got out to help rather than berate. And, a surprising number of people walking by stopped to check that everything was okay.
About 15 minutes later, a Providence Police officer pulled up, blocked the intersection, checked in with the drivers, and then asked them to move off the road into the same two open parking spaces the delivery driver had tried to use at the beginning.
When I saw the accident happen, I was sure I would spend the next hour listening to honking horns, angry shouts, and aggressive driving. Instead, I watched a whole series of strangers meet an inconvenience with grace and compassion.
It is easy, especially online, to believe that everyone is angry, polarized, overwhelmed, and at their wits’ end. I certainly feel that way sometimes. But I am grateful for simple reminders like this … that kindness is a better way. Not only is it a better way, but it is a way people are choosing every day.
May we all be the kind of people who stop to check in before we complain about the traffic.
I look forward to seeing you on Sunday! – Patrick
Seeking a Church Home?
If you are looking for a church – or know someone who is – we would love to talk with you about it at our Inquirers’ Meeting. It’s very informal. You’ll meet with our senior minister Patrick Faulhaber and others like you who think Central may be the right church home. No commitment necessary. To join us, fill out a pew card during Sunday Worship or call the Church Office at 401-331-1960, and Patrick will get in touch.
Inquirers’ Meeting: Sunday, October 25, 11:30 am
New Member Sunday: Sunday, November 1, 10:30 am
CCC Women’s Retreat
Come away with friends from Central for a time of relaxation and renewal at the spectacular Episcopal Conference Center in nearby Pascoag – a half hour from Providence and just minutes from the village of Chepachet. The property encompasses 180 acres of wooded hiking trails bordering Echo Lake and a farmhouse from the 1700s with bedrooms, meeting spaces, dining room, and more. Imagine! No cooking, cleaning, planning, appointments, or deadlines for an entire weekend! Just nourishment for your body, mind, and soul.
The cost is $175 for five meals, lodging, and materials. To reserve your space, contact Claudia. Oct. 23 to 25, at the Episcopal Conference Center (872 Reservoir Road, Pascoag, R.I.) Payment is due Oct. 4.
Adult Sunday School
Adult Sunday School resumes on Sunday, Oct. 4, 9 am in the Fireplace Room.
Be The Church!
Plan now to join Central’s newest group. Outsiders recognized the early church as people who took care of each other. Over lunch, Be the Church will discuss how we can be supportive of one another and serve as a haven for those in our congregation who are going through difficult times! Questions? Ask Claudia. Sunday, Nov. 8, 12 noon to 3 pm, in the Fireplace Room. Lunch will be provided.
Your Neighborhood Food Pantry
Every week during Sunday Worship, Central collects non-perishable food items for Your Neighborhood Food Pantry (www.ynfp.org), a local organization that serves Providence neighbors experiencing food insecurity. Please place your donations in the baskets at the front of the church during the second verse of the first hymn. Thank you!
Amos House Breakfast Volunteers
Please consider becoming an Amos House Breakfast Volunteer! Amos House provides 400 meals every morning. And, on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8 am, Central members meet in the Amos House kitchen to help assemble pre-packaged breakfasts. If you can volunteer every week, that’s great. But if you can only come occasionally, we welcome – and need – every extra set of hands. Questions? Contact Tracy Baran. Wednesdays, 6:30 am, in the Amos House Kitchen (460 Pine Street, Providence)
The Deacon’s Bench
This month, I’m writing from the coast of Maine, a place that has been woven into the fabric of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up in New Hampshire, my parents often packed my siblings and me into the car for impromptu trips to the Maine beaches – sometimes on hot summer afternoons, sometimes after dinner when we’d head up to Nubble Light in York with the promise of a stop at Brown’s Ice Cream. Those simple adventures filled us with excitement, and they became traditions I later passed on to my own children. Over the years, our family made countless week-long trips, often joined by my brother and sisters and their families. Now our children have their own favorite spots and memories along this coastline.
Today, I spent most of the day on the beach watching my young granddaughter play at the ocean’s edge. She built sandcastles, buried “treasures,” and splashed in the waves with complete joy. What struck me most was how fully present she was – no worries, no distractions, just pure delight in the moment before her. As I knelt beside her, helping shape her castles and joining her imaginary world, I found myself slipping into that same sense of presence. For a time, everything else faded away except her laughter, the warm sand, and the steady rhythm of the tide.
As I reflect on that day, I am struck by the thought that we can learn much from embracing a childlike spirit – one that trusts, delights, and lives fully in the present. Children don’t rush ahead or cling to yesterday; they simply receive each moment as a gift. I like to think that this time away is God’s invitation to slow down, to notice His blessings, and to be present with the people we love. Sometimes the most meaningful spiritual lessons come not from grand experiences, but from a child’s simple joy at the water’s edge. – Mary Marron
MissionWorks
The Mission in Action Committee is planning a Mission Luncheon with Melissa Cherney, CEO of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Melissa, who is completing her first year as the leader of the Food Bank, will provide an overview on the state of food insecurity in Rhode Island and the challenges the organization faces in meeting the needs and requests of its numerous food pantries and partner agencies. A light lunch will be served. Rsvp on the sign-up sheet on the membership table in Chapel Hall. Sunday, Oct. 4, immediately after Worship, in Chapel Hall.
Volunteers Needed: In our first year partnering with Hope Circle, Hope High School’s community volunteer initiative, Central volunteers dedicated Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm to staffing Hope Street Fashions, the school’s thrift store. The boutique provides clothes to Hope students – and job skills training for the teens who work there. We need two to three more volunteers to help expand these opportunities when we open the store in November.
Hope Circle is also looking to provide a life-skills / job-training program for its special needs students … in the form of a laundry room. To help get this initiative off the ground, Central is seeking two to three new volunteers willing to commit to two hours once a week. Timing is flexible.
If you can help, please contact Michael Fournier (mfournier0816@gmail.com).
Rebecca L. Spencer Lecture: Stories of Faith
Central will host the fifth Rebecca L. Spencer Lecture – Stories of Faith – on Friday, Oct. 16, at 6 pm, in Chapel Hall. Eugenia Mazurenko, CEO of Global Fellows in Courage (GlobalFIC.org), will moderate an international panel of speakers telling stories of advancing girls’ and women’s access to and opportunities in entrepreneurship, education, healthcare, and civic leadership.
The Rebecca L. Spencer Lecture Series was founded and endowed by Lorne Adrain, a longtime Central member, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of minister emerita Rebecca Spencer’s ministry. The lecture series seeks to connect Rhode Islanders through shared stories of friends, family, and faith.
Past storytellers include Andrew Bayon, founder and community director of Earth Tribes, which cultivates communities that support restoration, rewilding, and a deeper connection between people and nature; Ted Widmer, historian and bestselling author of “Lincoln on the Verge;” Meredith Pearson on supporting Ukrainian refugees through World Central Kitchen, which provides meals in response to humanitarian crises; and Brown University alumna Jessi Hempel, senior editor at large at LinkedIn and host of the podcast “Hello, Monday.”
From Claudia
There is a sacredness to this time of year. The plants in my garden (at least the ones that the deer didn’t nibble to stubs!) are fulfilling the promises of spring and early summer. The bees cover my mint when I pick it. The hummingbirds are at the feeders getting nourishment for what lies ahead. And the bunnies? They are still reproducing at a prolific rate! New, teensy bunnies join their parents and siblings every day. The world is unfolding right in front of us. There is still so much promise all around us as the season begins its gradual transformational changes.
And, there is great sacredness to this transforming world. The gifts of growth are here all around us. The wait for fruition is full of promises. The journey continues as we continue becoming who and what we are meant to be.
What will come next, we wonder? We don’t have to see it all in one moment. The moments are unfolding in the time honored way that they do. We are all part of a much larger cycle that continues to move forward and take shape. And, there is a promise inherent in this: that all continues to unfold in the ways the world does. We are to zoom out the lens of our minds to see that there is a larger picture than what we see when we are zoomed in all the time. Just like all of creation, we don’t have to see the larger picture just for a few moments.
We cannot see what lies ahead, so we have to trust in the unfolding. To do so, we need to trust in the One who created the heavens and the earth … when we can see the unfolding and when we cannot see what lies ahead. Jesus told his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust also in me” (John 14:1).
Later in the book of John, he also said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Even when we can’t see what is unfolding, our call is to tend to one another and to be present in all the ways that God calls us. May it be so.
Love and blessings – Claudia
Choir Room Renovation
Thanks to the generosity of more than 75 Central members and friends, the Music Committee has raised more than $40,000 for the Choir Room renovation, surpassing its goal of $30,000.
- Unrestricted donations, including the Music Committee’s matching fund of $8,500, raised $18,941.
- “The Sound of Music” brought in $10,600 in advertising, $4,450 in ticket sales, and $1,050 in song dedications.
- Dedications for the new Choir Room chairs totaled $5,000.
- Sales of Choir CDs, cards, and decorations at Christmas at Central and the Silver Tea raised $591.
In early summer, members of the Music Committee, Choir, and choirmaster Patrick Aiken packed up a multitude of sheet music and work began. As of mid-August, much of the Choir Room construction was under way: new heating and air-conditioning systems, new and improved lighting, refinished solid-wood flooring (found, amazingly, under the ancient linoleum), and repaired plaster and paint. We expect the work to be completed later this fall!
There is still time to make a general donation or dedicate a chair @$500 each! Contact the Church Office or email choirroom@centralchurch.us.
Thank you, Donors!
Central is grateful to the local businesses that supported “The Sound of Music,” help making our musical programs possible. Please support them in return!
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Darrell West Lecture
The Reverend Dr. Gary Mason – a Methodist minister who played an integral role in the Northern Ireland peace process – will speak at the Darrell West Lecture on Religion and Politics. The event will take place on Saturday, October 3, at 7 pm. A reception for Central members precedes the lecture at 5 pm. Dr. Mason’s speech will address will “The Troubles” – the Northern Ireland conflict that lasted from the late 1960s to 1998 – and the conflict-resolution lessons learned.
Dr. Mason spent 27 years as a Methodist clergy person in Belfast where he became involved in the Northern Ireland peace process. He is also the founder and director of Rethinking Conflict, a Belfast-based nonprofit promoting conflict transformation, peace-building, and reconciliation. He is a consultant to The [President Jimmy] Carter Center in Atlanta on political and religious polarization. Dr. Mason also helped the U.S. government develop a strategic plan for implementing The Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) passed in 2020.
Dr. Mason holds a Ph.D. in psychology and bachelor’s degree in business studies from the University of Ulster. He completed his theological studies at Queens University in Belfast and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Florida Southern College. He is a senior research fellow at Edward Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention at Maynooth (Ireland) University, a visiting professor at Candler School of Theology at Emory University (Atlanta) and University of Central Florida (Orlando), and advisor to Woolf Institute at the University of Cambridge.
Pre-Darrell West Lecture Discussion
The week before the Darrell West Lecture, Central will host a pre-lecture discussion on a variety of readings recommended by our speaker, the Reverend Dr. Gary Mason. These include “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,” by Patrick Radden Keefe, the bestselling account of an IRA kidnapping. Contact Paul Armstrong (armstrong.paul.b@gmail.com) for the complete reading list. Monday, Sep. 28, 7 pm, in the Fireplace Room
Central Choirs
Central’s Summer Choir will have its final performance of the season on Sunday, Sep. 6. (Many thanks to everyone who sang this summer!) On Gathering Sunday, Sep. 13, the Central Congregational Church Choir will sing – and weekly rehearsals will begin Thursday, Sep. 17, at 7:30 pm. The first Children’s Choir rehearsal will be Wednesday, Sep. 9, at 5 pm – and then move to Mondays at 5 pm beginning Sep. 14.
Toward Better Christian Politics
Central’s popular discussion group not only explores the Christian response to political polarization in America, but also how we can turn Christian views into action. Questions? Contact Paul Armstrong or Kristin DeKuiper. Sunday, Sep. 6, 12 noon, in the Fireplace Room
Food For Thought Book Group
This month, Claudia’s book group will discuss “Cat and Bird,” by Kyoto Mori. This “memoir in animals” is a meditation about grief, writing, imagination, solitary life, and the wonders of companionship with creatures both domestic and wild. Thursday, Sep, 10, 7 pm, in the Fireplace Room. Questions? Ask Claudia. Coming up: Oct. 8 – “Vanderbilt, The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty,” by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
In the Gallery
This September, the Gallery at Central presents local artist and contemporary painter Sharlene Hyland: “The Journey Never Ends.”
Sharlene’s love of architecture and geometry is evident in her bold colors and abstract designs, where she skillfully interweaves elements of structure and form. Her works include oils, acrylics, as well as collage mixed media. Most recently, she has been exploring large abstract pieces in black, white, and neutrals. Sharlene is a proud member of the Museum of Modern Art, Newport Art Museum, Jamestown Art Center, South County Art Association, and Painters Over Light. She is deeply committed to Rhode Island’s flourishing local art scene.
Meet the artist at the opening reception – also Providence Gallery Night – on Thursday, Sep. 17, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
Online Membership Directory Help Session
Do you have questions about Central’s new online directory and mobile app? Are you having issues, or are you just interested in learning more about them? Join the Technology Committee for an “Online Membership Directory Help Session.” They will review the basics of the new system, demonstrate how to access the directory on your computer and phone, show how to check and update your own information, and more. Sunday, Sep. 20, after Worship, in the Fireplace Room
Poetry Corner: Surrounded by Love
Go past the granite icehouse with the red door
beside Lake Waukewan
to the dogleg with the narrow bridge
where you slow down to twenty
and fisherman lean out over the reeds,
and listen
for Ronnie Earl’s soul coming down
the abandoned railroad tracks.
– Jon Wolston
Women Gather
What did you do last summer? Central’s women’s fellowship will get together on Gathering Sunday to catch up and share the details of their summer and vacation experiences. Questions? Ask Claudia. Sunday, Sep. 13, 12 noon, in the Fireplace Room
Central Men’s Group
Central Men’s Group is a monthly breakfast gathering – held on the third Thursday of each month – for fellowship and spirited conversation on topics ranging from current events and ethics to trends and shared experiences. Questions? Contact John Trevor. Thursday, Sep. 17, 7:30 am, in the Fireplace Room
Sewing Circle
Central’s sewing circle repairs, upcycles, and repurposes items – for ourselves and charity. We have mending projects, sewing machines, ironing board, and supplies – or bring your own. All skill levels welcome. An experienced seamstress will be on hand to help. Contact Amy Hebb. Saturday, Sep. 19, 10 am, in Chapel Hall
Fourth Thursday Book Group
This month, the Fourth Thursday Book Group will discuss “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception. For a Zoom invitation, email Ann Scott (eannscott56@gmail.com). Thursday, Sep. 24, 12:30 pm, via Zoom
September Events
| 2 | Amos House Breakfast Volunteers | 6:30 am |
| 6 | Nursery Opens | 9 am |
| Summer Choir | 10 am | |
| Worship | 10:30 am | |
| Children’s Church | 10:30 am | |
| Toward Better Christian Politics | 12 noon | |
| 9 | Amos House Breakfast Volunteers | 6:30 am |
| Gallery Committee | 9:30 am | |
| Children’s Choir Rehearsal | 5 pm | |
| 10 | Food For Thought Book Group | 7 pm |
| 13 | Nursery Opens | 9 am |
| Worship / Gathering Sunday | 10:30 am | |
| Children’s Church | 10:30 am | |
| Religious Education Open House | 11:30 am | |
| Women Gather | 12 noon | |
| 14 | Children’s Choir Rehearsal | 5 pm |
| 15 | Plant, Properties & Design Committee | 5:45 pm |
| Prudential Committee | 7 pm | |
| 16 | Amos House Breakfast Volunteers | 6:30 am |
| 17 | Central Men’s Group | 7:30 am |
| Gallery Opening | 5:30 pm | |
| Music Committee | 6:30 pm | |
| Choir Rehearsal | 7:30 pm | |
| 19 | Sewing Circle | 10 am |
| 20 | Nursery Opens | 9 am |
| Worship | 10:30 am | |
| Children’s Church | 10:30 am | |
| Online Membership Directory Help Session | 11:30 am | |
| Newsletter Deadline | 3 pm | |
| 21 | Children’s Choir Rehearsal | 5 pm |
| Mission in Action Committee | 6:30 pm | |
| 21 | Technology Committee | 7 pm |
| 23 | Amos House Breakfast Volunteers | 6:30 am |
| 24 | Fourth Thursday Book Group | 12:30 pm |
| Choir Rehearsal | 7:30 pm | |
| 26 | Flower Committee | 9 am |
| 27 | Nursery Opens | 9 am |
| Children’s Church | 10:30 am | |
| Worship | 10:30 am | |
| Flower Committee | 12:30 pm | |
| 28 | Children’s Choir Rehearsal | 5 pm |
| Darrell West Pre-Lecture Discussion | 7 pm | |
| 30 | Amos House Breakfast Volunteers | 6:30 am |
The Church Office will be closed Monday, September 7, for Labor Day.