The Canterbury vestry is a body of students who, along with the Chaplain, are responsible for heading the leadership of Canterbury. In many ways, the vestry is the core of the group that organizes, oversees, and attends Canterbury’s services, meals, and activities. The vestry meets every three weeks or so to discuss upcoming services and events, engage in long-term planning, and address any concerns that have arisen.
    In order to better deal with the different types of tasks, the vestry members are divided into different committees with separate responsibilities. The members on the Liturgy Committee are in charge of our worship services. The LC (as it is affectionately known) sets up before and cleans up after both the Sunday and Tuesday services, trains and schedules College students to serve as acolytes, readers, and ushers on Sundays, and makes the bulletins for Tuesday services. The LC also works closely with Sandy on the special services Canterbury offers, such as the Instructed Eucharist, Smells & Bells, and the Holy Week services, culminating in the Easter Vigil.
    Another committee (or, in past years, two committees) takes charge of Canterbury's activities other than worship. The Social/Outreach Committee organizes and leads social events (such as movie nights, lectures, ice cream socials, and the upcoming gala to raise scholarship money to educate children of the Dominican Republic) and outreach projects (like volunteering at Respite Care or collecting food for a local food pantry on Halloween). The Social/Outreach Committee also includes an Ecumenical Chair, who publicizes our events to members of other campus ministries, informs Canterbury of other campus ministries' events, and works with members of those groups to organize and lead ecumenical activities (like games of assassins or capture the flag).
    Canterbury also has two one-person committees. The Kitchen Chair was newly created for this year to have a single person in charge of scheduling and assisting the Canterburians who brew coffee on Sunday mornings and cook for Sunday night dinners. The Communications Officer emails the weekly announcements to the Canterbury listserv, keeps the website up to date, and, at least for this year, edits the Canterbury Tales.
    Leading all of these is the warden, who is the face of Canterbury to both the Parish and the College. The warden works closely with Sandy, assisting with and overseeing individual events as necessary but also directing the vestry toward long-term objectives. The warden runs vestry meetings and makes announcements during Sunday night dinners.

    Respite Care is a community outreach ministry of Williamsburg United Methodist Church that exists to assist in the support of adults with special needs. On weekday afternoons, adults with physical and mental disabilities are brought to Respite House, where they can participate in various activities, including reading, arts and crafts, and corporate prayer and Bible study. Respite's mission is twofold: to the adults with special needs, Respite provides an opportunity to socialize with a group of people beyond their families and caregivers and the chance to participate in a different set of activities, while to the families and caregivers, Respite offers an afternoon free from the constraints of caregiving in which they can do anything from run errands to take naps.
       Respite has been a central part of Canterbury outreach for several years. On Friday afternoons, Canterburians join adult volunteers in conducting some manner of arts and crafts project, usually appropriate to the season. This semester, we have used construction paper to make W&M logos (with green and gold ribbons in place of the forbidden feathers), clipped pictures of autumn leaves from magazines to make a poster, and given our imaginations free rein in creating visual representations of the sounds, scents, tastes, and touches of fall. On a couple of nice September afternoons, we took the clients on short walks to give them the chance to spend more time outside.
        Volunteering at Respite House is a particularly rewarding ministry. More often than not, our mere presence has made someone’s day, because we are frequently interacting with adults who rarely get the chance to spend time with people our age. Some of us have formed close friendships with both the adults with special needs and the volunteers, while finding that helping at Respite can be an enjoyable and relaxing prelude to the weekend. On occasion, Respite also provides more tangible benefits: at a recent open house, we and other volunteers were treated to a generous lunch spread featuring homemade Brunswick stew.
    Lest you only take my word for it, longtime volunteer Martha Morris concurs: “Respite is one of the happiest places I have found at college. The clients and staff are so welcoming to volunteers that it's impossible not to smile in return. We also throw the best parties!!”
    Respite Care is located at St. Bede Parish House while the expansion and renovation of the Methodist Church continues. Canterburians volunteer as they are able between 1:00 and 4:00 on Friday afternoons. For more information, please talk to John Adams.   
    For those who frequent 'Coffee, Tea, and Thee' on Sunday mornings, there is a particularly easy way to support Respite. Starbucks donates pastries to Respite Care, which are then made available for a suggested donation of fifty cents.

    Because Canterbury is just one of a number of Christian ministries at William and Mary, an important part of our mission on campus is to interact with other active Christians at the College. In doing so, we acknowledge that we are all members of "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" and strengthen the bonds that tie the community of all believers together. The ecumenical activities in which we partake range from worshipping together to joint social gatherings.
    Our oldest ecumenical ties are with the Catholic Campus Ministry and Lutheran Student Association, with whom we have a longstanding covenant. We often attend each other's social events; a significant contingent of Canterburians joined CCM for their pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday last semester, and a noteworthy number of Lutherans came to Canterbury's ice cream social at Baskin Robbins earlier this month. The most apparent cooperation between the groups is the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. In this service, we recall Jesus' final hours by walking from Bruton Parish down Duke of Gloucester Street and across campus to St. Bede (on Richmond Road behind the football stadium), taking turns helping to bear a large (and heavy) wooden cross. We make frequent stops to remember, with prayers and readings led by members from all three groups, the various steps leading up to Jesus' death.
    Perhaps our most ambitious covenant activity in recent memory was the game of ecumenical assassins played last semester. In the game of assassins, each participant is assigned another participant to 'kill' by tapping him or her with a spoon. After a 'kill,' the assassin inherits the target's assignment, resulting in an ever-shrinking circle of participants. Mike Mohyla, the game's organizer, assigned each player a target from another group, thereby ensuring that every participant learned the name of at least one person in another group. Between that and the spaghetti dinner held to help kickoff the game, the project can be considered a success in improving name and face recognition between members of the three groups.
    More recently, Canterbury has begun to hold joint services with the Wesley Foundation, the Methodist campus ministry. As both groups celebrated Eucharist on Tuesday evenings, we picked two Tuesdays in a semester to have services together. One week, Wesley would come to the Wren Chapel, where their chaplain, David Hindman, would preach instead of Sandy; the other week, Canterbury would go to the Wesley House (next to Williamsburg United Methodist Church) and Sandy would preach. Both services would then be followed by a group dinner. This semester, we hope to participate in more joint worship and socialization.

    “So. Why did we watch this?”
    This is a question that anyone might ask in a sarcastic tone after sitting through a bad movie, but, for those who attend Popcorn Theology, it is inevitably the first question asked of any film -excellent, abysmal, or anywhere in between- after the lights go on in the Canterbury Room on Wednesday evenings. This is the question that, by asking us to use the movie as a lens by which to apply our faith to our daily lives, elevates Popcorn Theology from being just another fun movie night to being “one of the most relevant and valuable opportunities that Canterbury offers,” in the words of senior and longtime attendee David Edmonson.
    Popcorn Theology features a wide variety of movies, many of which students would not have seen otherwise; this semester has featured a box office hit (The Last Samurai), a critical favorite (The Shawshank Redemption), an older epic (Gandhi), a small film (Secondhand Lions) and a made-for-TV movie (The Five People You Meet in Heaven). All of them relate to the idea of the 'call' we receive as Christians, which is the theme that Sandy developed over the course of the semester through Popcorn Theology and his homilies at the Tuesday services.
    Junior Laura Smith comments that she was initially hesitant about Popcorn Theology but eventually decided to try it out. It has since “truly become a fixture of my schedule; I look forward to the time away from work and the chance to enter into discussion with my peers. The chance to eat a fabulous dinner, watch a movie, and discuss it meaningfully with other students is a wonderful mid-week break.”
    However, this “perfect blend of food, fellowship, and fun,” as Laura calls it, is not just for Canterburians; it is, as David reminds us, “the best evangelical tool that Canterbury offers weekly, because it is often much easier to invite a roommate or a friend to come to dinner and a movie than to a church service.” Laura's roommate Megan Kardine is not an Episcopalian, but she has become a regular attendee. She notes that “everyone has always been extremely welcoming and never made me feel like an outsider. I enjoy the opportunity to discuss films that have a deeper meaning than most Hollywood fare with a group of intelligent peers. I would recommend it to other non-Canterburians as a good means of meeting and getting to know your fellow college students in a thought-provoking intellectual environment.”
    Popcorn Theology occurs on Wednesday nights when classes are in session. Dinner is in the Parish House at 5:30; college students eat free (courtesy of Sandy) but need to make reservations by calling the Church Office at (757) 229-2891 by 5:00 pm on the preceding Monday. The movie begins at 6:00 or shortly thereafter in the Canterbury Room. We watch 45 minutes to an hour of the movie (finishing most over the course of two weeks) and then discuss, rarely finishing later than 7:15 or 7:30. Members of the Parish are always welcome to join us.

    According to the famous formula of Richard Hooker, the Episcopal Church is a three-legged stool (or tricycle, as Sandy prefers) based on Scripture, tradition, and reason. Noting the frequency with which snacks are provided at meetings and the central role of meals in many church educational and social gatherings, some add a fourth leg: food. It is in this spirit that Canterbury provides a home cooked (or, more typically, Parish House cooked) dinner for college students after the 5:30 service every Sunday when classes are in session.
    The availability of dinner after the service is helpful to both students individually and the Canterbury community as a whole. Being able to eat a good and convenient meal on the way back from church is a boon both to those with meal plans (since a Canterbury dinner is a pleasant change from the usual cafeteria fare) and those without (because this is a meal that doesn't require preparation). For Canterbury as a group, Sunday night dinner is our largest fellowship opportunity, an chance for each of us to talk with old friends and meet new ones.
    On most Sundays, Gavin and/or other college students, often working in groups of two or three, cook meals ranging from homemade lasagna with mozzarella and parmesan (in both beef and vegetarian varieties) to beef stew with sweet potatoes, carrots, and onions. In addition to a main dish and a vegetarian option, there are side dishes, like salad and bread, and dessert. Anyone who enjoys cooking is encouraged to contact Gavin (gakirk@wm.edu) and share your talents with us. Canterbury is also interested in holding a cooking class for students at some point, so please let Gavin know if you are interested in taking part.
    Canterbury wishes to thank all those who have cooked for us this semester (including the College Committee, which provides a feast for us once a semester), those who have taken the time to help clean up the kitchen on Sunday nights, and Georgia and the Bruton Kitchen Ministry for their help and support.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good”   -Psalm 34: 8

    In January 2005, a group of students in Canterbury gave up the second half of our winter breaks and traveled to the city of Jarabacoa, in the Dominican Republic, to lay the foundations for a building that will serve as a church and school for the residents of a very poor neighborhood in that city. It was an amazing experience: we were surrounded by lush rainforests, we met a community that welcomed us with open arms, and we were inspired by people who were happy even in the midst of poverty.
    Digging trenches for the foundations was hard work. As Laura Smith notes, the trip "wasn’t necessarily 'fun' by the usual definition. Never before had I done such hard physical labor, going to bed, exhausted, at 8:00, only to be up before dawn with the roosters." We saw more mud than we ever suspected existed, and we have the pictures to prove it. We worked alongside adults and children from the neighborhood, who were covered in as much dirt as we were, but didn’t always have showers in which to rinse off afterwards. "A sense of community grew with the piles of dirt and rocks," Martha Morris observes. "Even the littlest boys were eager to wield the heavy shovels, and camaraderie made the aches and blisters bearable." "The common mission of completing our construction goal helped the language barrier to disappear," David Edmonson adds. We befriended dozens of children, pushing them on swings and carrying them on our already sore backs.
    Our relationship with the children did not stop at the edge of the worksite. Epiphany, which the Dominicans celebrate in the same way we celebrate Christmas, occurred while we were there, and we threw a party for the children and brought presents that had been donated by members of Bruton. It was an amazing experience to give all we could for others and see just how much they appreciated it.
    All of us were deeply affected and changed by the experience and hope for the opportunity to see the completion of what we began. "It was a great feeling to see the field in which we were working transformed from an over-grown weed patch into the start of a building that will aid the community for years to come," Laura says. "The spirit of Christ was clearly visible in Jarabacoa," David declares. "I feel truly blessed to have had this opportunity to aid my fellow man."
-Elizabeth Lowe