Purpose To be a Community where all persons will encounter the power and love of the Living God, through His Son, Jesus Christ. Vision All Saints Episcopal Church is called by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to... · Worship Jesus Christ · Learn and Teach His Word · Minister in His Name · Proclaim Him and Share the Blessing of His Love · Welcome All in His Name |
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The All Saints Messenger
May 18, 2017
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Greetings in the Name of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ,
Commandments! Commandments! Commandments! Can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em. At least as Christians we can't. Many of us do not love obeying orders or following rules. But that is often because we have lived our whole lives accountable to one authority figure or another, bound by some code of conduct or governing principle. For many of us, it is impossible to imagine life without such structure. But it only takes one moment of pure chaos--a car wreck, a robbery, a terrorist attack or a dysfunctional government--for us to appreciate the commandments our forebears put in place to protect us. Now imagine if those commandments were handed down not from corruptible people but from Jesus himself! Learning to love keeping such commandments is a little more realistic. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments".
Loving Jesus is learning to love to do what Jesus does and what he commands us to do. We know it is not easy but it is so life giving...like a fountain of living water.
God of love, teach us to love you more fully-to love enough even to keep your commandments. Help us to love to do what you command not only when we feel adrift and in need of order but even when we feel confident and in command of our surroundings. In Jesus' loving name. Amen.
See ya Sunday (@ Rankin Lake)
Blessings
Fr. Gary+
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
* Work Day:
We will have a parish workday on Saturday, May 20th at 8AM. Please put the date on your calendar and join us in sprucing up the church and the grounds. Many hands make light work! "Please don't fall for that voice that tells you someone else will do it"
* Parish Picnic: We will have our Spring parish picnic with worship this Sunday, May 21st at 10:30 AM at the waterfront shelters at Rankin Lake Park. We are hoping for great weather, great attendance, lots of fun, and good food. Chicken will
not be provided so we ask people to bring main dishes, side dishes, salads and desserts.
* Family Promise
:
Our Family Promise guests will once again be with us starting
Sunday May 21st
, and will be with us the entire week until
Sunday, May 28th
. There are various activities where volunteers are needed.
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On the Sundays of the week that our guests are with us, we need volunteers to assist in unloading/loading the trailer that contains our guests' belongings, and the setup/clean up of rooms in the morning.
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During the week, we like to have volunteers at the Fellowship Center when the guests arrive at
5pm.
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From
5:30pm to 6:30pm we find it rewarding to engage the children in activities.
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Volunteers are needed to prepare and serve dinner to the families starting at
6:30pm
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One of the most important duties that we require during the week is that someone be on the church premises from
8pm to 7am to ensure the families' safety and to assist in case of an emergency.
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The other way that parishioners can assist these families is to donate items for our guests to use.
This program is a wonderful opportunity to give families without a place that they can call home, a temporary sanctuary by providing shelter, substance and a bit of compassion. For more information, or to volunteer please contact Marc Dudley at 704-718-4044 or
marcdudleync@gmail.com.
* Last Friday Gathering: May 26th at 6PM. We will have hot dogs for dinner and enjoy the movie
Inside Out with popcorn at 6:45.
* Pastoral Care
: Our bi-monthly Pastoral Care Meeting is Tuesday, May 30th.
* Parish Nurse Ministry
will be taking blood pressures after the 8:00 and 10:30 services on the second Sunday of the month
. Nurses interested in the parish nurse ministry please contact Cheryl Saylor, MSN.
* Cookbooks: $10 If you don't need a cookbook, but would like to help our Outreach committee reach their budget goal, consider buying a cookbook to donate to our newcomers committee. Any donated cookbooks will be included in the welcome bag we hand out to newcomers.
*
The Wednesday morning Bible Study
, which meets at the church at
10:00am
, is reading "An Altar in the World" by Barbara Brown Taylor. If this sounds of interest to you, please plan to join us.
* Ministry Schedule: The 2017 May through August Ministry Schedule is on the table in the Family Life Center.
* Hand Bells: Rehearse May 24 & 31. Ring in 10:30 worship on June 4.
* CAM: June is CAM (Crisis Assistance Ministry) month for All Saints. CAM is a cooperative ministry of the greater Gastonia faith community and provides emergency food and financial assistance to those facing financial crisis or struggling with the burden of poverty. CAM needs financial assistance, food contributions, and volunteers. A shopping list and more information can be found on the table in the Family Life Center.
* Food Pantry
: Please help us keep our food pantry stocked. If you would like to give a monetary donation, we'd be happy to do the shopping for you.
* Salvation Army Garden: Planting of the garden is underway to provide vegetables for a salad each week or to use in the meals. Charlie Jenkins is in charge of the garden along with a team. We are in need of people/families willing to adopt 1 or 2 plots and do the weeding of those plots. There is a sheet in the Family Life Center for you to put your name on a plot. In case you didn't know, All Saints provides the meal and fresh salad every
Monday
night at the Salvation Army. The recipients are always very complimentary of the food provided. The vestry representatives for the garden are Jerry Wertz and Linda Klocker.
* Zumba: Will resume on Friday, June 9th.
* Adult Christian Formation: We are studying "Great Figures of the New Testament." Our guide is the esteemed Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine who teaches at Vanderbilt University. What Ms. Levine brings to the table is a unique Jewish understanding of the New Testament, the culture and people of the day. She will take us on a journey of specific characters: who they are, what they do and how they have been assessed across the centuries. We begin at
9:25 AM. Please join us!
* Parade of Tables: Save the date!! Saturday, September 23rd.
* Choir: Rehearsal will now be on Sunday mornings at 9:25am.
* Sign Up Sheets for coffee hour, altar guild and altar flowers are on the bulletin board in the Family Life Center. Coffee Hour hosting can be as simple as drinks and cookies. Coffee hour is provided to have fellowship with our parish family. Please sign up or call the church office to add your name to the list (704-864-7201).
* Salvation Army Service Schedule: Monday, May 22nd - Team #3. (William Graham, Pete Laine & Milton H.)
* Church Financials: The Vestry wants to make sure that all parishioners are aware that the monthly financial reports are posted on the bulletin boards in The Family Life Center. If you have any concerns or questions please contact Phill Wertz or Fr. Gary. Thank You!
* Why Do You Love All Saints? Who here loves All Saints? Do you want to tell the world why you love being a part of the All Saints family? Please help us spread the word about our congregation by telling your All Saints Story. All Saints Stories will be published on our website: AllSaintsGastonia.org as well as our facebook and twitter pages. To submit your story, go to AllSaintsGastonia.org and click "All Saints Stories" under the Parish Life tab. If you can, please submit a photo with your story.
* Prayer List: Our prayer list grows rapidly. We ask all parishioners to keep the office informed so that our prayer list remains current and manageable.
* Fr. Gary's Blog: theway2016blog.wordpress.com
* New Partnership: All Saints has entered into a new relationship with the YMCA's Resource Connection Gateway. This new relationship enables us to help those in need more rapidly and efficiently while also addressing long-term needs versus only addressing immediate concerns. If you would like more information please see Fr. Gary.
* Salvation Army Serving: If anyone is interested in serving at the Salvation Army on Mon. nights from 5:00 to 6:00, please contact Candy Albergine at 704-868-8691 or
email
calbergine@gmail.com. We have a couple of spots open and you will find this ministry is a true blessing to all involved. The schedule is on bulletin board in Family Life Center.
* Christian Formation for Youth. If you have questions please ask Laura Tilly, Phill Wertz, or Fr. Gary.
* All Saints Sermons online: Thanks to John Woodward, our sermons are available in audio and video on our website at: www.allsaintsgastonia.org/sermons
* Free Mulch: There are several piles of mulch in the upper parking lot that you are welcome to take. We need to free up some parking spaces in that upper lot. Please do not take the mulch by the shed as that is intended for the garden.
* Church Directory: Available on the table in the Family Life Center.
* Towel Ministry: We are excited and thankful that Vic Cooper and Jim McCarthy have taken over the coordination of our Towel Ministry. Please approach them and let them know your talents and availability when projects arise.
* Building Use Policy: Our buildings are being used more and more and scheduling conflicts are occurring. Effective immediately, all rooms/buildings will be scheduled by the Parish Administrator by the submission of a form which is available at the office and will soon be available on the web site. We appreciate your understanding realizing that this will improve our ability to serve our parishioners and ministries.
* Planned Giving: Programs for Outreach Ministries are an important part of our parish. You can ensure the continuation of these programs by setting up an endowment or including a bequest in your will. The Episcopal Foundation of Western Carolina has set up "The Living Stones Society" to provide Education and training to all clergy and parishioners about setting up a program. For more information see Fr. Gary or call the foundation at 828-225-6656.
* Ministry Opportunities: There are a variety of Ministries available at All Saints including feeding at The Salvation Army, tending the Garden, Family Promise where we take care of those without a home for a week at a time, Altar Guild, Readers, Lectors, Acolytes, Chalicers, and many more. Everyone at All Saints is encouraged to serve in some way. Please let us know what you are interested in and we will put you in touch with the ministry coordinator. You can call the office (704-864-7201), email (secretaryallsaintsgastonianc@gmail.com) or speak to Fr. Gary.
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| Upcoming Schedule May 20th: Parish Work Day May 21st: Service & Picnic at Rankin Lake May 21st: Family Promise Guests Arrive May 26th: Last Friday Gathering May 30th: Pastoral Care June 4th: Parish Breakfast June 27th: Outreach September 23rd: Parade of Tables |
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This Sunday's Scripture Readings
The Collect
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Gospel: Acts 17:22-31
P
aul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,
'For we too are his offspring.'
Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
7 Bless our God, you peoples; *
make the voice of his praise to be heard;
8 Who holds our souls in life, *
and will not allow our feet to slip.
9 For you, O God, have proved us; *
you have tried us just as silver is tried.
10 You brought us into the snare; *
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
11 You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water; *
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.
12 I will enter your house with burnt-offerings
and will pay you my vows, *
which I promised with my lips
and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble.
13 I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts
with the smoke of rams; *
I will give you oxen and goats.
14 Come and listen, all you who fear God, *
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
15 I called out to him with my mouth, *
and his praise was on my tongue.
16 If I had found evil in my heart, *
the Lord would not have heard me;
17 But in truth God has heard me; *
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
18 Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, *
nor withheld his love from me.
The Epistle: 1 Peter 3:13-22
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
The Gospel: John 14:15-21
J
esus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."
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Saint Day / Feast of the Week
Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler
Astronomers, 1543
Born in 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus first studied law and medicine
before serving as a cleric under the direction of his uncle, the Bishop
of Warmia (in northeastern Poland). Copernicus first set forth
his heliocentric theory of astronomy in a small work called the
Commentariolus, which was not published until 1878. His argument
that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the universe
around which the planets rotated was developed fully in his 1543 opus
De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium.
The initial ecclesiastical reaction to his revolutionary theory was
somewhat muted, but when his thought was further developed by
Galileo, the religious debate was intensified, and De Revolutionibus
was placed on the index of banned books. Copernicus had originally
dedicated his work to the Pope, and he saw no conflict between his
theory and the authority of Scripture.
Among those chiefly responsible for the solidifying of Copernicus'
theories was the German astronomer Johann Kepler. Born nearly a
century after Copernicus, Kepler was first educated at Tübingen where
he received instruction in Copernican theory. His first major work
on Copernican astronomy was the Mysterium Cosmographicum, in
which he believed he had demonstrated God's geometric plan for the
universe. Kepler saw in the relation between the sun and the rotating
planets the image of God himself, and like Copernicus, he saw no
conflict between his astronomical views and the account of God in
the Scriptures. Kepler is chiefly known for his discovery of the laws of
planetary motion, set forth variously in his later works.
Though their works were each controversial in their own way,
Copernicus and Kepler laid the groundwork for modern astronomy.
Kepler's work was even influential on Isaac Newton's theory of
universal gravitation. Both men, through their life's work, testified to
the extraordinary presence of God in creation and maintained, in the
face of both religious and scientific controversy, that science can lead
us more deeply into an understanding of the workings of the Creator.
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May 18th - LouAnne Hicks
May 18th - Oliver Baird
May 20th - Brett Brown
May 21st - Joshua Jager
May 26th - Courtney Brunder
May 26th - Charles Jenkins
May 29th - Abby Woodward
May 30th - Paul Balco
June 2nd - Susan Marshall
June 3rd - Karen Solis
June 5th - Susan Stroud
June 9th - John Still
June 15th - Brenda Bostian
June 17th - Claudette Forbes
June 17th - Cheryl Saylor
June 18th - Shelton Current
June 19th - Sophie Martin
June 21st - Carol Wertz
June 22nd - Theo Sloop
June 24th - Cathy Harvey
June 25th - Vic Cooper
June 27th - Lee Wells
June 27th - Emory Borner
Please let the office know if we have missed your birthday!
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MINISTRY SCHEDULE
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2017
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May 21
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May 28
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CHALICE/LECTOR
8:00 AM
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Lee Wells
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Brad Frazier
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CHALICE
10:30 AM
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Terry Eckard
Jack Gaskey
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Jim & Flo
McCarthy
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LECTOR
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William Graham
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Claudette Forbes
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ACOLYTES
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Cheryl Richard
Randy Mullins
Autumn Jager
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Lee Wells
Lindsey Wells
Lydia Kish
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GREETER/USHER
8:00 AM
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Jerry Wertz
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Kelly Morris
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GREETERS/USHERS
10:30 AM
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Bob & Claudette Forbes
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George Sowersby
Pam Hart
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ALTAR GUILD
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Glenda Carpenter
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Marc Dudley
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BREAD
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June
Kelly Halley
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ALTAR FLOWERS
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Glenda Carpenter
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COFFEE HOUR
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Parish Picnic
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MORNINGSIDE
10:30 AM
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George Sowersby
Morningside Resident
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William Graham
Judy Mullins
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SOUND TECH
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John Woodward
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Marc Dudley
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LAY EUCHARISTIC
VISITORS
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William & Priscilla Graham
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Jerry Wertz
Chong Saile
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VPOD 8:00
10:30
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Lee Wells
George Saylor
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Jerry Wertz
Lee Wells
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Blessings & Peace,
Fr. Gary+
phone: 704-864-7201
e-mail: secretaryallsaintsgastonianc@gmail.com
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