August 25, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

The Holy Eucharist, 8 a.m., Rite I
The Holy Eucharist, 10 a.m., Rite II

Fr. John Thorpe, officiating

Child Care 9:45 a.m.

Pictured: St. Luke stained glass window, Kildare, White Abbey
Worship notes

The Collect:
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. A men.

This week’s lessons: Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

Epistle
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Hebrews 12:28
The Gospel | Luke 13:10-17

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
Schedule for the week of August 25

Tuesday, 10:00 a.m ., St. Julian of Norwich Prayer Group

Looking ahead - On Sunday, September 8 , an all parish photo will be taken at the front of the church following the ten o'clock service. The photo will be used on the parish website and in parish media. Please mark your calendar!
Getting to Know You!

Beth and Drake Depew moved from California to Edwardsville in 2007, twelve years after they first met at the University of Illinois and seven years after they were married. 
Beth grew up in Edwardsville, attended St. Boniface School, graduated from Edwardsville High School and completed her baccalaureate degree at the University of Illinois in 1999. She subsequently received her master’s degree in Library Science in 2001. 

Drake grew up in several different states since his father, Joe Depew, worked for the Air Force, but most of his childhood memories are of eastern Washington State and Champaign-Urbana. Drake attended University High School located on the campus of the University of Illinois and was an acolyte at Emmanuel Episcopal church during his high school years. Drake graduated high school in 1995.

The Depews moved to Sacramento, California in 2002 and Drake attended the University of California-Davis, completing his baccalaureate degree in Psychology in 2007. Along the way, Declan was born in 2005 and Chaunce (Chauncey) in 2007.

The family began attending St. Andrew’s in 2010. Beth is currently a librarian at the St. Louis Public Library and Drake is an Inventory Specialist at World Wide Technology in St. Louis. Declan, age 14, attends Edwardsville High School and Chaunce, age 12, attends Liberty Middle School. 

Drake serves as an acolyte at St. Andrew’s and Declan and Chaunce as candle bearers. Depew family interests include camping, hiking, playing board games, and building with Legos. Several times a year, Drake and Beth host coffee hour so you may find them in the kitchen this fall!
Parish Notes

Welcome to Matt Petrocelli and Joyce Neimeier, who have recently joined us at Saint Andrew's. Matt is a faculty member in the SIUE Criminal Justice Department and Joyce is a former Lewis and Clark faculty member, now retired and living in Meridian Village.

Good news! In a recent note from Fr. Joel to a vestry member, we learned that his Florida home has sold and that he will be moving to Maryville, Tennessee in about a month. We send good wishes to him and Barbara and will include them in our prayers. 

Rector Search - The search for a new rector is under way so information for prospective candidates is going up on the parish website on a new page title "Rector Search." Kevin Babb, Search Committee Chair, received approval from Archdeacon Shawn Denney to disseminate this information beginning today.
The Past as Prologue (II)

Fr. Stephen E. Weissman (1975-1990) came to St. Andrew’s with degrees from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. His work experience included serving a predominantly black parish in Columbus, Ohio, Navajo missions in New Mexico, and five years of teaching high school social studies in Worthington, Ohio.

Weissman threw himself into the life of the parish and the broader community. His gentle personality was matched by his insightful eloquence. Weissman in a few minutes, remembers one parishioner, “could give you a sermon you could remember all week.” As described in an earlier newsletter, he presided over the “adoption” of a refugee Vietnamese family, a bonding experience that older parishioners remember with justifiable pride. Limitations of space preclude the citation of additional evidence of a remarkably successful ministry, but it should be noted that the number of pledging households in the congregation increased by twenty percent during Weissman’s tenure. It was by far the most successful “marriage” between parish and priest in St. Andrew’s history up until that time.

But as we know, not all marriages work. The tenure of Weissman’s successor, Fr. David L. Gable (1991-1995), was a time of trial. Probably any priest would have found it challenging to follow “Saint Weissman,” but Fr. Gable proved unsuited to the challenge. He had his supporters, but most parishioners found him unsatisfactory in regard to personality, homiletics and liturgical practices. Membership and giving suffered, and parish leaders came to fear for the survival of St. Andrew’s. Father Gable resigned in January 1995, likening his relationship with the congregation to a failed marriage for which the only solution is divorce.

The pain of the Gable years was the prologue to the longest rectorship in St. Andrew’s history – that of Mother Virginia L. Bennett (1996-2013), who was trained at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Her candidacy was strengthened by evidence that she had rescued a deeply troubled parish in Missouri from imminent collapse, precisely the kind of leadership that St. Andrew’s needed.

Unlike Fr. Gable, Mother Bennett delivered carefully-crafted sermons while enriching high-church liturgy with a beautiful singing voice and worked to transform a rather drab St. Andrew’s into “a jewel of Anglicanism.” That St. Andrew’s was able to rise in the space of a few years from deep crisis to the impressive achievement that was the building of our addition is a testament not only to her leadership, but to the remarkable resilience of this church. That resilience was again demonstrated in the course of a painful period of tension with Bishop Peter Beckwith. Since Mother Bennett’s retirement in 2013, St. Andrew’s has been in what is essentially a holding pattern as it searches for new leadership.

If there’s a lesson to be drawn from the last fifty years of St. Andrew’s history, it’s to reinforce awareness of the absolute centrality of the rector to the health of the parish, which speaks also to the critical importance of the search process. We can pray that the present period of transition is the prologue to another successful rectorship.

-Jim Weingartner
Announcements

Church School Teachers Needed
The St. Andrew’s Church School program invites parishioners to volunteer to teach during the 2019-2020 academic year. Church school occurs each week from the beginning of the 10:00 a.m. Sunday Mass until after the homily. Each volunteer commits to teaching for one month during the year. If you have questions or would like to volunteer, please e-mail Nichole DeWall at dewall.n@gmail.com .

Upcoming Dates for Hosting Coffee Hour
A few openings have recently occurred in the Coffee Hour schedule. Volunteers are now needed for September 22, October 6 and 27 and November 3 and 24. To reserve any of these dates, please contact Pat at 656-6781 or email her at silverlining6@charter.net . She will add your name to the list on the bulletin board outside Pearson Hall to let everyone know which dates have been taken. 
The St. Andrew's Week-End Update , a weekly emailed newsletter, is designed to keep parishioners up to date on church activities. Please send news items to Editors Marianne Cavanaugh and Jane Weingartner by 11 a.m. on Tuesday to have them appear in the following Friday's newsletter.