Greetings!
PARISH NEWS for Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Parents of young children...save the date!!! This Sunday, July 21 , we will be having a picnic for the parents of young children, and their children, at St. John's, starting at 5:00 PM. Bring a picnic dinner for you and your children, and a blanket or chair to sit on. We will talk about our Sunday School program and we need your ideas, thoughts and suggestions so we can meet the needs of your children. Please let Carol know if you will be able to come....or just show up! We'd love to have you! If others want to join us, feel free! We will need to move the picnic inside as the weather reports are calling for extremely high heat and humidity, particularly on Sunday. We will use Room 217/218, one of the upstairs classrooms. Please bring a few toys for your children to play with while we discuss the Sunday School program.

Thanks to you, we met our goal!!! We had been asked by Western Fairfax Christian Ministries to provide 25 large backpacks for children who can't afford them. As of today, we have collected 28!!!! If you have already bought one, you can still bring it in. They can always use more! These backpacks will go to students at Centreville High School. Thanks to all who donated!

Coffee Hour - As this Sunday is the third Sunday of the month, those who serve on the Vestry will provide the snacks for coffee hour.

Bricks - If you would like to have an engraved brick in thanksgiving or in memory of someone and put in our "Walkway of Saints", we are taking orders through July and they will be ordered in early August. The bricks are $75 and the order forms are on the back table in the church and in the church office.

Volunteer Needed - We are in need of a new treasurer to start in January 2020, but we would like to find a treasurer now so that he/she can shadow our current treasurer, Tom McDermott, and learn the ropes before Tom retires. Tom has served as treasurer for the past four years. Not only does he need and deserve a break, but the diocesan canons require that a treasurer step aside for at least a year after serving for four years. The treasurer signs the checks, makes sure the financial books are in good order, and sees that expenses come out of the right account. If you interested, you can talk to Tom to get a further description of the job. We really need to get someone in place this summer in order to have a few months to work with Tom. Please let Carol or Penny Parker know if you might be willing to serve in this capacity.
Many thanks go to.....
-Catherine Packard, David Weir, Penny Parker and Beth Scott for conducting our audit again this year.
-Marie McDermott and Penny Parker for volunteering in the church office every week.
-Tom McDermott and Jim Elliott for making repairs to the stove.
-Monti Zimmerman for cutting down some large weeds and bushes growing inside our boxwoods.

WFCM Stock Our Shelves
This Saturday, July 20, Western Fairfax Christian Ministries will have a "Stock Our Shelves" food collection at the Giant on Stone Road, the Fair Lakes Walmart and the Walmart in Chantilly. Volunteers are needed from 9 -12 and 12 - 3. (Chantilly Walmart is 9-1 and 1-3). Volunteers are needed to hand out flyers to customers listing foods that are needed, and then receiving, weighing and packing the foods that are donated. Interested? Email Jennie Bush at jbush@wfcmva.org.

Altar servers and flowers needed through August
There are a lot of "empty holes" in the sign up sheet for LEM's, lectors, ushers and crucifers throughout the month of August. Because many people are on vacation, please sign up for the times that you will be available. Flower donations are also needed. They can come from your garden at home, or places like Giant or Costco. Please check the online sign up sheet and see where you can help.

Church bills continue through the summer
Just like your bills at home, bills for the church continue to come in through the summer and need to be paid. If you are going out of town, please be sure to pay your pledge before you go. Many thanks!

It's that time of year... Vacation!
I will be on vacation from August 5 - 23, visiting family and relaxing at the beach. Father Samuel Reddimalla will take the Sunday services on August 11 and 18, as well as the Wednesday service on August 14. Val Tucker will lead Evening Prayer on Wednesday, August 7 and 21. Carol


SAVE THE DATE: THIS SATURDAY, JULY 20
Come help us build the Washington National Cathedral in LEGO® bricks! Now’s your chance to watch the Washington National Cathedral rise again.
When completed, an estimated 500,000 LEGO® bricks will form a 1:40 scale replica of the Cathedral that’s more than 13 feet long, 8 feet tall and bigger than a minivan. It will be the WORLD’S LARGEST Cathedral to be built from LEGO® bricks! Every brick added helps build the LEGO® brick replica AND restore the real Cathedral! At $2 per brick, all proceeds will help fund the remaining $19 million in repairs still needed to fix damage from the 2011 earthquake. In celebration of St. John’s 169th birthday on July 14 , we are donating 169 Lego blocks to support the National Cathedral goal. We need your hands to help place the blocks/bricks in the model. On Saturday, July 20, at about 11:30 am, we will gather at the Cathedral model to place our bricks. Bring your family and friends. Parking is available at the Cathedral, (for $9 if you park in the garage), tours of the Cathedral are available (tickets are $12/adult, $8 students & seniors and can be purchased on-site or ahead of time on-line), you can even have tea and sandwiches on the grounds. If anyone is interested in carpooling from the church, let Carol know. We will meet in the church parking lot at 10:00 AM. If you are planning to go and driving yourself, let's plan to meet at the lego model at 11:30 AM. Carol will purchase the lego bricks in the gift shop and have them available at 11:30 at the lego model.
Make an Online Pledge Offering!
The new way to send your pledge offering! You can download the app to your phone, or you can click the link below, and use your credit card!
SUNDAY SERVICE
We can prepare our hearts & minds by reading ahead
for the Sunday Service lessons.   

The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost


July 21, 2019

9:30 AM

 The First Reading: Genesis 18:1-10a
Strangers visit the patriarch Abraham and his wife, Sarah; they eagerly entertain these sojourners. May we seek to so eagerly and graciously attend to the unexpected visitors who enter our own lives!

The Psalm: 15, page 599, BCP

The Second Lesson: Colossians 1:15-28
Jesus, as fully God and fully man, is able to provide a full and sufficient sacrifice for the whole world; disciples who are called to join in similar sacrifice are blessed.

The Gospel: Luke 10:38-42
As Mary and Martha encounter Jesus, may we, too, be ready to encounter Jesus wherever he may show up.
  ____________________________
 
CHILD CARE IS PROVIDED IN THE NURSERY  
(Rm. 205) 
During the Service
____________

JOINT SUNDAY SCHOOL: 10:30 - 11:30 AM
 Each week, St. John's children join with our Ministry Partners: 
Wellspring UCC & Grace Baptist Church
Room 207/208
_________________________

St. John's Sunday School class for ages 2-4, Room 215
Meets the first Sunday of each month from 10:50 - 11:30 
(will not meet in June, July or August)
_________________________

THE ADULT LECTIONARY FORUM

MEETS EACH SUNDAY IN THE LIBRARY, FOLLOWING THE SERVICE 
  FROM 10:50 - 11:50 AM

Forum Discussion:

Maria Skobtsova (20 Dec 1891–31 Mar 1945), was a Russian noblewoman, poet, nun, and member of the French Resistance during World War II. She was born Elizaveta Pilenko to an aristocratic family in Riga, Latvia. While a teenager, her father died and she embraced atheism. When her family moved to St. Petersburg in 1906, Maria’s involvement in radical intellectual circles began. In 1910, she married Dmitriy Kuz'min-Karavaev, an avowed Bolshevik. She was active in extremist literary circles & became a prolific poet. By 1913, after divorcing Dimitriy, she began to be be drawn back to Christianity after a reflecting on a book that addressed the humanity of Christ. Relocating to southern Russia with daughter Gaiana, her religious devotion increased. Following the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution, she was elected deputy mayor of Anapa, Russia. When the anti-communist White Army seized the town, its mayor fled, leaving her in charge. Put on trial for being a Bolshevik, the judge, Daniel Skobtsova, was a former teachers and acquitted her. The two subsequently fell in love and married. But political tides again shifted on Elizaveta. In 1923, she, Daniel, Gaiana, and her mother fled to Paris. She immersed herself in theological studies and social work, but her marriage unraveled. Her work caught the bishop’s attention, and he persuaded her to take vows as a nun. She did so only after being assured she would not have to live in a monastery, secluded from the world. In 1932, she received an ecclesiastical divorce, freeing her to take her vows. She took the name Maria & made a rental in Paris her "convent.“ With Fr. Dmitri Klepinin providing top cover, it was an open door to refugees, the needy and the lonely, as well as a center for intellectual & theological discussion--elements Maria believed went hand-in-hand. After France fell in 1940, Jews approaching the house asking for baptismal certificates and Father Dimitri provided them, helping many to flee as well. Eventually, the Gestapo closed the house and arrested Maria, her family, and the priest. Dimitri & her son Yuri died at the Dora concentration camp. Mother Maria was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where, on Holy Saturday 1945, she was among a group of internees murdered in the Gas Chamber. The Eastern Orthodox Church canonized her as a saint on 16 Jan 2004!

DIOCESE
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry gives a 5 minute video on "Who is my neighbor?", which was the topic of this past Sunday's gospel and sermon. He speaks about showing compassion for those at our southern border who are experiencing such hardship. Please click on the link below to watch the video or read his message.

VOLUNTEERING AT ST. JOHN'S
Sign Up Here to be an altar server *, or to donate flowers for a Sunday service, or to bring refreshments for Coffee Hour after the service. * (if you're not an altar server, and would like to be a Lay Eucharistic Minister (LEM), a Lector, or a Crucifer, please see Carol).
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COMMUNITY
WESTERN FAIRFAX
CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES

"We know that food can be one of the most expensive items on a household budget list. Our hope is that in allowing our clients to visit once per month they will save enough money to pay for other expenses such as rent or utility bills."
I tems are collected weekly in the baskets at the front door of St. John's Church. For food list:
OPPORTUNITIES
Reminder
Every Wednesday evening, we have a service of Holy Eucharist and healing at 6:00 PM. The service is about 30 minutes. It is a perfect alternative for those who cannot come to church on Sunday mornings, as well as a good spiritual boost in the middle of the week. Come join us!

Family
God is with us in our human frailty and families, especially the very human Church. From the start with Adam and Eve, with Abraham and Sarah, God chose to use human families to care for, bless and heal the world. God became human in Jesus, to live as one of us. God was pleased to fully be immersed in our limited and loving, broken and beautiful, intricate and interconnected human community.
-Br. Luke Ditewig

My email address is stjohnscvpriest@gmail.com,
and the office number is 703-803-7500. 

May our ministry together spread God's love to all whom we encounter.
      - Carol

        The Rev. Carol Hancock, Rector
ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | 5649 MT. GILEAD RD. , CENTREVILLE, VA | 703-803-7500
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